Page 6 of Losing his Daddy

“You don’t get to say shit like that right now. I’m telling you to stop with the bullshit act and tell me the truth, Clancy. You’re not going to fool me. Why won’t you accept the treatments?”

“Because I don’t want you to go through this,” he admitted, his tone subdued.

“What? Don’t put this on me.”

He wrapped his hand over my clenched fists. “I’m not putting anything on you. That’s the entire point. I don’t want you to suffer watching me waste away. It’s the worst experience in the world to watch someone you love deteriorating in front of you. I’ve done it too many times. You shouldn’t have to.”

Clancy was partially right. He had watched his loved ones pass slowly way before their time. The major difference now, though, was that he was on the other side of the coin. And in his delusional state, he thought this was the best option.

“You haven’t even given me a choice. What if I want to be there for you? What if the medicine works and you don’t have to suffer? You could get years… YEARS!”

Tears fell like rivers down my cheeks. Every memory I had of us flashed before my eyes. The years we’d spent building a relationship. The moment it shifted to something more when he took on the role of Daddy.

And then I pictured the future I’d have if he gave up. I saw the lonely nights and the heartbroken version of me. I didn’t want to experience that reality. It was the onewhat ifI’d avoided for so long, yet here was fate making me face it.

“If the prognosis is good, I’ll fight. I promise to give it my all.” He squeezed my hands, then patted them softly. “But if it’s not good, I’m not going to let them experiment on me just for a minuscule chance for more time. That’s not how I want to live.”

Fear of the latter had my throat too tight to reply. I bowed my head in acquiescence. It wasn’t what I wanted. I much preferred to keep him with me forever. That was the ideal situation.

Life didn’t always go how we wanted though. It was a lesson I’d learned at a young age. I should have remembered it. I should have known I wouldn’t get to be happy long term.

Everything left eventually.

Chapter Three

Clancy

I was goingto hurt him.

Not intentionally of course. But it was still something I would be the cause of.

Gerald Grimes had come into my life and torn the curtains from every window I’d covered. After losing my wife and both my sons the way I had, I’d tucked myself away so I could never be hurt again.

Love was too big a risk. There was never a scenario where I’d win in a gamble like that.

And then he showed up looking for work.

While I’d never really thought about being attracted to men, I’d also never really had the chance to explore the way some people could. The Coleman Ranch was my destiny. My father had left it to me, and his father had left it to him, so on and so forth.

I knew from the time I was old enough to feed the animals that this was where I’d end up. With that knowledge came the knowing I should build a family. It only made sense to build the next generation to take over.

So I got married. And I did it really young, well before my brain had fully formed, and I would question anything.

Now don’t get me wrong. I loved my wife. She was the light of my day. I was blessed to find a best friend who loved me enough to stick around permanently when I chose her.

When she blessed me with two beautiful boys, I thought I’d won the lottery. I felt like I was king of the world. Nothing could top the happiness I felt.

Then our son got sick.

It’s the worst feeling to watch the child you love, the person you’ve watched from conception to birth and beyond, go through pain that you can’t fix. Scrapes and cuts were easy. This wasn’t.

When we lost him, my wife wasn’t the same. Depression came. Grief overtook her in a way I didn’t have the capacity to understand. By the time I knew she needed help, she was gone.

I’d lost my son and my wife. In that pain, I pushed away the only person left.

My son Atticus needed me back then. He needed my support and my love. He needed not to feel alone.

Caught up in the loss myself, I didn’t see he was missing that from me until it was too late. He took off on his own, leaving me to the only thing that could never actually go away: the land.

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