Page 20 of Please, Sir

“And how do you feel today, Jake?” Dr. Tanner asks, crossing and uncrossing his legs as he adjusts in his seat.

I drag my palms down my thighs and grip my knees, rolling out my neck with a click and a pop.

“How is Jolene enjoying cheerleading? Has she discussedit with you much?” Dr. Tanner prods into my silence, never allowing me to stay quiet for too long.

I sigh, one of my knees now bouncing as I approach an answer.

“She has told me that it is important to her in no uncertain terms.” I lick my lips and meet his eyes, rimmed in silver circular glasses. “I went to parent night. I paid for all the uniforms and bus trips. I pick her up from practice when she asks. I ask about it, but she doesn’t say much.”

Dr. Tanner slides his glasses down the bridge of his nose, folding them with one hand against his chest. “Jolene is at an age where fitting in and having friends and support is very important. Is it possible this sudden leap to cheerleading is indicative of her looking for a social support circle?”

Dr. Tanner has helped me a lot, so I give him credit. He’s about two good pieces of advice above Dean on the totem pole, but right now, he’s doing the thing I hate. He’s making a normal question sound more intense and fancy. “Did she join cheer because she has no friends?” I restate, leveling a serious glare his way. “I told you, she’s been close with the Brownstock girls her whole life. They had a few classes together this year, too. She has friends.” I shrug. “She told me today she doesn’t want to go by Jo Jo anymore.” Dr. Tanner knows that Janie gave Jolene that nickname when she was just two. “She doesn’t want to work my booth at the market,” I repeat, hearing her pointed tone in my mind over and over. “She doesn’t want to ride horses with me.” An uncomfortable cramp knots my side, and a lump burrows deep in my throat. “And she wants to go by Lene.”

Dr. Tanner nods, bobbing his head like hearing all the ways in which people have their heart torn up is just part of the job. And for him, I guess it is. He scribbles something down then peers over at me. “Change of identity. At her age,maybe she feels frustrated in her current state and wants to reinvent herself for high school. Enter these four years as someone different.”

“Someone different?” I bark back. “She’s fourteen. She doesn’t even know who she is yet, how can she want to be someone else?” I think about my daughter running through the pasture with a sparkler in her hand, her cheeks pink, the moon dancing in her eyes. “Mama! Dada!” she cheered, and Janie was there, dropping to her knees in the grass to catch Jo Jo. Her legs went faster than the rest of her when she was just a little tot, and one of her favorite things to do was run to her mama with a sparkler. “Jo Jo!” Janie laughed, collecting Jo Jo in her arms with a kiss to her head.

“Janie is gone, and has been gone for a long time. I’ve made my peace with that. I ain’t stroking a thumb over some photo of her, talking to her at night or anything like that. I’m… aware she’s gone.” I swallow around the discomfort that comes with telling such a vulnerable truth. “But the name Jo Jo, I don’t know. I guess I didn’t realize until now but it made me feel like Janie was here, for Jolene, you know?”

Dr. Tanner slides his pen over his paper, making a note. When he looks up again he says, “Emotional attachments are important in the initial grieving and healing process, it makes perfect sense that you’d be attached to the nickname. But it is her name, and if changing it is what she wants to do now, the best thing you can do is simply support her.” He closes his notebook and sets it on the desk behind him. A soft smile curves his lips. “Hang in there. No matter how hard it gets, make sure she knows you’re there, no matter what.”

I get to my feet and he gets to his. We share a handshake as he adds, “I had two grown daughters. The teen years are hard enough with both parents. But alone, I can only imagine.Hang in there, Jake. You’re doing what you can and that’s all you can do.”

Dr. Tanner smiles a little before guiding me out the door into the small, tan colored lobby. Two other patients are waiting, and I tip my hat to them as I slip out into the cool morning air. I have two pickups today–a woman coming to get her restitched saddle, and a man picking up his show saddle for an upcoming competition. Other than that, I have a set of trail saddles and matching quirts I’m working on, and for a day in the life of a saddler in a cowboy town, it’s a pretty slow one.

Good.

I’m not in the mood to talk.

CHAPTER

EIGHT

“Deuce ain’t around?”I ask Hudson as he slides the fifth empty milk crate into the bed of his truck.

He stops, draping his arms over the bed of the truck, gloved hands dangling as he stares at me from under the brim of his hat. “Well damn, Jake Turner. Tell me you don’t want to help me out without telling me.” He smirks.

I scratch the side of my jaw and tug on my gloves, grabbing a stack of milk crates. I slide them in the bed,filling up the truck fast. “Oh no, it ain’t that,” I sigh, closing up the tailgate once he slides the last armful into the bed. “I’m not great company today.”

Hudson tugs his gloves off and I do the same, right before we pop open the doors and jump into the truck. He lets it run a minute, the heat blasting our faces as we wait for the engine to warm up. “I have to admit, I do have a slight ulterior motive.” He raises his palms, grinning. “Not that I didn’t want to spend time with you, Jake,” he teases.

He reaches up, taking off his sunglasses, which he doesn’t normally wear. I almost made a joke about them when I got here, but thought better of it because a man with three babies at home is not a man getting a lot of rest. Pointing that out isn’t necessary.

But as he tosses the glasses onto the dash, I realize it’s not lack of sleep that had him wearing shades this morning.

“Holy shit, Hud,” I breathe, twisting in the seat to check out the shiner discoloring his left eye. He chuckles, lifting his hand to gently touch his face, hissing a little at the subtle contact. “You invite me out here to help beat someone up or what, man?” I question, only half serious as I lean in to better inspect the swollen and bruised flesh. “Shit man,” I breathe, “how big was he? Who was he?” I peer around him to inspect the other side of his face. “Just the one punch?”

Hudson laughs a little, but when his eyes meet mine, there’s a touch of discomfort there, confusing me.

“What?” I ask, my heart racing at the idea that someone in Bluebell fought or hit Hudson Gray. Hudson is the nicest guy I fucking know.

He makes cotton candy flavored milk, for Christ’s sake. Who wants to hit a guy like that?

“I didn’t ask you to run into town with me so I couldshow you my black eye,” he says, his voice wavering uncomfortably. Well hell, now my interest is really piqued.

“No?”

He shakes his head, smoothing his thumb and forefinger down the edges of his full beard. “Listen, you know my wife Dolly, right?”

---