Page 58 of Christmas at the Ranch
If the beautiful words Tate said to me earlier were what I always hoped to hear, these words from my mother are the ones I never dared to dream of.
“I never wanted you to feel bad, Mom,” I say. “I just wanted…” But I trail off.
It’s too much to tell her what I wanted. It would hurt her. I wanted to be a member of a different family because I never felt I belonged with them. And now here I am, in a place I belong, and I’m not sure what her presence is going to do to the fragile future I might be building for myself.
“This is hard,” I say. “I love you, and I love Dad—you’re my parents. But I don’t know how I can help you right now.”
“I did come here for a reason.”
She reaches for her purse, opens it, and pulls out what I see is a cashier’s check.
“I don’t want money,” I say. “Please.”
I have no idea what she was about to say, but the fact that she’s trying to offer me money is disappointing.
“No,” she says, standing up. “It’s not what you think. This isn’t for you. I know you’ll be fine. Look at you. A few days in this town and you have a job, a place to stay. You’ve never needed us, not really. Emory, what your father and I have realized is that money cannot buy everything. Certainly not happiness. But you are our daughter. There is no price that can be put on having you in our lives.”
“And yet, you’re holding a check.”
“Which is for Gill. The restaurateur. Where it allstarted. This check is for the money he invested plus interest. Your father knows he can’t make it right with everyone—but we can at least make it right with him.”
“Where did you get the money?”
“Your trust fund. And the rest of it, Emory, it’s yours—”
“I don’t want it.”
She frowns. She’s never understood this about me. “But why?”
Now my mind is racing. “Wait. Is this because Dad needs to do some good deeds so people will say nice things about him in court?”
Her frown deepens, and I feel a bit guilty for assuming there are bad intentions here. Then she sighs and says, “I can see why you might think that.” She shakes her head. “But it’s not true. Not at all. We’ve lost everything, Emory. We don’t want to lose you, too. That’s what this is about. That’sallthis is about.”
I think about how scared I was earlier, with Tate. But also, about what I told him years ago: that just because something happens once, doesn’t mean it will happen again. How he told me tonight he still believes that to be true.
And I choose to believe her. I choose to give her another chance.
“Let’s go to Gill’s,” I say. “I’ll show you where it is. There’s just…something I need to get upstairs.”
Only, when I open the bedroom door, the window is open, and Tate is gone.
Twenty-Eight
I t feels surreal, to be walking with my mother down Main Street in Evergreen—like this past week never happened. Like I imagined all of it, and I’m just Emory Oakes again, the person I was before I drove here in confusion and fear.
But I’m about to change one thing, I tell myself. There is one small way I will make things right here in Evergreen, on behalf of my family.
It’s just that all I can think about is Tate.
I wonder how much he heard and what he thinks. If my mother’s appearance has made him realize that he cannot have me in his life. Because back then, my parents did a really good job of ruining things between us with a check my dad tried to hand to Tate and his father, a pompous offer to buy the place out from under them. And although we keep trying to act like adults, somehow, we keep getting thrust back into the past, feeling like teenagers again.
But I push those thoughts aside now. My mother and I have something to deal with. We walk past Carrie’s.She’s outside, wearing a Santa hat and giving out free hot chocolates—which I hope, for everyone’s sake, are plain hot chocolate and not spicy or, worse,meaty.
“What a delightful town,” my mother says. “Truly, Emory. I can see what you love about it. I never really looked around when I was here. It’s so quaint. It’s like…the perfect set for a holiday movie.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” I say. “Sometimes, it doesn’t even feel real.” This makes my heart start to ache a little, but I push it aside.
As we pass Young’s Chinese, Mr.and Mrs.Young wave to me out the window. Inside, the lights are flickering on and off. Mya must be working on another electrical project.
