Page 18 of Christmas at the Ranch
It’s not just being here, in this place, without Tate. Not just that a long-ago hurt has been reopened, as I knew it would be the moment I walked in here. There’s more behind my tears: the fresh wound of my family’s disgrace, equal parts worry and anger. I’ve been running away from my feelings about my father’s arrest, and now that I’ve stopped moving, those feelings have caught up.
I’msomad at him,sodisappointed. But he’s my father, and I really hope he’s okay. My relationship with my parents has been strained for more than a decade. After high school, I left home for university and didn’t really look back. My parents were both mystified and hurt by the independent way I’ve chosen to live my life, which did nothing but prove to me that they never really knew me at all.
But they’re still my family—and they’re all the family I have.
I should call my mom. I should rip off the Band-Aid and find out more about the charges, where my father is being held, what’s next.
But I can’t do it. Not yet. I leave my cell phone in my gym bag, put down the book I’m holding, and stand to continue my solitary tour of Tate’s house of dreams.
Beyond the living room is a bedroom with windows along one wall, the fireplace on the other, a chairbeside that. A log-framed bed covered in a dark green duvet, red-and-green-plaid blankets piled at its foot. An end table is stacked with more books, mostly novels: Zadie Smith, Barbara Kingsolver, Lauren Fox. There are equine and agricultural magazines, too, a few notebooks. No pictures, nothing personal aside from the books. A Wilder Ranch hat discarded on the dresser, a T-shirt discarded on a chair, a flannel jacket hanging on a hook on the back of the door that looks so close to the one he wore when we first met I wonder if it could be the very same.
His smell is everywhere, the pine needles and saddle soap, woodsmoke and winter.
I can’t sleep in his room, I realize. There’s no way.
I turn off his bedroom light with a click so decisive it makes me wish the closure I seek could be that simple. But still, I find I’m not ready for sleep. I need a shower after my long day and my time in the barn.
I undress quickly in his bathroom, avoiding the mirror so being naked at Tate Wilder’s house will feel less real. I turn on the shower, hold my face in the steamy water for a long time, turn and let it fall on the back of my neck, feel it begin to loosen the tension a little. There’s a bottle of Old Spice all-in-one wash for hair and body. I look at the label and marvel at the fact that a man can have one product marketed toward him, claiming to do what I use a minimum of three products to accomplish. But when I shampoo my hair with it, I question whether it really is all-purpose; my hair feels as squeaky-clean as a freshly washed floor, and I smell like a pine-scented air freshener.
But also, I smell like Tate. He’s all around me, even if he isn’t here.
I let the hot water sluice over me a little longer, trying to think of something other than Tate. It’s been a strange day, but a good one, too. I got to see Charlie and spend time with Star. I close my eyes, and I can picture the night she was born—except Tate was there, too, so now I’m thinking of him again, as hard as I’m trying not to. I turn off the shower, towel myself dry. I pull the Fit-mas Tree gym T-shirt over my head, spread the blankets out on the couch, lie down, and pick up my phone. I stare at its dark screen as if there will be answers there. It’s late, and my mom won’t be awake anyway. Tomorrow, I tell myself. I’ll call her first thing.
I’m thirsty, so I stand and walk to the kitchen to get a glass of water. I pause to look out the window. It’s quiet out there in the woods, just as peaceful as I remember. I could be the only person in the world. Then I hear a car on the road and I feel less alone. I find a large tumbler in one of the cupboards and fill it.
Which is when I hear a rattling sound at the door.
I freeze. More rattling. I realize it’s the sound of a key in the lock. Burglars don’t have keys, do they? I’m frozen in the middle of the kitchen, terrified.
When the door opens, I scream and throw the glass I’m holding.
“What the hell!” shouts the intruder as the water glass bounces off him and hits the kitchen floor tiles, exploding into countless shards at my feet.
I look up from the mess of broken glass—straight into Tate Wilder’s amber eyes, which are wide withsurprise. He’s standing in the doorway of his kitchen, his coat splashed with water I threw at him, the shock in his expression turning to bemusement as he takes me in, and I tug the T-shirt down as far as it will go.
“I can explain,” I say, even though I really can’t. My mind feels like it’s short-circuiting. Because Tate Wilder is standing in front of me, and it’s almost too much for me to process.
I force myself to really look at him. Be a journalist, I tell myself. Be objective.Observe.
He’s taller. His already broad shoulders have filled out. His hair is somehow the same: still a little too long, partially covered by a beat-up brown Stetson, with sun-kissed ends that look like leftovers from summer. He has a beard. He didn’t before. I can still see the way his bottom lip is fuller than the top one. He looks like he’s about to ask me what the hell I’m doing here, so I make another attempt to explain.
“Your dad said you were away,” I start. “My car is in the shop, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer. I never would have come here if I thought you’d be home tonight.”
“Yeah, well, I came back early,” he says quietly, taking off his Stetson, then his coat, placing them both on a chair. He’s wearing a Wilder Ranch T-shirt, heather gray with the swooping red logo. His Levi’s are a pale, faded blue.
“Tate,” I say. And then I don’t know what to add. He seems upset—and who could blame him? He arrived home to what he assumed would be an empty cabin to find a distant ex-girlfriend half naked in his kitchen.
But when I say his name, he seems to snap out of his daze. He looks down at the water on the floor, the broken glass everywhere.
“Don’t move,” he says intently. “Let me clean this up so you don’t get hurt.”
I have no choice but to stay perfectly still. As he picks up the broken glass, I say, “I’m sorry. This must be so weird for you.”
He looks at me. Ten years gone, and all at once, it feels like no time has passed. I’m eighteen again, and catching his gaze still makes me feel like I’m an ember in his bonfire.Get it together, Emory.
“Your dad said you were gone until Wednesday. I didn’t think I’d see you…I wouldn’t have stayed here if I thought…” I can’t seem to stop talking, but I’m also too flustered to put together full sentences. I trail off, mortified.
He dumps the broken glass into the garbage under the sink before turning back to me.
