Page 127 of Love Me Steadfast
The light warms outside the windows, turning the dewdrops coating the grass into tiny diamonds. Maybe it’s the data crunching, or the startling mix of events yesterday, but my mind feels muddled, heavy with unanswered questions. I make a pot of oatmeal and a skillet of Zach’s stewed pears, filling the kitchen with the rich aroma of butter and cinnamon-sugar.
Theo comes home just as I’m serving myself a bowl and a secondcup of coffee. Ollie trots over and he squats down to greet her. His eyes look bloodshot and there are dark circles beneath them.
“Breakfast?” I ask.
He gives me a thoughtful glance. “Sure.”
I bring my bowl and coffee to the table. The woodstove gives a soft whump as one of the logs settles, followed by crackling.
“Long night?” I ask as he serves himself at the stove.
“Yeah. Interesting though.”
Interestingto Theo could be anything from a ruptured appendix to repairing a hole in someone’s chest, so I don’t ask for details.
I blow on my bite before gulping it down. It’s not quite as good as Zach’s. He’s more patient than me, letting the pears stew for longer, but it’s still damn good.
“You and Charlie have plans today?” he asks, glancing down the hallway as he settles in next to me.
“Not sure yet.” I carve out another bite, but my questions churning in my gut make it go down like a slippery eel. “How did Morgan end up with all that land? Did you guys inherit it or something?”
He gives me a curious frown. “Uh, Morgan sold a few of her songs to some bigshot, like…six years ago maybe? Charlotte helped her buy the property. Mo already knew the place because she’d worked there all through high school. The woman used to breed horses, but in her later years ran a kind of a rescue, so it already had the barn and some of the corrals.”
“Why wasn’t Ray involved?”
“What makes you think he wasn’t?” Theo replies with a shrug. “I was away at Western when it went down.”
I take another bite, thinking about this. Charlotte always said Morgan was a gifted songwriter and the backbone of Boxcar Doves. So why does something feel off about this story? Does Morgan still sell her music? How does something like that even work? And six years ago, Morgan would have been nineteen or twenty. Kind of young to take on a project like Thunder Mountain. Sure, Morgan’salways had a lot of energy and liked to dream big, but could it have been too much, too fast?
“Has Charlotte ever had a bad experience with a dentist?” I ask.
Theo leans back in his chair, scowling. “What’s gotten into you this morning?”
I rub down my chin. He’s right. I’m all over the place, but every question running through my brain feels urgent, so I plow on. “Yesterday, Charlotte cracked a tooth. So I took her to a dentist her friend Wren recommended, but once we got there, things didn’t go so well.”
His eyes flash with impatience. “What do you mean?”
I huff a sigh, trying to put it into a gentle package, but my heart is twisting into knots. The memory of Charlotte disappearing inside herself while her body erupted in fear keeps playing in my mind. She’s always been so confident. Even when her stage fright got bad, she just bulldozed ahead. Yesterday, it was like watching all that beautiful strength crumble before my eyes. “I think she had a panic attack.”
“Shit,” Theo replies, worry creasing his brow. He releases a slow breath, then glances down the hall. “That’s serious.”
“Yeah.”
“We saw Dr. Paulson as kids,” Theo says. “We always went together for our cleanings and stuff, so Dad would only have to take off one afternoon instead of three. I don’t remember any kind of bad experience. In fact, she actuallylikedthe dentist.”
“Huh.” So if Charlotte never had a bad reaction in a dentist’s chair until after she left Finn River, does that mean the source of whatever caused her to react that way also happened then? “Dr. Wilson pulled her records. I guess Charlotte sees a children’s dentist in Seattle.”
Theo pauses mid-chew. “Has she told you why?”
“No…but yesterday was…intense. By the time I got her home, she was exhausted.”
He huffs a slow breath. “I don’t know, man. Charlie and I aren’t close…like we used to be. Her life’s in Seattle now.”
He scrapes the last bite of his oatmeal. “That first winter Charlie came home from college, I had the feeling something wasn’t right. I assumed it was you”—he shoots me a steely glare—“and whatever had happened between you two. But she insisted she was fine. That you guys had decided the distance and your lives were too different to stick it out. I thought whatever was bugging her might be something that Crosby kid pulled. But she said if anything, she was the one who had hurthim.”
That Christmas, I was only home for a few days because the Ducks were headed to the Rose Bowl and our training schedule was nuts. I was still too confused and hurt to try to see Charlotte. Plus, she’d blocked my number, never answered my emails or letters. I wasn’t keen to show up at her door only to have her slam it in my face.
Our rushed conversation Sunday night flashes through my mind.I trust you, Will. I always have.
