The next few days crawl past.

The worker’s cottage is thick with dust and heat and all the angry words I’d exchanged with my mother before I left on the ride with Shane.

It’s laden with guilt and hurt and the two of us are too stubborn to break it down, to deal with it, to face it head on.

I faced a bear and lived to tell about it and yet facing truths with my own mother seems scarier than anything else.

We avoid each other. My mother spends a lot of time in the main house with Hank and Dick. I spend my days with Shane, including going to the vet with Fletcher. The lucky dog only needed a dose of antibiotics for the small wound and some time off his sprained leg. The rest of the time, it’s like the old days, me helping Shane around the ranch with whatever he needs.

And then there’s the sex.

Oh yes.

I knew that when we had come back to the ranch after being out on the range that things would be different between the two of us. I knew that as good as the sex was, as needed as it was, it was something we should probably avoid doing again. It made us intimate and through intimacy we fought.

And made up.

Again and again.

Making every second count.

Even though I know being with him is just going to make things harder in the end, I can’t stay away from Shane any more than he can stay away from me. My hands yearn to touch him, my lips burn to kiss him. As swift and helpless as a raft on the river, I am drawn to him repeatedly, ignoring where the current is leading us. It’s in his arms where I feel myself becoming more alive, where I transform.

I grew up feeling like a weed in the garden, unwanted, cowering, left to die. Bit by bit, year by year, I worked through it and tried to grow, to blossom, and it came, slowly, but surely. I learned to let myself bloom. But when I’m with Shane, it’s more than letting myself take up space and shine. He makes me want to grow wild, to run rampant, to unapologetically thrive.

I just wish it didn’t scare me so damn much.

Because even if this is for a short time, how on earth is my heart going to survive when I leave? He told me he still loved me, something I’d slowly come to realize out here at Ravenswood Ranch. He told me he never stopped and I felt it in the marrow of my bones, a truth that I can’t shake, that I can’t escape from. He loves me fiercely, with abandon, the kind of love that sets fire to things until we’re standing in the ashes.

And in those seconds we have together, I’m trying so fucking hard to keep myself together, to not let his love consume me.

Because, god, how easy that would be.

Then, good news comes in. My mother has a surgery scheduled.

I decide to drive her. I know it’s not ideal but like hell I wouldn’t be there for her. That’s the thing about family, about loved ones, is even when you’re at odds with each other, even when there are more negative emotions rolling out of you than good, you won’t abandon them. You’ll be there for them.

At least that’s what I’m learning.

I’ve been learning a lot these days.

The drive to Vancouver is long and awkward. Painfully so. We barely talk. She’s lost in her own thoughts and I’m lost in mine.

To be honest, I’m not just scared because of what’s going on between Shane and I, I’m scared for my mother. I know that the surgery is routine, that she should be fine. That this is about nipping something in the bud, taking out the cancer before it has a chance to ravage her. But sometimes she just seems so weak and unhealthy that I’m not sure how strong she really is. She’s been thriving too while being at the Nelson’s, but even so, she’s not quite optimal. I think, for the both of us, the road to recovery is a long one.

We go straight to the hospital where we’re introduced to Doctor Fielding and the nurses. He explains to us, as Doctor Cooper did back in North Ridge, exactly what the surgery entails. It’s a pre-emptive strike, especially for patients who haven’t yet experienced the mass effects of cancer yet. He explains how it will leave my mother in a much weaker position than before we started, but the alternative is, of course, cancer. We don’t have a choice.

She’ll be in ICU for a few days after surgery, assisted by a breathing tube and, if anxious, heavily medicated, then will be recovering. After a week or so, she’ll be discharged and we’re free to go. In the meantime, I’ll be renting a room in a hotel around the corner and spending most of my days in the hospital.

It doesn’t sound so bad but what makes it worse is that my mother is barely looking at me, even when the doctor is laying out all the potential complications, and for a woman of her age and health, there are a lot.

It isn’t until the next day, the day of her surgery, when both of us are waiting around in a small, sterile room, that she taps me on the back of the hand and brings something out of her purse.

It’s a bunch of tissue and I watch, enraptured, as she carefully starts unfolding each piece until I’m surprised at the sight.

A dried wishbone sits in the middle of the tissues.

“What is this?” I ask her.

“It’s for you,” she says, picking it up with shaking hands. “When we first came to Ravenswood Ranch a few weeks ago and Hank had made us that chicken, I took the wishbone aside and saved it.”

Tears are already starting to well up in my eyes.

“I remember that necklace,” she goes on. “The one Shane gave to you for Christmas that one year. You loved it so much, never took it off until you did. I knew it meant something to you.” She pauses, looking down at the wishbone with fondness. “I saw this and I knew you should have it. You should have something to wish on again.”

I press my lips together, trying to keep my sobs in check.

No dice.

“I’m so sorry mom,” I cry out, wrapping my arms around her. “I’m so sorry for the things I’ve said to you. I don’t mean any of them. I love you. I don’t want to lose you, I don’t.” I whisper, “I’m so scared.”

“Oh, sweetie,” she says to me, holding me back. Even though she’s fragile, she has some strength to her, strength and warmth I can feel seep into my bones. Even after everything, there’s something about a mother’s hug that sets the world back on its axis, makes it spin, brings back the days and the nights, a balance. “You don’t have to be sorry. I know you’re angry and you have every single right to be. You can be angry with me for the rest of your life and I know I deserve it and more.”

I pull back, wiping at my face. “But I don’t want to be angry anymore. I understand. It took me a long time but I understand. I know you loved me, you were just afraid.”

“I was afraid and I was a coward,” she says, her voice warbling though she’s trying to sound strong. “No mother should ever choose her husband before her daughter, should never choose herself. Darling, I was in such denial over what was happening to me, to hear what was happening to you…I couldn’t bare it. I couldn’t deal. It just – poof – my brain spit it right back out. But I knew, I knew deep down you were telling the truth, I just didn’t have the courage to face it. I will never, ever forgive myself for it. I’ve betrayed you in the most horrific way possible and I’ll spend my whole life making it right even though I know it won’t be.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” she says and now she’s crying, big tears that spill down her pale face and onto the linoleum floor. “It’s not okay and it will never be okay. And that’s something I have to live with. I can never go back and change the past and what I did, or didn’t do, will stick with me. But going forward, I can only love you and pray you’ll give me a second chance.”

“Of course I will,” I sob to her, leaning against her shoulder. “You don’t need to ask. It’s just there. I don’t want to lose you, not now, not after this when we go back to North Ridge. I want to get to know you, the real you, I want a real relationship and all the time in the world to make up for all the time that we lost.”

“And so you’ll stay?” she looks at me hopefully.

I grasp her hand. “If that’s what you want, if that’s what you need, I will stay. For you.”

She frowns, looking saddened, and shakes her head. “My baby girl. You’ll stay for your mother, your mother who turned her back on you and didn’t protect you when you needed her most, you’ll stay for her but not the man who has always been there. How come you’ll stay for me but you won’t stay for Shane?”

I blink at her, my blood whooshing in my head as I try and grapple with it.

She’s asked a damn good question.

“Because you’re my mother,” I say softly, struggling for words.

“And he’s your man. A man that loves you. A man who never stopped loving you.”

“It’s not the same.”

“When it comes to the heart, when it comes down to love, it all weighs the same amount. Rachel, Shane is in love with you and I know you’re in love with him. Don’t throw that away because you think you belong somewhere else.”

“But I have a life there,” I tell her and even now my excuses, valid or not, are starting to sound stale. “I have everything I’ve worked hard for.”

“And you’ll work hard again and you’ll get those things you want, if you even want them anymore, if they really matter. But love like yours, that’s not something you can just show up for, or even earn. Love like that, you have to hold onto it when you see it. It’s a once in a lifetime love, my baby girl. And we both know how short those lifetimes can sometimes be.”

I grow quiet. I could argue forever. I could bring up the millions of excuses. But against my mother, I’m not sure how far I’d get.

“Let me ask you something,” she says, taking my hand into hers. “What feeds your soul?”

“What feeds my soul?”

“You heard me. What feeds it? What gets you up in the mornings? What makes you want to be a better version of yourself, to keep on growing? What makes you feel alive? More than that, what makes you want to be alive forever, finding the lust and the joy for it day by day?” She pauses. “Now change that around. Not what, but who? Who feeds your soul?”

I try and swallow. I’m thirsty and exhausted and scared, still so scared. I want to give her different answers and yet I won’t lie. I won’t bother. There’s only one answer.

Who feeds my soul?

Shane.

Shane feeds my soul.

She squeezes my hand. “You know. I can see that you know. You don’t have to make a decision about it now, but eventually you will. And when you do, just remember what I asked. Just remember what you feel. Your soul is part of your heart and your heart is a part of the world. Who feeds your soul, feeds all of you and in turn you feed them back. And this funny little world rolls on and on and on.”

I manage to give her a smile. “You know, I wasn’t expecting all the self-examination.”

“You thought I would be the one to re-examine my life choices?” She rolls her eyes. “Please, I’m getting surgery, I’m not on my damn death bed.”

Then her features harden and she stares at me, serious. “But there is one thing I’d like to talk to you about before they wheel me away and start with the pain meds.”

“What?”

She takes in a deep breath. “I know one of the reasons that you’re struggling, why you’ve always struggled, is because you don’t have closure. And I’m not talking about your boy Shane. I’m talking…I’m talking about your father. He went to jail but he didn’t go to jail for what he should have. Granted, I’m sure he didn’t go for a lot of things he should have but the fact is…he tried to destroy us. And for a while he did. And I know that time has passed but I don’t want him to get away with it anymore.”

My heart starts to beat faster against my ribs. “I don’t want to see him.”

“You don’t have to see him. He’ll rot in prison for what he did to that boy but he should also be in there for what he did to you. And me. Now, I can’t and won’t make you do anything that you don’t want to do but, and it depends on how long you plan on staying, I want to press charges. When we get home, I’m going to file a police report against him. I won’t mention your name unless you want me to, I won’t do that without your permission baby girl, but I’m going to give a statement about what he did to me and I’m going to make sure it gets to him.”

Funny. Even just hearing her say that, as horrifying to even think about the past, the situations, what he did, the fact that she can still do something, that justice can still be served after all these years, that he won’t get away with it…the heaviest weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I’m immediately lighter. Scared, but lighter all the same.

“I’ll do it,” I tell her, frightened and determined and bolstered all at once. “I’ll come forward and I’ll file. He’s gotten away with it for this long and I’m no longer ashamed of it. I want him to know he’s caught, that he didn’t destroy us like the way he tried. I want to do this. I’ll do it with you. Together.”

“Are you sure?” she asks, studying me.

“I’m sure.” I nod, again and again, each time with more conviction. “I’m more than sure. This needs to happen, for both of us. This is closure.”

“You’re damn right,” she whispers, kissing the back of my hand just as the door opens, Doctor Fielding peering at us.

“Are you ready, Vernalee?” he asks

She looks at me and smiles knowingly. “More than ever.”

She hands me the wishbone and I hold onto it as hard as I can without crushing it.

He wheels her away to surgery.

And I wait.