Shep

I don’t punch any trees, but I do all the pacing I can and by the time Claudia comes out on the porch and lets me know she’s ready to go, my blood pressure is somewhat back to normal. It’s a dick move, but I don’t say goodbye the way I should. I don’t kiss her. I don’t hug her. I don’t push her hair off her face one more time and touch the end of that scar on her forehead. I don’t wrap her in my arms and tell her what I really think of her or how the real her makes me feel, not just the version of her that’s been living in my head for the last six months.

I don’t tell her we’re cool or that I understand. I don’t say that it is a big deal that she’s splitting early. She would have been leaving in a few days anyway, but we’re not cool and I’ll never understand what the fuck just happened between us and why I think she owes me anything. It’s better if I keep my fucking mouth shut and let her be on her way. I don’t tell her that she should have just left me the fuck alone.

I just climb behind the wheel of my truck and wait for her to get into her rental. It hasn’t started snowing yet, but I still go slow as we drive down to the bottom of the mountain and then pull over to the side of the road and wave her on. She pulls up beside me and stops. I see her roll down her window. I roll down mine, but I have nothing to say to her.

“I’ll call you before I take off,” she says.

I want to tell her she doesn’t need to. She doesn’t need to check in with me. I’m not her next of kin or her emergency contact. Where she goes from here is none of my business. She has friends who she can check in with. She should call them. But I don’t tell her that. I say okay and tell her to drive safe. She’s smart and doesn’t draw this shit out a moment longer. She drives away. It starts snowing on my way back up the mountain.

Claudia knows better than to call me before her flight takes off. Maybe she doesn’t want to hear my voice. I don’t want to hear hers. I don’t want to hear anything she has to say. She sends me a text instead.

I text her back right away. We’re not leaving room for second guessing.

I don’t hear from her again.

I drink for almost three days. It doesn’t snow much and what does fall melts when the temperature suddenly rises and the snow turns to rain. I don’t drive anywhere and I know where to avoid ravines and steep falls when I take Titus stumbling through the woods. I come to a few conclusions, mostly that I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking. My dick isn’t a magic wand. I wasn’t going to save her. I wasn’t going to heal her with my kisses or however much I decided to jizz all over her back. And I sure as fuck wasn’t going to fix myself.

Friday morning, I’m out of whisky. After I finish my morning expedition, send off my images, and sit through two conference calls that could have been emails, I feel like I should go down to pick up more alcohol. Spending the weekend in a nearly blacked out state is the best plan I can come up with. I send off some assets for review and try to clear my head long enough to find my jacket. I’m looking for my keys when my cellphone rings. It’s May-Bell.

“Saint?” she says bashfully and I know she feels bad. She hasn’t called me that in years. She’s testing the waters to see if I’ll hang up on her.

“Hey, May,” I reply.

“Neither of us are much for hem and haw, so I’ll just get right to the point. Jad and I are really sorry about what happened the other night. I know Claudia is heading out soon, but we were hoping you two would stop by for lunch before she has to go. We want to apologize to her and you. Properly.”

“She already left,” I say.

“Oh. We just missed her?”

“No. She left on Tuesday.”

“Oh! Thought she was staying ‘til the weekend. Why did she leave early? It wasn’t because of us, was it?”

“No, May. She had to get back for a job interview.”

“Oh. Well good. She said she was looking.”

“Mhmm,” I say. There’s dead air on May-Bell’s end for a few seconds.

“Is she coming back?” she asks.

“No.” Sure, anything is possible, but we both know how this is really going to play out.

“I’m sorry, darling. I know you two went through a lot together. And I know you must care about her a lot to invite her into your life like that.”

“Yeah.” There’s another silence and then I hear Jad mumbling something in the background.

“Well Jad’s gonna come by anyway and bring you your chainsaw and I’ll send him over with something for you to eat.”

“Okay.” I take that as a sign that maybe I don’t need to go into town for more liquor. “I’ll be here.”

“Okay.” I hang up with May-Bell and give up looking for my keys. I snap for Titus to come and watch him from the porch while he sniffs around the yard until Jad pulls up.

“How long you been sitting there?” he asks.

“Since I hung up with May.”

“You waiting for me?”

“Yep.”

“Am I banned from your house now?”

“No, just giving T some exercise.”

“Ah. Should have brought Fox by. Next time.” He comes over to the steps and I hear at least three of his joints crack as he groans and sits down beside me. He's quiet for a while. I think he's going to launch into some speech about the weather or act like everything's cool and ask if I want to go fishing, but he doesn't.

“Man to man, I was out of line, Shep. And I’m sorry for that.”

I nod and watch Titus try to pick up a clump of dirt with his paw. “I appreciate that, Jad.”

“I was worried about you and I got a little ahead of myself. Can’t promise it won't happen again ’cause it’s a little hard to unlearn pigheadedness at my age, but I am sorry.”

I chuckle a bit and shake my head. “I appreciate the honesty too.”

“I don’t care much for Sarah still. If that wasn’t obvious.”

“It wasn’t actually.”

“What?” He looks over at me as I shrug.

“I’m pretty sure, or at least I was, that everyone blamed me for not making it work with Sarah.”

“In a place like this it might feel like you belong with the girl next door, but that ain’t always the case.”

“True.” I let Titus walk a few feet too far into the woods before I whistle for him. He comes trotting back to the porch. He knows he’s been caught. I scratch his head then Jad gets a turn and Titus tries to lick his palm.

“I know, I’m not your dad and I’m not Egil, but May-Bell and I love you just like you’re our boy. When you showed up May and I decided to give all the love we had that we weren’t spreading around to you. You ever wonder why we ain’t got no kids of our own?”

“You’re too cantankerous to conceive?”

“Close. I can’t. It’s me. Plumbing don’t work. Never did, but May didn’t leave me. And back long before it was hip to tell people you just didn’t want to have kids, May told people it was her. She did that for me. She didn’t have to, but she knew how awful I felt that I couldn’t give her youngins so she tried to save my pride. I didn’t let her keep that up for more than five minutes, but that was when I knew her and I were a team. We loved each other that much. And we keep trying to protect each other.”

I look over at him when the emotion starts choking up his voice. “You deserve that, Shepard. You hear me? You deserve whoever is gonna look out for you the way you look out for them. Not someone who’s going to turn on you when you don’t see eye to eye. You deserve someone who’s gonna stick around for you.” He lets out a harsh breath, then swallows the lump in his throat. He’s close to crying. So am I, but we both manage to keep it in.

“So what do you think I should do?” I ask. “You think I should sell this place and leave?”

“Not if you don’t want to. Get on the internet. That’s what it’s for, right? Make you a dating profile. Maybe there’s some nice conservationist in Montana who’s looking to move further west. Find someone who works for you. Stop trying to make these girls fit your life up here. It’s not gonna work.”

“You’re right.” I know he is.

“I’m sorry things didn’t work out with Claudia though. She did seem like a very nice girl. Very pretty too.”

“I won’t tell May-Bell you said.”

“Oh, she agrees. That was the first thing she said about her.”

“I see.”

“We square, you and I?” He holds out his hand.

“Yeah. We’re good.” I shake it.

“Good. Come on by for dinner tonight. I know you Olsen men are keen on your lonely commiserating, but you smell like a distillery and I think you could go for some good food.”

“Okay.”

“Now come on.” He slaps me on my knee and nods toward the bed of his truck. “Come get your chainsaw.”