Chapter 9

Sawyer Reed

When I think about our house in Monagan I hear the delighted laughter of a mother, happy that her husband was finally back home, and we could eat well again. I remember the soft gurgling sounds of twin babies in their cribs, and I feel the warmth of the sun on my face, the taste of fresh maple syrup on my tongue. I remember the fullness in my belly from too many pieces of corn bread after days and weeks of not eating well, and the pigs on the transport trucks getting ready for the slaughterhouse.

My high school teacher, Mrs. Ansley said to call them processing plants . It's a more humane name. I didn't care either way by then – tenth grade – because hogs on a truck meant pork on the plate, and food without a mother and a father was hard to come by. For every trailer full of pigs I got on and off the truck, I received free pork for me and the girls for a week from the manager of the processing plant. I could have it as long as I didn't let the owner catch me. Rich folk were different, and we oughta stay away from them if we could. I made sure to stay away from rich folk. Didn't like them much anyway. Too prim and proper for my liking. Talked too fancy. Looked through us like we didn't exist. Watched us carefully in case we stole their food. I didn't like them.

I also remember the nights my father never came home. Not because his absence bothered me – I hated him for always leaving us for such long periods at a time with no food – but because my mother's quiet cries through the paper-thin wall that separated her bedroom from mine woke me and kept me up until the light of morning shone through the dirty window that hadn't seen a curtain since two Christmases ago.

If everyone in Monagan was poor, then we were the poorest of them all, and we got that way when my father left for good, and it just got worse when my mother died.

Everyone has a story, my mother always said. It's easy to judge someone when you've had only a glimpse into their lives.

The mother at the convenience store parking lot screaming at her toddler, for example. She's a bad mother. Maybe. Maybe she's just exhausted, trying to keep their lives together with no help from anyone; maybe her husband left her alone with three kids and they almost starved every night. Maybe she cries in the bathroom every morning, and then goes out and tries to figure out what to make for breakfast.

The shy boy at school who never talks. Maybe he's just weird. Maybe when he was little his daddy told him he wished he was never born. "Too slow to learn anything, this Sawyer. Don't know what to do with him. Wish he wasn't ever born".

The boy who accidentally eats three pieces of cake the first time he gets invited to a birthday party? "He's so greedy, Jesus Christ". Maybe. Maybe he hasn't eaten cake in three years because his daddy left them and their mother cries for him every night and forgets her kids' birthdays. Maybe when he finally gets a chance to eat cake he forgets his manners. Maybe he doesn't even know if he ever had manners to begin with.

Monagan wasn't for everyone. Some could stay and live off the land and earn a pittance from local businesses – anything from farm hands to computer workers inside those offices in Linksfield, thirteen miles southeast of Monagan – and still be happy. Like Mom. She got a job at the farmer's market just outside Monagan when she realized Dad wasn't coming back, and never did she once not smile at the customers. I know because I went with her every Saturday with the twins. I took care of them while she worked. She always told me to look on the bright side. Everyone has a story. Everyone deserves a chance.

For others, the rural farm town of Monagan was a dream crusher. No big city lights. No chain stores. No movie theater. Not even a McDonald's unless you could get yourself to at least Linksfield. And good luck with that in the dead of winter.

In the summer, it was the best of prairie living. In the winter, the chances of the whole town getting buried under the snow and no one in the city finding out until April were pretty high.

I remember the day my mother died. Diabetes type one. TYPE ONE, don't forget.

I found her in bed after school. The girls were already on the bed, jumping around trying to tell her something or other that happened at school. The paramedics took thirty-five minutes to get to our house.

Who can ever forget that first strangled moment when you realize the truth? A question at first. Mama?

And then, more urgently. Mama?

Pippin and Faye quieted down, looking at me curiously.

"Go put your books away," I told them quietly, but I was screaming inside. Mama? Mama? Mama?

Monagan doesn't have its own dedicated police station or coroner's office. The officer who came to tell me why my mother died came from the neighboring town.

"Diabetes type one; did you know she was diabetic?"

"No, sir."

"She never been to the doctor?"

"Only to have the girls, sir. She ain't never tol' me 'bout bein' sick."

"You didn't ever see her taking any medication?"

"No, sir." Then, I thought some more and changed my answer. "Well, maybe. But I always thought it was for headaches or somethin'."

"How old are you, son?"

"Sixteen."

"She oughtta have told yeh 'bout the Diabetes type one."

"I oughtta have known.''

"Couldn't have known if she didn't tell yeh. Well, son. Your mama had Diabetes type one. Cause of death was Diabetic Ketoacidosis. Not enough insulin. Did she look sick or something recently?"

"Stomach pains. She vomited a few times the night before. Thought it was bad pork."

He shook his head. "Diabetes type one. You need to take care of that."

The way he kept saying, Diabetes type one , that's what I called it for the rest of my life after that.

Mrs. Ansley came around looking for me sometime after the funeral. Ten days out of school was just not the way I was, she said. I informed her my mama had died of diabetes type one and I had two little sisters to take care of. "They're only eight years old," I told her.

"Well, where's your daddy?"

"He said he'll be back when he figures things out, ma'am. Guess he's still figuring things out."

"How long ago was that?" She placed her hand on her heart, looking a little shocked, but I wasn't surprised he hadn't even come back for his wife's funeral. Or to claim his children.

"I was 'bout twelve, I think, ma'am."

She promised to get the local child services involved since I, myself, was underage, and they did come after two months, and they asked a few questions and then they never came back.

Mrs. Ansley felt bad that I couldn't come back to school. When she came to check on me after I hadn't been to classes for three months, her stomach was round as a watermelon. She was leaving for Des Moines. Her husband got a new job and they wanted to raise their baby in the city. She left me her phone number and, with a pitiful look on her face, she told me to call her if I ever needed anything.

I never did call her. I was sixteen, and that was too old to ask for anyone's help. Also, Mrs. Ansley was sort of rich folk, and sometimes I got scared of her.

I went to the library in Linksfield one day when the girls were in school and got a book about Diabetes type one. I was a little slow and I hardly understood anything but I learned one or two things. So, when Faye got up almost every hour to use the bathroom when she was eleven, I knew she wasn't right.

"Diabetes," the doctor confirmed.

"Type one?" I asked.

"Yes. Diabetes type one."

I switch off the ignition of my Ford truck in front of the house Pippin lives in with her two-month-old son, Ezra. It's the same house we lived in as kids. The same house my mother died in. Pippin refuses to leave. One day, maybe Dad will come back, she always says. He'll need a place to stay when he comes back. Pippin's childish dream is so painful that I never had the heart to tell her that Dad was never coming back.

The house is in better shape than it was when we were growing up. Over the last few years Asher and I have worked on it a little at a time until Pippin could have a safe, functioning place to stay.

She meets me at the door and, after giving her a kiss on the cheek, I hand her the bag of groceries I got for her and the pack of diapers, and take little Ezra from her arms, cradling him against my chest. He's a beautiful boy, just like his mama. Head full of curly, black hair and large brown eyes. Luckily, he looks nothing like his father. He's a quiet baby. Just like Pippin used to be.

"You okay?" I ask, following her inside. She looks a little skinny and her cheekbones are drawn in.

"Has Carlson been here lately?" I ask. Because if he has, I'm going to find him and murder him.

Pippin nods, setting the bag on the kitchen counter. "I'm okay. He wanted to see Ezra. I didn't know what to do."

"You tell him he can see Ezra when he pays child support," I scold.

"I know. He promised, Sawyer. He said he's going to do better. He said he'll pay the electric bill from now on and he'll get Ezra's diapers and food and such."

"Asher said if he fucks up again, he's gone. And I agree. Do you hear me?"

She nods. "Thank you for the groceries."

I walk through the house checking that she really is okay. The fridge is halfway full. The pantry is still okay. I check that the electricity is still on. "You need anything done 'round the house?" I ask. Ezra fusses in my arms, so I hand him back to Pippin. She takes him to the couch to nurse.

"No. Everything's fine. I don't need anything. I think Carlson's going to be good this time, Sawyer. I really do."

"I don't think that asshole has one true bone in his body, Pip. You tell me or Ash if you need anything, okay?"

"Okay." Then, while Ezra nurses, Pippin looks at me nervously. "Sawyer?"

My phone buzzes with a text. Asher. Asking me to come home. It hasn't even been thirty minutes since Reece Carter arrived. My chest tightens with concern for my husband.

"How's Faye doing?" Pippin asks. My agitation over Carlson dissipates. Nothing hurts me more than seeing Pippin's face when she asks after her twin.

"She's doing okay, Pip. I talked to her last week."

"Please let me bring Ezra when we visit again," she begs for the tenth time this week.

"It's not a good idea," I say gently.

When good people are destroyed at a young age, it's hard not to forgive them over and over again when they're adults, no matter what terrible thing they've done. It's hard to accept that Faye, as beautiful of a person she was growing up, isn't good anymore. But still, we forgave her. We couldn't help it.

Faye was the one who saved her school lunches in middle school to bring home so we would have dinner. Faye was the one who stood up against the girls at school when they laughed after Pippin soiled her dress when her first period showed up in the middle of class. It was Faye who gave up all the pretty things for Pippin because they would look better on her twin. They looked exactly alike but they were night and day. Faye was a fighter. Pippin, the soft butterfly who needed to be protected.

When did it all go wrong? How?

Faye fucked up. She chose wrong. It doesn't matter now the childhoods we all had. The only thing that matters is that what she did was bad enough to keep her in prison for more than ten years, and all we can do is try to love her without wounding ourselves.

Faye is the one who doesn't want us to take Ezra with us when we visit. The person who can't forgive Faye for everything that happened is Faye. And she doesn't want her only nephew to grow up seeing her in prison. Even now, when he's just two months old.

Pippin shakes her head and drops the subject. My answer has been the same since the first time she asked. I don't know what to do. Faye insisted. I don't have the heart to tell Pippin the real reason we can't take Ezra.

I leave Pippin's place after making sure the lock on the back door is still secure after I fixed it a few weeks ago.

On my way back home, my thoughts wander, thinking about the way my life turned out.

I guess I could have been angry about the whole thing. About my mother's death. About child services never coming back. About my father leaving us in the middle of the night. I hated him for making my mother cry so many nights and wished he would leave and never come back. And then I hated him when he left.

But I had the girls, and I wanted my story – our story – to turn out differently. And for that, I needed to find some peace in this world.

I couldn't be angry and at peace at the same time. I couldn't walk both roads. I had to choose. I had only this life, and Faye and Pippin needed me. And I chose peace. I chose peace over the neglect and our father's abandonment. I chose peace over the rage I carried for my mother's unnecessary death. The crushing poverty that never ended while we were growing up. The way people – rich folk, mostly – treated us because we had nothing.

And I promised myself that I would always follow my heart. I would always choose peace over anything I may face in this life. And I'll always look on the bright side.

I couldn't leave Monagan. I had the girls and I had no education. So I did what I could with what I had and if there's any proof that it had all turned out okay, it would be the man waiting for me right now inside the cottage we both call home.

I put the truck in park and reach over to the passenger seat for the cake I picked up from Dotty's Bakeshop earlier. It's a chocolate cake with a caramel filling – Asher's favorite. Dotty added extra caramel for him, as usual. She's been doing it for years.

Chocolate cake with caramel filling is also Reece's favorite. I know because I asked what Reece's favorite dessert is when we talked about dinner preparations two nights ago. At first, Asher told me not to worry about dessert, the apple pie would be fine. But I know how much Reece Carter meant to my husband. I wanted to get the cake. For him and, I guess, for Reece too.

Cake in hand, I exit the car. I hesitate for a moment, then set the cake on the hood of the truck to dust myself off and bring some order to my hair. I tidied myself up at the woodlot because I didn't want Asher to have to introduce his former friend and lover to a dirty wood logger, but there's only so much dirt and sawdust you can remove at the portable wash basin on site. Also, I believe Reece Carter is rich folk, and for Asher's sake at least, I should try to look decent.

Asher is already at the door, opening it for me.

"Hey," he says, leaning in for a kiss.

I kiss him at the door, soft and tender. "Hey." Asher's smile is fake.

"You okay?" I ask, keeping my voice down so the words remain between us.

"Yeah. Everything's fine." Code for we'll talk about it later . I let it go.

Inside, he takes the cake and my keys from me, setting the cake down on the kitchen counter and dropping my keys into the bowl where we keep such things. Then, with a nervous wipe of his palms on his hips, he smiles and says, "Come and meet Reece."

Reece Carter has been an enigma for the entirety of the seven years I have known Asher.

The one that got away. The best friend ripped away from him, never to be heard from again. Until now.

The very first conversation Asher and I ever had was about Reece. It was May sixteenth. Reece's twenty-first birthday. He was drunk, hanging off the edge of the bar counter, asking me if I would please be a good barman and listen to his sob story about the best friend he fell in love with, and then had to leave because the best friend's father was an asshole.

I listened. That day and every day after that. Some days he drank himself into a stupor, other days he was sober as a judge. On all days, everything was about Reece Carter.

On Reece's twenty-second birthday, Asher walked into the bar and told me he was in love with me, and we never looked back.

Until today.

The sum total of Asher's past now stands in our living room. I told myself a million times that they were only seventeen. Hardly anything good can come from an age when you don't even know who you are. Except for love. Except for the uncontained, unstoppable madness of young love.

I'm brave enough to admit that Reece Carter is as much the raging storm standing here calmly in our living room as he would've been when he lived inside Asher's heart when they were boys. There is the potential here for a catastrophe I don't know I'd be able to withstand if I wasn't so sure of Asher's love for me.

"Reece?" Asher says. Despite my confidence in my husband's love for me, it takes all of me not to investigate and dissect Asher's tone. Is it soft? Too soft? Too familiar? Purposefully cold and distant for my benefit? I can't tell. The neutrality of Asher's voice sends shame skating down my spine. We're in this together – we made the decision for Reece to visit together. The first year I spent getting to know Asher was enough for me to understand how necessary this is for him. And I know Asher's heart. He would never allow anything to come between us.

Reece turns.

It's his eyes I notice first. Not their color, although the soft, deep browns are surprisingly . . . lovely. It's the thing behind his eyes. An unsureness. A sad hesitancy.

His eyes move from Asher to me. My stomach drops. I frown. Why this reaction?

Maybe it's the fact that I finally get to meet the infamous Reece Carter. The one who caused my husband so much pain. But also the one who, in a way, brought my husband to me.

He's exactly the way Asher described him in the early days of our conversations in the bar:

Asher wanted to cry so I distracted him with unnecessary details about this great love of his life, who he could never, ever have again. "What color is his hair?" I asked while I wiped down the counter in preparation for closing up.

"Brown like shit. Curly. So pretty."

"And his eyes?"

"Brown with these gold spots like the sun exploded inside his eyeballs. But sometimes they get so deep it's like they're black. But his hair isn't like shit. I lied. His hair is so pretty."

"Got it. Did he have a nice voice?"

"Like an angel."

But Asher never came right out and said just how . . . beautiful—

I stick out my hand. "Hi," I say. "I'm Sawyer Reed." Nice polite smile. My face hurts from the effort.

He takes two steps and holds out his hand. His movements are hesitant. His handshake, soft and unsteady. "Reece Carter. Thank you for having me in your home. I appreciate it. I hope I haven't inconvenienced you too much." He sounds like Asher. City-smart and well-rounded words. I could never talk like that. He's rich folk, but . . . he seems different.

The muscles in my face ease, leaving a smile that doesn't need so much effort anymore. I expected a pompous jerk. Or someone with a little more confidence, at least. "You're Asher's friend. You're always welcome here." You're Asher's first love , is what goes through my head. Why are you here, especially when you're so fucking beautiful it's making me sick?

He's dressed like those people who work in the city. What do they call it? Smart casual. Expensive-looking jeans. A knitted jersey that looks so soft and delicate I might rip it to shreds if I simply hold it in my hand. Perhaps he's not coping with the cold because he still has his scarf wrapped around his neck and a glove still on one hand. Altogether, he looks like he belongs exactly where he came from.

I'm suddenly acutely aware of how dirty I am, and I want to say my words right.

Asher fills in after an awkward silence. "We should get dinner going before everything gets cold."

I touch his arm. He looks at me and smiles. "I'll clean up and join you in a minute."

"Okay."

In the bathroom, I place my hands on the sink, dropping my chin to my chest. This isn't weird. This isn't weird. How many times do I need to say it before I finally believe myself?

But it isn't the weirdness of the situation that sets me on edge. It's the fact that Asher never said how truly attractive Reece Carter really is. It's how soft he seems. How . . . non-threatening.

I give myself a shake. No. I'm not . . . what? Not taken aback by how handsome he is? Not a little blindsided by how that soft aura surrounding him makes me more curious about him than jealous?

No. This is just a weird situation, and it will last only as long as dinner. An hour or two, and then it'll be over.

Tomorrow, everything will go back to normal, to the way things have been for the last six years.