Everything We Give_A Novel Page 16

  “That’s him.”

  I’d worked as the paper’s photographer for two years and hadn’t kept in touch with any of the staff from my time there. “I remember Simon. I could always rely on him for a BIC.”

  “That’s because you never carried your own pen.”

  “What’s the need to when there was Simon?”

  She shakes her half-eaten pastry at me. “You used to call him Clark Kent, remember that?”

  “That’s right.” I lightly bounce my fist on the gearshift, softly chuckling. “He obsessed over Superman comic books and he dyed his hair.”

  “He did not!”

  “Did, too.” A Volkswagen passes and I shift into first, turning onto the highway. “I bought him Clairol hair dye as a gag gift for his birthday. You know what he said? ‘Thanks, dude, but it’s the wrong shade. I use darkest brown.’” I pitch my voice to sound like how I remembered Simon, rumbling and serious. “I’d bought him dark brown. As if there’s a difference.”

  “I’ll be damned.” Reese looks out the front window. “I never knew.” She finishes her pastry and crumples the napkin.

  “Is his hair still darkest brown?”

  Her face scrunches up. “I have no idea. It’s brown. Plain old brown.”

  I rest an arm on the center console and lean toward her. “So, what’s up with Clark Kent? You still keep in touch with him?”

  “Yes, and Simon”—she emphasizes his name—“is a close friend.”

  I look at her doubtfully. “You aren’t that close if you can’t tell he colors his hair,” I challenge.

  “Stop!” Reese playfully slaps my forearm, then jerks her hand away. She folds her arm over her pack and fiddles with the zipper tab, keeping her hand occupied. Her face sobers.

  I grip the steering wheel at ten and two, not at all comfortable with how easy it is to banter with Reese. She can still be as fun as she is aggravating.

  Forking my hand through my hair, I keep my gaze forward. I tell myself it’s because I don’t want to miss our turnoff.

  “What’s Simon got to do with you and the Rapa?” I ask.

  “He’s on staff at the magazine. He mentioned to Jane I attended and she reached out to me.”

  A thought occurs to me and it doesn’t sit well. “Did you know I’d been assigned to this story?”

  The air changes in the car and Reese shifts in her seat. My stomach rolls, sloshing the pot-size amount of coffee I ingested this morning.

  “I’m moving back to the States. Michael’s British. Now that we’re divorced, there’s no reason for me to stay.”

  “Reese,” I push. “Did you know?”

  “Not at first, no,” she says, irritated. She pushes the pack off her thighs. It slides to the floor. She folds her arms over her chest. “I initially declined the assignment.”

  “But you agreed when you found out you’d be working with me.”

  “Yes, all right?” she says, angling her face toward me without looking at me. “I wanted to see you.”

  She’s got to be kidding me. I jam the gearshift hard into fourth. “I’m married, Reese. Happily.”

  Her mouth falls open. She gapes at me. I meet her with a steely gaze. She slams her mouth closed and her face hardens. “You are so full of yourself.”

  I’m about to lay into her because what else am I supposed to think, but a sign blows by outside. SABUCEDO. I quickly downshift and turn, barely making our exit.

  I coast along the narrow street.

  “Do you know where you’re going?”

  “Yes.” I think. I glance around. There are two main trailheads that could lead us to the herds. The question is which one is the better option.

  “Stop the car. Pull over. Let’s ask him.” She points at a man resting on a bench outside the village’s lone café. I recognize him as an aloitador from my photos.

  “Good idea.”

  After a round of introductions, Manuel directs us to a trailhead on the opposite side of the village. The herds have been grazing those hills for the past week and we should come upon them just over an hour into our hike. Reese exchanges phone numbers with Manuel and they agree to meet at the café later in the afternoon. She wants to interview him about his experience with the Rapa.

  “Thanks,” I say when we get back into the car.

  “For what?”

  “For wanting to talk with him. He’s one of the guys I photographed that I was telling you about earlier.”

  Reese nods once and checks the time on her phone. “Let’s hurry. I have to be back here by four.”

  Five minutes later we are parked at the trailhead. Reese adjusts her pack on her back. “What’s the plan, Collins?”

  I squint at the overcast sky. The air is ripe with precipitation and the sharp scent of eucalyptus and damp dirt. “Find the horses before we get rained on. I also want to get some panoramic shots of the area.”

  We hit the trail, falling into step. We hike in relative silence for the next twenty minutes, following the well-worn path uphill. My thoughts drift to the years Reese and I were together and how things ended abruptly between us, like a favorite television show that’s canceled between seasons. You’re left with nothing but a cliff-hanger of an ending. Your brain works out various scenarios, but none of the conclusions are as satisfying as you imagine the real deal would have been had you just been allowed to watch the first episode of the next season.

  I always wondered if Reese and I would have stayed together. It wasn’t until I met Aimee at Wendy’s gallery that I finally had my answer. Reese and I would have never worked out because I was meant to be with Aimee.

  I always believed things happen for a reason. They can’t always be explained, like Reese leaving me, or my life intersecting with Aimee’s through Lacy. But the answers eventually reveal themselves, sometime in the strangest of ways. Some are obvious and others you have to look for.

  “Do you have kids?” Reese asks as we make our way around a bend. Pines line the trail, our elevation increasing.

  I look askance at her, trying to not let the question bother me. “You already know that answer.”

  She raises a hand. “Guilty.” I frown, wondering how much she does know about me and why. She’s the one who left.

  “Reese.” I grip my pack’s straps, lifting the weight off my shoulders. “We’re ancient history. Nothing’s happening between us.”

  She scowls. “That’s quite presumptuous of you. Forget I asked.” She quickens her pace, moving ahead of me.

  The clouds hang low, the sky gloomy. So is my mood. A single drop lands on my forehead and slides into my eye. I wipe my face. A few drops hit Reese’s pack and more splatter on my shoulders. Soon we’re ensconced in a steady drizzle. I flip up my hood.

  Reese’s remark rankled, but she’s right. I’m being presumptuous. Any credible journalist is going to do her research before she goes on assignment, including who she’d be working alongside. I would have done the same had I known she’d been assigned.

  I fully zip up my jacket. “I have a daughter. Her name’s Sarah Catherine and she’s four.”

  Reese slows, but she doesn’t turn toward me. I lengthen my stride. Her hair is damp, stringy. She looks up at me and I meet her gaze. “We named her after my mother, and Aimee’s. We call her Caty, and she’s incredible. Smart, daring, tenacious, caring, and I can keep going.” I laugh. My chest warms from thinking of her.

  “She’s a lucky little girl to have you for a dad.”

  “Thanks,” I say simply. She knows about my dad and how, even in my early twenties, I strived to be nothing like him.

  We reach a crest in the trail and Reese turns to me. “We’ve been hiking for over an hour and no horses.”

  “You’re welcome to turn back. I’ll give you the keys. You can wait in the car.”

  She tosses me a disgruntled look. “I’ll hike all day if I have to, but how do you know we’re going in the right direction? Manuel could have been wrong. The horses could have
moved elsewhere.”

  “It’s possible, but not likely. I’ve been seeing horse manure for the last quarter mile. Can’t you smell it?” I dramatically inhale. Damp hay, wood rot, and mushrooms. I grin.

  She screws up her lips. Her nose wrinkles. “No, thanks, I’ll pass. Keep walking.”

  She steps off the trail so I can lead. At that moment, the clouds split and the mist we’d been walking in turns into a torrential downpour. Within seconds, my clothes are soaked to my briefs.

  I point at a pine, its branches wide enough to provide some cover. “Over there!” I yell. We run, skidding in the mud, our packs bouncing on our shoulders. I slick back my hair and scan the horizon. There isn’t much to see. Thick clouds and the heavy rain obscure the hills. Fat drops steadily fall around us from the limbs. “We can wait out the rain here. It shouldn’t last long.” My weather app showed sunshine in the afternoon. But it also showed the morning would only be partly cloudy. We could be in for a long wait.

  I slip the pack off my shoulders to check my gear and grab a protein bar. Behind me, Reese screams. The skin on the back of my neck tightens and my heart pulses in my throat. I bolt upright. “What? Where?”

  She points at the ground. About ten feet from us is the carcass of a foal. It’s been picked over by other animals. There’s nothing left but skin, bone, and rotting organs. Dried blood stains the ground.

  “What happened?” Reese asks. She backs away to the edge of the branch cover. Her head is soaked, her eyes huge.

  “Wolves. They roam these hills,” I explain, taking out my camera. She scans the perimeter and I shake my head at her dismay. “It’s been dead for several days. We’re fine.” I adjust the camera settings and snap a photo.

  “We don’t need pictures of this for the article. Have some respect, Ian. It’s dead.”

  “It’s life. And my editor wants me to document what it’s like up here for the herds.” I lower my camera and arc my arm to encompass the surrounding landscape. “The Galician horses have roamed these hills for centuries. They’re shorter and hardier than the horses we’re used to, with shaggy coats and thick hair on their muzzles. They’ve adapted to life up here, and like any group of wild animals, the herd moves on, leaving the sick and injured behind.” I indicate the dead foal. “I want to see what that life is like for them, don’t you?”

  Reese hugs her body and reluctantly nods.

  I look back toward the trail. “It’s a good guess our herd has moved elsewhere. And I don’t think this rain is going to let up anytime soon.” I squint overhead, feeling discouraged. One more day, then I have no choice but to leave. “We should head back. We can ask Manuel where else to look.”

  “Tell me, Ian,” Reese begins when we start walking downhill. She finally flips her hood onto her head. Rivulets of water rain over her shoulders, down the front of her jacket. “What is it about these horses and the Rapa that fascinates you so much? Why did you apply for this assignment?”

  “Easy. The symbiotic relationship between the herds and the villagers. One can’t survive without the other.”

  She hums.

  I shoot a side-eye. “What’re you thinking?”

  “That there has to be another way aside from cramming two hundred horses into a small arena to manage the herds. Whoops!”

  Reese’s boot skids across the mud and her arms fly out. I grip her elbow so she doesn’t fall.

  “Thanks.” She rights her balance and I let go.

  “That was close.”

  “Yeah, it was.”

  I don’t share her laugh when she does.

  The rain wants us to run—we’re seriously drenched. Water sloshes inside my shoes—but we keep our pace steady. Neither of us wants to end up hobbling back to the car with a broken leg or sprained ankle.

  It is just after noon when we enter the café, waterlogged and starving. We’re early, but fortunately, Manuel is there, eating lunch with friends. Reese orders a coffee and I drink a beer, feeling unsettled, but I can’t pinpoint why. The café’s owner brings us plates of pulpo, boiled octopus doused in hot paprika on a bed of potatoes, a Galician-style dish. Reese is delighted. The smell turns my stomach.

  We eat while Manuel and his buddies Paolo and Andre enlighten Reese with tales of the Rapa das bestas. They count their broken bones and show off their scars in a show of one-upmanship as they passionately describe their love for the horses that wander their hills. But the longer they talk, the more upset I get—both my stomach and my frame of mind. What is wrong with me? I think, irritated. Reese is smiling. She’s laughing at their tales. She’s asking about the necessity of the festival and a sudden realization comes to light. I know the angle Reese intends to approach in this story, or, at least, her opinions she’ll weasel into it. She doesn’t think the festival is a necessity to manage the herd.

  But that’s not the point, I want to argue. It’s about tradition and our dependence on others. It’s about two species supporting one another.

  After years of working toward this goal, I’m finally on assignment for National Geographic. For an article I’m not sure I want my name associated with.

  It’s after six when we arrive back at La casa de campo. We’re damp as opposed to drenched, and I want a drink, something stronger than a beer. I jerk open the front door, stepping aside at the last minute to let Reese enter ahead.

  “What’s with you?” she asks when the door shuts behind me. “You hardly said anything this afternoon. Did I do something to upset you?”

  I point a finger at her. “Be careful what you say in that article. Your words can decimate that village’s main source of income. Funds they use to care for the horses.”

  She laughs, brushing me off. “As if I’m going to let you tell me what to write. Last I checked, I’m the writer on this assignment. You’re just the photographer.”

  “But it’s my name, too, in the byline.” And I didn’t want to be the cause of any negative press. I sent my photos to the magazine because I wanted to share an unusual event steeped in history. Traditions are fading every day, and one day we won’t have this connection to history. As a photographer, it’s my role to document them, to help keep them alive.

  Reese removes her jacket. “You better decide what you want to do, Ian. I’m still submitting my article by the deadline, whether or not you’re on the assignment.”

  She looks at me, brow cocked and ready for a challenge, and I meet her gaze with a steely one.

  “Ian.”

  Reese and I both turn. I blink. “Aimee?”

  She rushes over to me and I sweep her up in my arms. Warmth ripples through my rain-cold chest. “Oh my God, you’re here.” I squeeze her hard, dropping kisses all over her face. “What are you doing here?” I press my mouth to hers and kiss her deeply.

  A throat clears beside us and I surface from the haze.

  That’s riiiiight. Reese. She’s still here.

  I lift my head, grin at Aimee, and wrap an arm around her waist. I pull her into my side.

  “Aimee, this is—”

  Aimee extends her hand at the same time. “Hi, I’m Aimee. Ian’s wife.”

  Reese grasps her hand. “Reese Thorne. His ex-wife.”

  CHAPTER 18

  IAN, AGE TWELVE

  Ian hovered outside his parents’ room. He felt no shame eavesdropping on their conversation. After what happened at the motor lodge yesterday, Ian had a list of questions longer than the roll of film he’d developed early that morning.

  Inside their room, he could hear his dad cautiously asking his mom questions. She cried, choking on words that didn’t make sense to Ian. Words like bounty hunter and payment. He knew what a bounty hunter was. He and Marshall had watched the movie Unforgiven about a bounty hunter in the Old West. They carried guns and hunted down robbers and murderers.

  Who did Jackie want to find?

  “Stop hiding your wallet,” Ian’s dad pleaded.

  “No.” His mom hiccupped. “I’ll drain the accounts .
. . max the cards . . . ruin us.”

  “Then we’ll leave out the money. We’ll make it easy to find.”

  “No.” She cried out the objection. “You work enough hours because of me. I need you home. Ian . . . Ian needs you more than me. He feels responsible for me. I hate that he thinks he has to take care of me. We’re not being fair to him. You’re not being fair to us.”

  Ian peeked around the doorjamb. His mom sat on the bed, her legs folded underneath her skirt, head bowed. His dad faced her, one leg bent, the other on the floor as he leaned toward her. Their bodies silhouetted against the bright window behind them, the space between them the outline of a heart. His mom was breaking his.

  Sarah showed Stu the pictures Ian had taken. She’d removed them from the darkroom in the basement before Ian could hide them. He’d kept his word with his dad not to tell his mom anything about what had happened at the motel. His dad worried how she would react should she learn what Jackie had done in the motel room. Ian suspected his mom already knew. Her clothes had been askew and her makeup smeared. She had a different scent on her, musk and sweat. His stomach had coiled whenever he smelled it. He would have kept the car window rolled down as they drove home had his mom not complained of being cold. She couldn’t stop shivering.

  They’d left immediately after Ian got off the phone with his dad. Ian’s mom drove several miles until she had to pull over, she was shaking that bad. She washed her face in the dirty bathroom of an old gas station while Ian purchased Skittles and Milky Ways with the change he found between the car seats and in the ashtray. His mom ate half her Milky Way, murmured her thanks, and whispered the words, “I wish you hadn’t come.” She could barely look at him. They both cried.

  They drove the rest of the way home in silence. When they reached the town limits, the car idling at a stop sign, his mom looked over at him in the front passenger seat. “You’re a good son, Ian. I hope you grow up to be a good man.”

  Ian nodded and looked away. He discreetly wiped his eyes. Good men didn’t cry. They were strong. But Ian wasn’t feeling very strong at the moment. He didn’t have the strength or nerve to tell her thanks. Because she wouldn’t stop chanting, He’ll be a good man. He’ll be a good man. She repeated it as though she had to convince herself. And it creeped him out.