14
Sienna
“There have been nine calves born since I left,” I say out loud while I text Dad back with only my left hand. I’ve managed to prop my right arm up in such a way that it’s not aching at the moment. “One of the heifers had some trouble.” I make a face, not needing to explain that Dad had to put her down—Tyson knows how this stuff works. I’ve never had to be the one to take down a distressed animal, though I would if faced with the decision. It’s mercy; I know that.
Tyson looks up from his laptop, set on the little round table by the window of the motel where we’ve been for two nights now. “Did the calf make it?”
“Yeah, one of the cows took it in. That’s lucky.” The dressings on my right armpit and breast incision are held in place by an Ace bandage that wraps all the way around my chest like a bulky halter top. I’m lucky that I didn’t need a drain. In a few days I’ll be able to trade the Ace bandage for a sports bra; I found two that fasten in the front for $9.99 at Walmart after my pre-op appointment on Thursday. I’m due for another pain pill in half an hour; Tyson has an alarm set on his watch to make sure we don’t miss any. The post-op instructions were adamant that we not chase the pain, especially these first three days. So far we’ve stayed on top of it, but that means my brain is fuzzy, I can’t account for time properly, and I feel slightly sick to my stomach all the time. The only reason I can coherently text Dad is because we’re on the tail end of the last pill. It takes forever with just one hand, though, and I feel bad when Dad asks how things are going and I write, “Great.”
Tyson continues to watch me as if he’s got something else to say, but I keep my focus on my phone. He’s been a great nurse: keeping me on schedule with the medications, helping me get dressed, taking me for walks around the parking lot of the motel, and making sure I get all the sleep I need. My body is starting to ache from being in bed so much.
“I don’t think you should go back to the ranch yet.”
I glance at him over knees covered in cheap motel bedspread and upon which my phone is propped. “I don’t really have a choice,” I say. “Dad hasn’t said it outright, but this is more than he can handle. Even with the guys. I need to get back.”
“And do what?” Tyson says, waving toward my chest. I’m wearing a button-up pajama top, but the bulky bandage is still obvious. “You act as though you’ll jump on Rosa and work like you’ve always done.”
I know I’m not up to that, but I can do some things. I finish the text to Dad and toss my phone on the empty side of the double bed. Tyson has been sleeping in the other bed. “I have to get back, Tyson. It’s not worth discussing alternatives.”
“And how are you going to explain that to your dad?” He waves toward my chest again. “They said it will be two weeks before you can resume normal activities, and they mean sitting at a desk and washing your own dishes, not managing a ranch.”
“I going to tell him I caught something this weekend—a flu or something. I’ll put myself on light duty.” The fact that I’m decades younger than most lumpectomy patients has reassured me that the recovery time line I’ve been given is much longer than I’ll need.
“Which means, what?” Tyson asks. “Taking a four-wheeler instead of a horse and only working ten hours a day?” He sounds perturbed but I’m not being difficult, I’m being realistic.
“I have no choice, Tyson.” I’m snappy now, too, because I’m right and he’s wrong and the meds make me irritable.
“What if you tell your dad that we’re turning the weekend into a week. We can find an Airbnb that will be more comfortable than this, and you can continue getting the rest you won’t get if you go back there.”
I’m shaking my head before he finishes, but I soften the answer because I know that his concern is genuine. I’m lucky to have anyone helping me right now, let alone him. “I wish I could do that, Tyson, but I can’t.”
He sighs in frustration and runs his hand through his hair as he leans back in his chair. He crosses his arms over his chest and thinks something through for a few seconds while he stares at me. “Then maybe I should go back to the ranch with you. I can make sure you don’t overdo things and I’ll help where I can.”
I smile at this. Not because Tyson doesn’t know his way around the ranch—he’s helped with calving almost every year and isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. But he doesn’t enjoy ranch work, and he’s more willing than he is skilled. Beyond that, if I bring my husband home with me, Dad will think we’re getting back together. I don’t know how I can keep the details of my limitations a secret and pretend that Tyson and I are making progress in our relationship at the same time. “That won’t work either,” I say. “You’re supposed to be back in London by Thursday, right?”
“I could probably get a few more days if I need to. I think every day you set aside for recovery will make a world of difference.”
“It was hard enough on everyone for me to leave when I did.”
“You’re going to overdo it, Sienna.” He’s getting angry. “You won’t be able to help it. What if you pull out your stitches or get an infection or something?”
“I won’t.” I pick up my phone, more to give me something else to focus on than for any other reason. “I promise to take care of myself, okay?”
Tyson growls and goes back to his laptop. I try to play Words with Friends but give up after a couple of games because a thought that has been chasing through my brain the last several days is no longer so far below the other things taking precedence. Tyson has gone back to work on his computer, his eyebrows pulled together as he types.
“Why haven’t you told me to just tell Dad?”
He looks up at me over his computer, and the anxious look on his face causes something to flash through me, like when sun glints off metal in a place where it shouldn’t. I sit up a little straighter, using my feet to push me up in bed and grimacing at the ache that starts up again. “You’re coming up with all these solutions but haven’t said even once this whole weekend that I should just tell Dad.” Come to think of it, he didn’t suggest telling Dad when we talked on the phone, either. In the parking lot of the attorney’s office on Thursday he’d said something about waiting for the divorce until I’d worked out my stuff with Dad. “Tyson,” I say in a serious tone.
He takes a breath and continues to stare at me, but I sense an internal battle taking place in that handsome head of his. “Telling your dad is the obvious choice,” he says with such diplomacy that I’m even more suspect.
“But you don’t think I should.”
He leans back in the chair. “You said on the phone that you had a bunch of questions about your mom and that you felt weird toward your dad because of them.”
“I don’t think I said I felt weird toward Dad.” I can’t remember for sure whether I said it or not. And I do feel weird toward him but that’s not the point. “I said I didn’t want to worry him and that he’d want to leave the ranch to support me through the surgery, which isn’t possible since one of us has to be there.” I pause a moment, thinking back to my initial phone conversation with Tyson a week ago. “And then you offered to fly to London instead of telling me to just tell him what I’m going to have to tell him eventually. That makes no sense.” The irony of my spelling this out so clearly is not lost on me.
He holds my eyes, looking caught, but also maybe a little . . . relieved? Resigned?
“I’ve been meaning to ask if you got a Mom Letter for your birthday—the big two-five.”
A Mom Letter? It takes a moment for my brain to shift to what feels like a new and unrelated topic. What does a letter from Mom have to do with any of this? Tyson’s looking at me intently. “I didn’t get a letter. I think they’re done.” I never asked Dad about not getting one. “It was a relief, really. I was waiting for the biopsy results at the time and wasn’t up to a letter.” Tyson knows the letters have sometimes been more negative than positive for me.
“Can you tell me again what had you upset about your mom when we talked last week?”
I feel like I’m being interviewed, but I tell him, again. Dad evading my questions about Mom’s cancer. Nothing in his files. The short-form birth certificate. Sixteen photos taken over a few months’ time. “What does that have to do with the letters?”
He shifts in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest again. “I’m going to tell you something, and I don’t want you to get mad, okay?”
“O-kay,” I say, but I’m already mad because whatever it is he is about to tell me is probably something he should have told me before now.
“I don’t think your mom wrote those letters.”