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GAIL LEANED ON THE mare, stroking the coarse coppery hair on her side. “Only another month, sweetheart, and you’ll have yourself a nice foal.”
“How’s she coming along?”
Gail turned at the gruff sound of her son’s voice.
Phillip leaned on the wooden post outside the stall, looking as though he could use a good night’s sleep, and Gail fought a pang of sympathy. For as tough as he tried to make himself out to be, he was as soft as bubble gum on the inside.
After the confrontation between her two children, she had a long talk with Ed yesterday. Though she promised her husband that she’d stay out of their feud and let them work things out, she’d never been good at complacency. Especially with her children.
Gail lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes. “She’s just fine. Dr. Gray stopped by to check in on her. The concern should be for the other individual around here who’s pregnant.”
Phil shook his head and smiled. “I think Lexie’s going to be fine too.”
Gail snorted, then grabbed the pitchfork she had leaned against the wall and began to muck the stall. “And how would you know?”
“Because she’s always done her own thing. She’s a big girl.”
“Your sister is strong. She takes after me.” She raised her eyes to Phil and smiled. “But there are a lot of things you don’t know.”
Phil shrugged, his tight expression unwavering. “None of which is my business.”
Gail flung a clump of soiled hay at her son, hitting him in the knees.
“Hey,” Phil shouted, jumping aside.
Gail tensed, her muscles coiled, ready for a fight. “You’re her brother. She’s your business because she’s your sister.” Pointing the tines of the pitchfork toward him, she threatened, “And don’t you forget that.”
“Did you give this little speech to her?”
“As a matter of fact, I did.”
“And what did she say?” Phil stuck his hands in his pockets and bent his head forward. His hard gaze focused on the toe of his shoe, digging into a clump of damp hay. The planes of his face were smooth, unmarred, and he looked impossibly young in that moment.
“She said you had a reason to be mad, and I should leave it go,” she said, softly.
Gail spread fresh flakes of straw throughout the clean stall, giving her son a minute to mull this over.
“At least she’s right about one thing, then.”
“Phil, you need to talk to her. You can’t let things go on like this, and as mad as you are at her right now, and no matter how strong she is, how independent you think she may be, she needs our support right now.”
“What’s she need support with? She’s giving up the baby, isn’t she?” Phil’s brows were raised, his eyes wide and incredulous.
“Possibly.”
“See, this is what I was afraid of. She’s got you hoping that she’ll have some sort of epiphany and keep the baby, after all. But she won’t. She’ll give the baby over to strangers, then leave and go back to that marvelous life of hers. Away from us, from all of this,” he said, motioning wide with his arms. “Last time she couldn’t run fast enough.” Phil spit on the ground as Gail shot him a fiery look of warning.
“Actually, after she has the baby, she’s staying. She doesn’t know what she wants, whether the stay will be permanent or not, but she doesn’t know whether she wants to leave either. She’s looking for a place to rent as we speak.”
Phil froze. He opened his mouth but shut it again when nothing came out, and Gail felt a surge of satisfaction that she shut him up for at least a moment. His anger came from a place of hurt. She knew that, which is why she didn’t hold it against him. As kids, Phil and Lexie had always been close. She was older, and he idolized her. When she left without so much as a goodbye, it affected him just as much as the rest of them, maybe more.
“Aren’t you mad she left? She didn’t say goodbye to you either. All you got was a phone call.” Hooking a thumb to his ear and his pinky to his mouth, Phil mimicked that long ago conversation that still cut Gail to the bone. “Um, Mom. It’s Lexie. I had to get away. I just couldn’t do it.”
“Of course, she hurt me,” Gail snapped. “The day my little boy got married and replaced me as the most important woman in his life hurt too, but that’s life. Your kids growing up and leaving is part of being a parent. They don’t stay with you forever, so you cope. Someday Hannah and Penelope will do the same.”
Phil flinched at the mention of his own girls. “What I did, and what Lexie did, are two totally different things, and you know it.”
“Maybe they are. Maybe they aren’t. But the bottom line is that Lexie left because some part of her was unhappy. She has a right to her own life, even if what she choose wasn’t what I had hoped. Who knows the real reason she left? I suspect a part of her will never know the sum of the reasons. Maybe I pushed her too much to work on the farm or tried to run too big a portion of her life. Maybe she was too young, not ready for marriage, and got scared. I don’t know...”
Phil’s eyes flashed. “Don’t try to blame her selfishness on yourself.”
Sighing, Gail gave Penny a light pat on the rump and stepped outside the stall to where Phil stood, his posture rigid. “I’m just saying that, yes, the way she went about things was wrong, but I’ve had a lot of time to think about her departure. I realize now that I can’t control everything, I can’t fix everything, and I know that sometimes to move on, we need to accept that not everyone sees things as we do. Lexie’s reality may have been completely different than the one we saw. She did what she thought she needed to do. And it was her life to do so. Not ours.”
Phil let out a huff of breath. He paced back and forth in front of his mother. “Fine, but why so little visits? She called, but we were always so close. A phone call was never enough. It seemed like she couldn’t wait to get away from us.”
Tired of this fight, Gail groaned and leaned back against the wooden post of Penny’s stall. She often wondered the same thing. She’d fallen asleep at night, the knowledge that her daughter was happy and thriving no consolation to the sting of her absence.
She wondered what she should say to Phillip. What could she say to make him understand? To soften his heart and make him forgive?
“I think sometimes we get so wrapped up in the moment, in life, in all the things we’re doing, or have to do. We’re so busy that sometimes we forget the things we’re not doing. With the pursuit of one thing, we lose sight of others, of what’s really important. I always knew Lexie would find her way back home. I wish it weren’t...” Gail’s voice cracked with the words she wanted to say but couldn’t—that she wished it weren’t because of something as hideous as her rape. But those weren’t her words to tell. Lexie had warned her repeatedly not to tell Phillip. And this was one fight Gail needed to stay out of. So, instead, she said, “Maybe her pregnancy brought her to us sooner, but I know my daughter, and she would’ve come home again. She’s here now. Can’t we just be thankful for that?”