“Morning.”
He looked at the cot.
Then the bedding.
Then my medication, the pocket watch, and his mother’s photograph sitting on the crate.
“What are you doing out here?”
“Sleeping.”
“I can see that.”
He stepped inside.
“Why?”
I met his eyes.
“You’ll have to ask your fiancée.”
His jaw tightened.
“What happened?”
“Ask her.”
Jacob dropped his travel bag on a bale of hay and turned around.
I followed him across the yard.
He had been expected home three days later, but his Chicago meeting had been canceled around midnight. Instead of staying at the hotel, he had driven four hours straight home.
Vanessa had no idea.
Jacob opened the front door.
Vanessa was coming down the stairs in a pink robe, brushing her hair.
The moment she saw him, she smiled.
“Jacob? You’re home early. Why didn’t you call?”
She came down quickly and opened her arms.
He stepped aside before she could hug him.
“My dad is sleeping in the stable.”
Vanessa stopped.
“Oh. That.”
Jacob stared at her.
“That?”
“Don’t turn it into some huge thing.”
“I’m asking you why my father is sleeping beside the horses.”
She set the hairbrush on a table.
“My dad’s back has been bothering him. Your parents have the best mattress in the house.”
“My parents?”
Vanessa hesitated.
“Your dad’s mattress.”
“That is my dad’s room.”
“It was only one night.”
“You gave his bedroom away?”
“My father needed it more.”
“And where exactly did you expect Dad to sleep?”
She motioned vaguely toward the back of the property.
“He likes the stable. He practically lives out there during the day.”
Jacob looked at her as if he were trying to match the woman speaking to the woman he planned to marry.
Vanessa’s voice sharpened.
“This is going to be our home too, Jacob. My parents are guests. Robert could make one small sacrifice.”
Jacob didn’t raise his voice.
“Whose home?”
She blinked.
“What?”
“You said this is going to be our home. Whose house do you think this is?”
“Eventually, yours.”
“No.”
He pointed toward the floor.
“Dad bought this land before I was born. Mom and Dad built this house. Dad’s name is on Miller Ranch. I don’t own his bedroom.”
He paused.
“And neither do you.”
Vanessa looked unsettled for the first time.
“But you told me someday—”
“Someday is not today.”
Voices upstairs told us Richard and Linda were awake.
Richard appeared along the railing in a robe.
“Jacob, I think this is getting blown out of proportion.”
I stepped through the doorway behind my son.
Richard saw me and went quiet.
I looked up at him.
“Sleep well?”
He didn’t answer.
“I didn’t.”
Linda appeared behind him.
Jacob’s eyes moved toward my desk.
Helen’s photograph, which I had left upright the previous afternoon, was face down beneath several magazines.
He walked over and removed them.
His expression changed.
He lifted the frame carefully.
“Why is Mom’s picture down here?”
Vanessa looked away.
“My parents didn’t know her. I thought the bedroom would feel more comfortable without—”
Jacob turned.
“You took Mom’s picture out of Dad’s bedroom?”
“I moved an old photograph.”
“No.”
His voice stayed low.
“You moved his wife out of his room, put your parents in his bed, and sent him outside.”
Vanessa’s face tightened.
“You’re acting like I did something unforgivable.”
Jacob stared at the photograph in his hands.
Then he looked at me.
“Is there more?”
I didn’t answer immediately.
“There doesn’t need to be.”
Vanessa stepped toward him.
“Jacob, please. We’ve had a stressful week. Everybody’s tired.”
He turned to her.
“You told Dad he needed to move out?”
Her eyes shifted.
I could see the exact second she remembered the conversation with Linda.
“What are you talking about?”
