had the heart to tell his son that this year, they wouldn’t be returning to Sugar Pond at all. That he’d sold the house when Janice had checked herself into yet another recovery program. That he couldn’t bear to keep living the lie that she’d get better and they’d repair their marriage, and someday, they’d have another baby and a stable family life.
Keith refused to cut his hair, and it curled out from beneath the cowboy hat he wore. “I got the barrels moved, Dad.”
“Good boy,” Matt said, forgetting that Keith hated being called a boy. His birthday was on Friday, and Matt supposed he was leaving boyhood behind.
“See you Saturday,” Molly said, and she waved to Keith and then Matt as she headed for the front door.
“Yep, ‘bye,” Matt called after her. Once the door closed, he turned back to his son. “Did you see Britt out there?”
“She’s getting the eggs,” Keith said, standing at the sink and washing his hands. “What’s for dinner? Anything?”
“I was getting to it,” Matt said, though he didn’t know what to make for dinner. They’d been through everything in his skillset, including frozen pizza, hot dogs, spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, corndogs, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and cold cereal.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d fed his kids a vegetable, and a fresh wave of guilt hit him in the stomach.
“Which means you haven’t even thought about it,” Keith said, rolling his eyes. “I can make French toast.”
Matt nodded. He just needed to get away for a few minutes. “I need to go check on Chris and Bev.” He ducked his head so his son wouldn’t detect the little white lie, and he hurried out of the cabin the same way his son had come in.
Outside, Matt sucked at the air, the panic threatening to drag him under something dark and dangerous, where he’d never get free again.
“Dear God,” he moaned. “I can’t break down like this. Please, help me.” He managed to make it to the small shed behind the cabin, and he pressed his back into the wood, feeling the very real solidness of it. He breathed in, his head spinning. He breathed out, his eyes closing.
He breathed in. He breathed out.
He’d left Janice in Salt Lake City four months ago. Their divorce had been final the day before that. His heart might never heal, but the cuts and scrapes up and down Keith’s arms were gone now.
They both remembered everything that had led them back to Ivory Peaks, though, and Matt sometimes wished the human brain couldn’t hold so many memories.
“Just get through this minute,” he whispered, something a very good friend had told him once. “Breathe in, one second. Breathe out, that’s two.” He continued to focus on the sound of his own soft voice, the hardness of the wooden shed behind him, and the numbers until he calmed completely.
He drew in another deep breath then, and said, “Thank you, Lord. Now, please give me the strength to show my kids what it takes to move on from heartbreak and find a new version of happiness.”
Even if it was just for them, though Matt desperately wanted to find a way to move past this splintering in his life and into a new place where he could feel joy again. He wasn’t sure if that was possible or not, but he wasn’t going to stop praying for it.
A few days later, Matt helped Britt up the steps to the main farmhouse, where Keith’s birthday party would be held. The moment he touched the top step, he knew Molly had been baking for a while. The scent of chocolate and caramel hung in the air, and his mouth actually watered.
“Watch your step going through the door,” he said, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Keith hadn’t made a run for it. He hadn’t, and the boy even gave Matt a smile. Matt returned it, glad he’d agreed to let Molly bake his son a cake.
“Dad, look at all the ba-ba-ba-lloons,” Britt said.
Matt turned back to her. He stepped right up to a huge blue, orange, and white balloon arch, and he grinned at it. “Wow,” he said. “I don’t even know how to do this.”
“Mom did,” Keith said, and that made the smile slip right off of Matt’s face. Keith hadn’t spoken with the disdain or sarcasm he had in the past, and he smiled at Matt as he passed him and went under the arch.