The Bequest
Chapter 64—Abigail

I push my door open and nearly run right into Ethan. "Oh, good morning." "You seem chipper," he says.

"I'm tired."

His shoulders droop. "I'm sorry." He looks broader than he did before, and bulkier too. His eyes are brighter, and his skin has a healthy glow from being outdoors. All of that will disappear when he's stuck in a classroom all day. But his future will be safe and secure. "Ethan..."

He shakes his head. "It's okay, Mom."

"What's okay?"

"I know you want me to go to Rice. I got an email saying they need my tuition deposit soon."

This is when he'll do his final push. He'll argue. He'll plead his case.

"You really pitched in here," he says. "You got us horseback lessons and took them yourself. You made meals and did grocery shopping at a hardware store. You fed animals. You did a trail ride to herd the cattle." He grins. "You held up your end of the bargain. I'm not going to complain or guilt you. And I swear, once school starts, I'll work my hardest at Rice, too. I won't waste your money."

"Whoa, have you changed your mind?" I ask. "Do you want to go?"

He wraps an arm around me, his expression wistful. "I'd way rather stay here. I'm dreading college, to be honest, but if I survived high school, I'm sure I can survive college, too." "Why aren't you upset?" I ask. "Why aren't you arguing to stay?"

"More than I want to run a ranch, and I do want to run this ranch a lot, I want you to be happy. I realized yesterday that even if you let me stay, you'd all be leaving." His voice becomes very small. "This has been the best summer I could have imagined without Dad, but I don't think I'd have liked it much if you guys hadn't come with me. It was even fun sharing a room with Gabe. He's a funnier little dude than I realized."

Gabe's actually hilarious, with his incessant drawing and his overblown vocabulary.

"I really appreciate you getting me into Rice, by the way. I know it took a lot of work on your part and stressed you out. I'm sorry I put you in that situation to begin with. I should never have thrown out all those applications." "I'm sorry I haven't had as much time as "

Ethan says, "Don't apologize for that. It's what makes you the best mom. You want what's best for our entire family, and you'll work as hard as it takes to get there at work, at home, on a ranch. It was actually watching you give 125 percent out here that helped me be okay with going back."

He's giving me more credit than I deserve. "I hope you'll still think that when you hear about the email I got last night. The court changed the docket and now my trial starts at the end of July." Ethan frowns. "What does that "

"If we don't leave by the end of this week, my case will go to Bev."

"Crazy Bev? The lady with the beehive-mullet? The one who accused you of dressing like a sex-kitten?"

My jaw drops. "How do you know about that?"

"I heard you and Dad talking once. He thought it was the funniest thing in the world, and he said she was unhinged. Would Robert really hand it over to her?"

"If I don't head back, he won't have a choice. Many things can be done remotely these days, but trials still happen in person."

"She seems like the kind of person who's secretly plotting to kill everyone in the office. You can't let her have your case." Ethan forces a smile. "Plus, it'll give us all time to relax before school. Who needs horses and manure when they have an Xbox?" But the light disappears from his eyes.

"Thank you, for supporting me. Izzy came to beg me to stay last night, you know."

"Izzy? Why?"

"She loves it here. I feel like I'm breaking everyone's heart."

"It's alright, Mom." Ethan hugs me, and it almost feels like I'm hugging his dad. "Do you remember how, when I was a little kid, I hated eating broccoli?"

"You called them tiny trees," I say.

"No matter how much I cried, you made me eat them, because they were good for me. I'm sure you're right about this too. I may want to work a ranch, but I bet in five or ten years, I'll be thanking you for making me do the work to get a corporate job."

I sure hope so.

"What did Steve say?" He shakes his head. "If you'd told me last year that you'd date again and that I'd actually like him, I'd have called you a liar, but he's a good person." "I haven't told him yet."

"Oh." He swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. "It'll probably be fine. I mean, you don't know him that well, and we all knew it probably wouldn't go anywhere."

"How did I get you?" My one desperate hope in coming this summer was that I would get my sweet son back. I didn't give him what he wanted, but my plan worked in spite of that. Even with a bump on the trial date, even telling him no about the ranch, the old Ethan is back. He's worried about his mother, he's comforting me.

All is right with the world.

"You should probably tell Mr. Steve," he says. "I mean, if I were him, I'd want to know sooner, not like, via postcard after you've left."

Guilted by my teenage son. "I'll take it under advisement."

I compose a few different texts while I supervise the kids feeding the horses. Their fuzzy noses and stamping feet soothe me. Even the smell of manure doesn't bother me like it did at first. They predominantly eat grass, after all. Once I let them into the pasture, I expect them to take off in a bunch like they usually do.

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But Snoopy sticks around. "You have more than just horse sense, huh?"

"He does," a man says behind me. "He can sense when someone has treats."

I spin around, shocked to hear Steve's voice. "I thought you were working."

"Midday shift today," he says. "Tomorrow we have the morning horseback lesson, remember?"

I shouldn't be smiling, but I can't help it. Anytime I get to see him, I smile. "I'm afraid I have bad news." My smile melts. I want to wait, but I ought to tell him in person. "I won't be able to make it for our Saturday date."

"You hate breakfast?" He tilts his head. "You don't need to try intermittent fasting. You already look great." If I didn't already know, his half grin tells me he's making a joke to cover his confusion.

"We have to fly back early," I say.

Snoopy gives up on me and jogs toward Steve, bumping him over the fence. Steve pulls out a carrot and breaks it into pieces, giving him the first piece. "Why?"

"The trial date on the big case I'm in charge of moved up."

"Does that happen often?"

I shake my head. "Usually one party would complain." I frown.

"But neither did?"

"The judge sent a request." I consider the language. Robert could have simply signed the bottom, indicating he had commitments that couldn't be changed. But he didn't.

"We didn't really have a choice." But I wonder whether that's strictly true.

"I'm guessing your friend Robert was all for the shift." He shakes his head. "That guy doesn't play fair."

"He wouldn't have encouraged something that wrecked my plans." But I wish he'd tried a little harder to discourage it.

"Ethan's going back too?"

"He got into Rice," I say. "There was apparently some kind of foul play with an admissions test and a bunch of kids got scratched. It was a lucky break for him." "Sounds like it." Steve hands the last piece of carrot to Snoopy and stuffs his hands in his pockets.

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"Did I ever tell you that my little sister died?" Steve's not looking at my face. He's staring at Snoopy's hooves.

"No."

He inhales. "I was young-in high school still. She was just a kid. Not even fifteen."

How tragic.

"Before she drowned," he says, "we did everything together. We rode horses. We swam in the creek. Every time we went into town with Mom or Dad, we'd spend every dime we had on baseball cards." Weird.

"She loved baseball. She'd watch it every chance she got. Her favorite player was Mike Piazza." He shakes his head. "We had Becketts and baseball cards hidden all over our rooms." "I'm so sorry for your loss," I say.

"After she died, I kept spending every dime I had on baseball cards." He finally meets my eye. "My senior year, my friend Beth came over. She looked around my room and said, 'I had no idea you even like baseball."" "Did you?"

He chuckles. "Nope. I actually think it's boring, but I kept right on collecting cards until Beth pointed that out, because that was our dream-to have the biggest baseball card collection on the whole West coast." "But it wasn't your dream."

"I never bought another card, not since that day."

"Do you still have the ones the two of you bought?"

"Even packed up, they take up three boxes, but I still have them all."

It's pretty neat that he's held onto them all this time. "I wonder if any of them are worth anything."

"They're all worth something to me." His hand reaches across the fence and catches mine. "I hope all your dreams come true, Abby. I really do." He pulls my hand toward his mouth and presses his lips to the center of my palm. A thrill races through my entire body and my fingers curl, their tips brushing against the scruff on his face.

Then he turns and walks away.