“I told your father we’d attend a BBQ on Thursday. We could stage the breakup there? He had asked if we could come over tonight, but I told him we already had plans.”
“Oh really? That’s good because I actually do have plans.” Seth grinned mischievously. “And now it sounds like you do, too.”
“B-36!”
A wave of mutters rolled across the sterile multi-purpose room like the disapproval at a comedy club after a bad one-liner. Linoleum the color of oatmeal and walls in a similar, muted shade made for a bleak atmosphere, but Seth knew this was the highlight of the week for the mass of people congregating within the depressing space, even if their groans and grumbles didn’t convey it.
“Give us something to work with, would you?” Gus spat. His dobber shook in his trembling hand and he waved it at Seth in the same manner he used his cane to put others in their place. “Maybe have that girl of yours call out the numbers. Doubt she could do a worse job.”
Seth settled the white ball onto the rack and gave the Bingo cage another wild spin. “You want to read this one?” He turned to Josie and handed her the most recent ball to roll down the chute.
“Sure.” She turned it over in her palm. “N-12!”
“That’s more like it!” Gus happily blotted his card with the marker. “Just like that. Keep ‘em coming.”
“Tough crowd,” Josie murmured.
“You have no idea. Gus over there always seems to find something to grumble about. Even a basket of free cookies.”
“I can’t imagine I’d be all too cheerful if I had to live here. Makes my trailer look like a palace.” Josie took another ball. “G-5!”
Seth cranked the handle again. The balls jumped and bounced within the cage like popcorn on a stovetop. “Last time I was here, I told Gramm I’d figure out a way to get her out. Even if it’s just for an afternoon.” He passed off another Bingo ball. “A change of scenery is long overdue.”
“N-11!” Josie hollered. “What about arranging a little trip out to the ranch for some equine therapy?”
“You think the horses are ready for that?”
“In a few days, sure. I remember back when my grandma started losing her memory due to dementia, the only thing that could pull her out was the familiarity of a horse. Those animals have such a calming nature about them. Just being in their presence is often enough to soothe even the most burdened of souls.”
“And you think a set of wild mustangs will have the same effect?”
“I think they will have an even greater effect. They’re untamed. Free. Something the folks shuttered in this place likely haven’t experienced in years…I-45! I-45!”
“Bingo!” Berta burst from her chair, flapping her card in a celebration. After confirming her numbers and gifting Berta her prize of a dozen freshly-baked sugar cookies, Seth returned to the front of the room to help Josie call out a new game.
The evening passed quickly, much faster than the times Seth had volunteered as a Bingo caller at the retirement home on his own. Maintaining a side conversation kept the night moving along at a steady pace.
He liked the idea of bringing Gramm and her friends out to the ranch and they hatched a plan to make it happen, sooner than later. When he broached the subject with his grandmother, a light sparked in her eyes that cast away all the weary and troubled dimness previously inhabiting them. If Seth had told her she’d won the lottery, her joy couldn’t be any greater.
“Back at the ranch,” she’d said wistfully. “Never thought I’d live to see the day.”
Those words haunted Seth on the drive home. Gramm hadn’t been out to the house in years, but it wasn’t as though they had locked her away and thrown out the key. Had they?
“You okay?” Josie glanced across the cab.
The clocks had changed the week before, and while it was only eight o’clock, the darkened skies and the stars already making their debuts made it feel closer to midnight. Jet black swathed the country hills, the only available light the two beams from Seth’s headlights that pierced the skies in funnels of white. Streetlamps didn’t exist out on these no-name roads. Every man was responsible for lighting his own path.
Seth always liked this time of year when nightfall came early. He was an early riser and appreciated the extra hours of sunlight reserved for the break of day and the productivity that coupled with it. But tonight, the darkness produced a melancholy he wasn’t accustomed to. He couldn’t shake the feeling that things weren’t right with Gramm. He just didn’t know what to do about that.
“Seth?” Josie prodded.
“Yeah?” He turned his head to look at her, surprised by the concern that buckled her brow. “Oh. I’m fine.”
“You’ve been quiet.”
“Just been thinking. That’s all.”
“Anything I can help with?” She tugged at her seatbelt strap to loosen it enough so she could angle in her seat to face him fully. “Anything you want to talk about?”
“I know we’re doing this whole fake relationship thing, but you’re not obligated to listen to my problems, Josie. That’s not in the contract.” He chuckled under his breath. They hadn’t made a contract, of course, but the thought of fake relationship guidelines was one that made him laugh. “Not that there’s a contract,” he added for good measure.
“I’m not asking as a pretend girlfriend. I’m asking as someone who has spent the entire evening with you and watched your whole demeanor shift within the span of one car ride.”
“I’m just mulling over something my grandma said. Something that caught me off guard. That’s all.”
Josie seemed appeased by that as she didn’t push the conversation into deeper territory. Rather, she surprised him with a total one-eighty when she said, “As your fake girlfriend, are there any things I should know about you? Things that girlfriends would know? If we’re going to pull this off, I want to at least put in a valiant effort.”
What was there to know? He was a cowboy. Youngest son in a family of California born cattle ranchers. Hobbyist baker, but she already knew that. Seth thought on those three descriptors but sensed they weren’t what she was after. He wasn’t good at summing himself up, mostly because he was still trying to figure himself out. And that was the whole problem, it seemed. His brother and father—they knew exactly who they were. Their days looked the same, sunup to sundown and back around again. Month after month. Year after year. Sure, there was some inevitable variation when dealing with livestock, but all in all, their lives as ranchers were marked out—start to finish—just like every other rancher on their family tree.
Seth wasn’t sure he wanted that.
“Nothing?” Josie challenged.
“What kind of stuff do you want to know?”
“Are you happy?”
His body went rigid. “Happy?”
“Yeah, are you happy? Happy with your life at the ranch? Happy with your place in the family business? Happy with the way your dad and brother think of you?”
Seth’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. “It’s not like I can do anything to change the way they think of me, Josie. Our family is…complicated.”