Page 29 of Savage Heart

“I kind of remember. She was mad you’d named me Linc, I remember that. And that’s when you told me more about the accident,” he says.

When Linc started first grade, he came home asking why some of the kids said his mom was a drunk driver. He wasn’t even sure what that meant, but I explained it to him and why they were saying it. He was upset when I told him the town believed I was drunk the night his dad and I had a car accident.

“Like how Grandma Cherry gets?”

I’d nodded.

“But you weren’t?” he’d asked.

“No, I wasn’t. But no one believed me,” I’d told him. “Because they didn’t do a test to prove it.”

I sit at the table next to him.

“I thought maybe I’d see her this week, going over there every day, but she must hide when she knows I’m coming,” he says. He lifts a shoulder. “Since I didn’t see her last year or the year before either.”

“I’m sorry, buddy. She’s really missing out. It upsets me so much that she doesn’t know you, but then I stop and think about how I’d be if I ever lost my son. I don’t think I’d be the same way, but I can’t really know for sure. I just know I’d be inconsolable if I lost you.”

I reach over and take his hand. He looks at me with his sweet, earnest eyes.

“It makes me mad that people didn’t listen,” he says softly. “That some people are so mean to you.”

I run my hand through his hair and pause on his cheek. “The people who matter have listened.”

“But you don’t even drink!” He shakes his head and sighs. “We don’t need those mean people anyway. At least Maverick is nice to you, and he still lets me come to the ranch. That’s good, right?”

I swallow hard and nod.

Linc doesn’t know Maverick was my best friend, closer in many ways than I was to Lincoln. How, for most of my childhood, I believed Maverick and I were destined to be together.

There’s been no need to tell him any of that. It was a foolish childhood dream anyway, not one based on any kind of reality. And why bring up our friendship when it ended with such finality?

Linc leans into my hand. “Thanks for letting me go over there, Mom,” he says softly.

“I’d do anything for you. You know that, right?”

He smiles. “I know.”

My knuckles are white the next morning as I pull onto the gravel drive of the ranch. Maverick told Linc to come at camp time today since he’s about to be here for two weeks straight. Dust kicks up behind the car, and I lament all the time I spent washing my car yesterday afternoon.

Every day, I tell myself this will get easier.

“Mom, look!” Linc’s boots thud against the floorboards. “The horses are out greeting everyone.”

I smile as I see the horses standing in a row, enjoying pets from kids and their parents.

“Lots of people here today,” he says.

A long canvas banner is strung between two fence posts near the main barn. Harrington Ranch Summer Camp is in large block letters.

“You ready to have a blast?” I say, forcing enthusiasm into my voice. “Alex will be here, right?”

“Yeah, he said he’d be here early today too, since his dad has to be.”

“Oh, there they are. I see Dalton, anyway.” I point him out.

Linc throws the door open before the car has come to a complete stop and looks back at me. “You’re staying for a few minutes, right?”

“Right,” I say reluctantly.