He could work, work, work to distract himself. He wished he had a pair of earbuds so he could play really loud music and drown out his thoughts. As it was, all he had to entertain him while he scooped sawdust and straw was his own circular thoughts about Emma.
He finished the stalls in record time and went to feed her babies. “Do you know where she is?” he asked Second Best. He could relate to the colt’s name, because Ted felt about two inches tall and invisible. He knew Emma had seen him when he’d come to the ranch, but it didn’t matter. She was so far into her own narrative that she couldn’t see the possibility of telling him the truth. Doing so would unravel so many of her other carefully crafted lies until her entire existence would collapse.
She’d have to admit that everything in her life was a fraud, and Ted didn’t know many people who would do that. He’d seen it before as a lawyer. It was easier to live inside the lies one told themselves. They made their own reality, and they would not deviate from it, even when presented with facts and direct evidence to the contrary.
That’s where Emma existed, and Ted was simply not enough of a pull to get her to come out and see a new way of being.
He sighed as Second Best cried for more milk, and bless his heart, Ted wanted to give it to him. So he did, despite Emma’s strong warnings not to feed the babies more than one bottle each morning and night. She was actually trying to wean them, and she would not approve of Ted giving in to Second Best.
“But she’s not here,” he muttered to himself, a muted sense of darkness gathering in his very soul. He was well-acquainted with this feeling, and he struggled mightily against it. In River Bay, all he had to do was look at Nate for the man to know of the storm in Ted’s soul.
They’d go to the library or out on the yard while everyone else ate, and somehow, Ted would find a way to catch a ray of hope and wrangle it into staying with him for a while. Right now, Ted could not see any light at the end of this tunnel, and he started to spiral.
He pulled in a breath and held it, trying to find something to hold onto. There was nothing. “Can’t do this,” he said, and he pulled out his phone. Tapping quickly, he called his mother. Pick up, he begged. Please, Ma, pick up. Beside him, Randy whined, and Ted reached over to scratch the dog’s head.
“Teddy,” she said, and her voice alone centered him.
“Ma.” He sounded like a strangled goat, and he couldn’t say anything else.
“What’s wrong, Teddy?”
“Just tell me a story,” he said, leaning his head against the fencing separating him from Second Best. “Something good, Ma.” He’d requested this of her before, when he’d been in prison. When he’d been struggling in law school. When he’d left home for the first time and been so lonely in his dormitory at college.
“Teddy, who are you with?”
“I’m feeding a baby horse,” he said. “I’m alone. Well.” He looked at Randy. “I have my dogs here with me.”
“Go find Nate.”
“I can’t, Ma,” he said. “Just tell me a story. Maybe the one when we went to Epcot.”
A beat of silence passed, and then his mother’s kind, lovely voice filled the line. She detailed how Shane had wanted to stand in the line for the biggest roller coaster. “I can’t even remember the name of it.” She gave a light laugh, and that chased away some of the panic in Ted’s mind. “But we did. We stood there for hours. Britta had to go to the bathroom so bad, and we were all starving. Then, right when it was our turn, the ride malfunctioned. It scared Shane, and he wouldn’t get on it, even when they got it fixed.”
“So we went without him,” Ted said, finishing the story for her. “I remember that.” He smiled, because life had been simple then. His parents hadn’t had a ton of money, but they’d saved for a year to take the family to Florida. His mother had made everyone matching shirts—green and blue stripes—so no one would get lost in the theme park.
“Thankfully, that cured him of lines, and we were able to go around to the different countries and get snacks.” His mother laughed again, the sound of it made of pure magic.
“Mom,” he said, lifting his head and pulling the bottle away from Second Best. “I’m really sorry about everything that I’ve done that has caused you any pain at all.” His chest suddenly tightened, and he wasn’t even sure where the apology had come from. Only that it was there, and he’d needed to say it.
“Oh, Teddy,” she said. “You’re a good man, and you always have been.”
Ted wasn’t sure about that, because did good men really go to prison? Yes, there was a lot that was unfair about his case. If the man he’d hit hadn’t been an undercover cop, Ted might still be practicing law. If his firm hadn’t been dealing with some shady characters, the UC wouldn’t have even been there.
If it hadn’t been Wells’s birthday, and if Kellie hadn’t brought a cake, and if someone else—anyone else—had been cutting it, Ted wouldn’t be where he was.
He also believed with everything inside him that he was right where he was supposed to be, and that his path here was the one he was supposed to be on. So while he didn’t understand it, at least it didn’t add to his spiral.
“Thanks, Ma,” he
