Chapter 12 - The Ranch He Left Behind
Naya surprised him.
“Go.”
Elias frowned.
“You want me to leave?”
“I want you choose without fear.”
The words struck him because they were his own lesson returned to him.
So they traveled together.
Thomas joined them.
Three days later, Elias saw the Mercer ranch.
The house remained.
The barn had been rebuilt.
Sarah's grave stood beneath the cottonwood tree.
Naya stopped at a distance.
“You go alone.”
Elias approached the grave.
For years he had imagined this moment.
He knelt.
“I'm sorry.”
Wind moved through the grass.
He told Sarah everything.
About Thomas.
Calder.
Naya.
About how guilty he'd felt for surviving.
When he finished, he realized he was crying.
He didn't hide it.
Eventually he stood.
“Goodbye, Sarah.”
Not because he'd forgotten her.
Because he finally understood that remembering and living could exist together.
Naya waited by the fence.
Elias approached.
“She was beautiful?”
“Yes.”
“You love her?”
“Yes.”
Naya nodded.
No jealousy.
No competition with a dead woman.
That made Elias love her more.
He stopped.
The realization frightened him.
Naya saw it.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Lie.”
He smiled.
“I love you.”
Naya froze.
Elias hadn't planned it.
Apparently neither had she.
“You say again.”
“I love you.”
Her eyes filled.
Then she slapped his chest.
“Ow.”
“You wait long.”
“What?”
“I know many days.”
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“You look stupid when love.”
Thomas's laughter came from the barn.
Elias shouted, “Were you listening?”
“Yes!”
Naya wrapped her arms around Elias.
He held her carefully.
Then she whispered, “I love you too.”
That night Elias decided not to reclaim the ranch.
His home wasn't behind him anymore.
It was wherever they built next.
But before they left, Thomas discovered something beneath a loose floorboard.
A letter.
Written by Sarah before her death.
Addressed to Elias.
He had never seen it.
May you like
And its final lines would change the way he understood his past forever.
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