Page 14 of Jensen

He sighs. “Let me take you out instead.”

Fuming, I snap off the stove and shove the half-cooked pans in the fridge. He doesn’t understand. I don’t just want the bread and soup. I want the particular way my family makes it, the memories that come along with it. But I just nod, blinking hard.

He takes me to an upscale restaurant in Lexington. I sit at his side while he talks to everybody who walks by. The Caudills are Kentucky’s number one family, fast pushing out other competing empires. Leland can’t go out in the city without having a bottle sent to his table. I don’t eat much. The food is dull. There’s no life cooked into it.

That night, after he’s in bed, I go back downstairs and make the cracklin’ bread and soup. It takes a long time, but it’s worth it the minute I take the first bite.

I close my eyes, savoring that taste. Deep inside, my son kicks.

I smile. He likes it.

That becomes my routine for my pregnancy. In the morning, I wear what he wants and go out for breakfast in the city. People stare at my stomach and shake Leland’s hand, like he did something extraordinary by knocking me up. Sometimes, we have dinner too, at places where nobody can ever get a reservation.

After Leland’s in bed, I cook in peace down in the kitchen. My son is active during those times. I hum all the songs I know from memory to him. And he always kicks when I eat, especially thesummer foods—spoonbread, salted tomato and corn, biscuits cooked in cast-iron with sausage gravy.

I leave a shopping list on the fridge. The next week, every item is in the cupboard. Georgie smiles at me, and I smile back at her. It’s a small victory to have women in this house I can call allies.

I eat so damn much, but I burn it all off in my Leland-mandated maternity fitness classes the next day. He’s very concerned that the baby comes out big and healthy. He even gets a doctor to give me a strict diet to follow.

That doesn’t stop me. I’m starving every minute of the day, so I eat what I want at night. That includes making a mason jar of apple butter and eating the entire thing over pancakes and licking the jar clean. He doesn’t understand how much work my body is putting in.

Or how homesick my heart is.

Kayleigh finds me late one night, and she joins in. I like her. She’s different from me, but she’s witty and kind. She doesn’t give a shit what anybody in her family says. She does whatever she wants and spits fire if they criticize her for it. We bitch about Leland together. I cook her recipes from my family, and she eats them and asks for more. She teaches me how to be a Caudill woman, although I’m not brave like her.

Everything comes to a screeching halt when I go into labor. Traditionally, the Caudill women give birth at home with a doctor attending. I get my first wave of contractions around midnight, and fifteen hours later, I’m still writhing on the bed in agony, trying to push out Leland’s eleven pound baby with no progress.

Kayleigh is there because I insisted. I don’t want my mother around—she’s not good under pressure. Kayleigh is white as a sheet, begging Leland to call an ambulance by hour ten. It’s not until the doctor tells him there's a risk to the baby that he orders a helicopter to the backyard. I remember none of it, but they end up doing a c-section while I’m passed out.

My son is called Leland Landis Caudill, named for two of his paternal great grandfathers. I don’t have a say because I’m unconscious. By the time I’m stitched back up and able to reach formy son, the ink is dried, and he’ll never have my daddy’s name. Kayleigh brings him to me, placing him in my arms, and I burst into tears at the first look.

He looks just like Leland.

I can’t be calmed down. Kayleigh takes Landis, which is how he’ll be known until he’s grown, to the nursery. I sob, exhausted and scared. Every nerve in my body quivers. Leland asks me what’s wrong. He’s overjoyed. When I don’t answer, he gets annoyed and orders me to stop. Finally, he leaves me to cry alone.

I can’t do this.

I thought I could, but I can’t.

This is over. I won’t stay with Leland. There’s something about laboring for fifteen hours with nothing but a Tylenol, only for him to name our son without asking my opinion, that wakes me the hell up. I won’t raise another Caudill man to do this to some poor woman again. I’m done with being good and taking his dick and his fucking opinions without complaint.

I’m leaving him.

And I’ll take my son with me.

CHAPTER FOUR

JENSEN

PRESENT DAY

The sky is overcast.

I stand on the crest of the hill. Today, I’m up at Ryder Ranch, working on cleanup after a fire on a neighboring farm. Deacon Ryder, the owner and namesake of the place, a close friend, always has endless jobs for my crew. This time, it’s tearing down the scorched remains now that the warm weather is here and we can finally get equipment over the hill.

It took us about all week. Now, the last truck has hauled everything out. The ashes still need to be raked and taken away, but overall, we’re done.

The wind picks up. It smells hot, like a storm.