14 Chapter 13

Chelseaville January 1976

In the resurrecting wake of Hope in his life, Harrison drove himself to a place he could not break his system over for before. He knew his life to be a constant timeline of predictions. He knew what he was going to do and to a certain extent, even feel the next day, week or month, but now that Hope had treaded onto his path he felt his timeline was going to change into something and terrifying as it already was he could tell he would never see it coming.

From the days of his childhood, Harrison Crawford decided to not strike himself as an intellect. He had hated high school too much that he skipped classes and bartended at The Jug and Lion just to get away from it all. He could have been the straight A’s kid; it was just that he chose not to be. Gradually the vain days of high school halted at a dead end and his father’s ranch became his home. The pasture was his life, and the paddock an escape of his own. He was happy and content as the rebel days passed over and he moulded himself into a real Crawford rancher like his father. The plain truth that his friends from school pursued carriers to become professors or join the ‘Bama football league did not stir him a bit, unless the pity he felt towards them for leaving Chelseaville to the great pretentious outside counted. Harrison did not ever have to leave Chelseaville to know what the outside was like, which was why he was personally aloof towards Hope and her family the moment they got to town.

Harrison’s juvenile days of a fine young rancher at eighteen was blissful, learning to rally the cattle up into the barn with his first ever mare, Nyx , was exhilarating- the days when cattle scattered across the pasture in clusters, as his mare circled them gracefully, drove Harrison to a better place. In the evenings just after the purple shade of the sky dissolved into the horizon, Harrison ran to the barn and tagged alongside his father, each on their mares to lure the horses back at the paddock. It was beautiful, but soon John Crawford’s life fell into the hands of consumption, and before Harrison could even realise he was waking up to a morning without a father, he was thrusted into running the ranch.

At nineteen, Harrison only had plans to savour his time at the ranch in his own way and running it all by himself was not one of them. Chasing around the ranch with his father was what the town saw, but he was the one to be certain the cattle at the dairy were milking fine or the pasture was trimmed enough to leave some strands for the horses and the cattle, to see the hay bales were stocked and re-stocked, and to make sure all the workers were doing their job at the ranch.

Reality struck Harrison hard, but he had an anchor- his mother. June Crawford. He cared for the ranch regardless of the heavy work, but deep down he knew a part of him was held at the ranch because of his mother. He promised himself he would keep this vibrant, funny woman well looked after. While John got sicker, June became tired and Harrison saw his mother’s eyes losing its glint, and a pale dullness overtaking it. It was an ordinary day at the ranch when Harrison came home to see his mother leaning against the kitchen counter muttering a fervent prayer, and he was wrong to believe she was praying for his father as he did not know then that she was praying for him instead.

Harrison’s mother’s sensitive immunity could not keep off the pneumonia that moved on to her and with the grief of her husband’s condition overwhelming her, she left sooner.

Harrison used to wonder why life made things harder instead of leaving it be the way it already is. The Crawford house lost a spark after June’s death and it was the first flame to be blown out in Harrison too. But Harrison learned to move on, because the one thing he could do so well was toss the grief behind him and leave it there.

By the time John was at his absolute worst, Harrison was capable of running a ranch of his own and that was the confirmation old Crawford needed to let go, he knew he’d hurt Harrison by relieving him of his mother, and he could not bear to see his son waste a lifetime for him. He had to let go, and so he did. With the power of will or in a moment of weakness, one could not say, John Crawford died two years after June.

At the Chelseaville cemetery grounds standing between his mother’s gravestone and his father’s, wearing his father’s neatest suit which draped his lean muscular body without any odd ridges, Harrison left the last ray of light he had in him. He told himself he would never admit himself to pain that trembled him and bought him to his knees, ever again. When he left the church graveyard on that one autumn evening, he did not know he had left something vital of his hanging in the air.

At twenty-two he was not ready to be parent less and he was not ready to understand people could be taken away, that people he loved could be just ripped away. The childish heart within him could not fathom the loss and yearned for answers but as time passed over and answers became a lack there of, his fully fledged brain brutally forced him out of his period of mourning into his slackened duties.

The Crawford house became desolate, with one ridged soul remaining, but he discovered a tinge of comfort left behind in the barns, paddock, cattle, and the mares. Weeks after the loss of his father, Harrison felt purposeless and the town became overbearing. All he could sense was pity and annoyance with every glance that headed his way, but he could not get far into losing himself to oblivion as his mother’s memory was still bright and his father’s resilient. Harrison made up his mind to do the one thing he could do and the one thing his mother always did whenever she felt herself setting apart from the world and that was to be there for, and stay true and honest for the town. She had once told him that ‘if you can’t be there for yourself, don’t fail to be there for the ones around you.’ Ever since, though the creases of his scowls scarred his face, he never refused anyone’s distress call, well, that was until he met Hope. Living in a ranch with men who grunted and growled Harrison forgot what it felt like to have a woman in his life, or how different things could be.

If the night at the barn with her proved anything at all for him it was that it reminded him how fragile life could be. He remembered that it was not to be taken for granted. She did something to make his nerves loosen. To feel his body ripple with comfort made him guilty, he thought it wasn’t right to feel that light and it was the guilt that made him lose his grip on whatever he was holding on to so he would see himself slip and fall with his eyes wide open into a bottomless void.

He steered cleared off friends and love and a chance at happiness, afraid of the bitter feeling that crumbled his insides the moment he felt a ray of sunshine seep in, as if he would turn to dust at the touch of gold. But that night at the barn as he felt the bitter guilt crushing him, he once again saw himself pummelling down to nothingness, but then it stopped. Just like that, at the assurance of her around him, the nerves thrumming in his ears miraculously slowed down to a rattling rhythm as he felt the ground beneath him, and he could not tell what it was about her. Was it magic or work of the dark arts? He never understood but he knew he had finally hit the bottom and he was not alone down there either.

Hope made him accept the pain and fear of loss rather than resent it, she made pain revive him. That was it, every time he saw her it was a sharp throbbing pain that jabbed under his ribs, and then he would catch that ever-immortal glint in her eyes, the very aura of her—a fearsome self-gratification.

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