It was the first night I’d kept my window closed since I’d climbed up into Jesse’s room. I never thought I could cry as much as I did over a window, but my sobs ripped through me so long and so hard that, after a while, they rocked me to sleep.

A CLAP OF thunder shaking the farmhouse jolted me awake. It was still dark and my eyes still felt puffy, so I knew it couldn’t have been all that long since I’d fallen asleep. After fumbling around for my phone, I saw it was just past midnight.

Another crack, that one shaking the house even more, and I instinctively reached for the space beside me on the bed.

I found . . . nothing. Just an empty space and a cool to the touch sheet.

Jesse wasn’t lying beside me. He wasn’t here to wrap me up in his arms, whisper in his sleepy voice that everything was all right, followed by a yawn, before we fell back asleep.

Jesse was gone because I’d pushed him away. Like I always knew I would. Like I knew I had to. For reasons I couldn’t quite remember in my sleep stupor, but for reasons that had seemed important earlier.

I tried lying back down. That lasted for all of two seconds before it became clear I couldn’t fall back asleep with the thoughts raging through my mind.

How could I let Jesse go? How could I let the Walkers go? How could I simply cut the best things in my life loose? Would I really walk away because things got hard? Would I really push the people who loved me away because they’d gotten too close? Would I really take the first healthy thing that had come into my life in a long time and throw it away?

The knowledge that I was strongly considering it made me realize I was, as Jesse said, trying to deny others what I’d been denied. I was becoming like my mom.

That was the thought that jolted me out of bed.

I moved silently down the hall and stairs and headed for the kitchen. I wasn’t hungry, but I didn’t know where else to go. All I knew was that I couldn’t stay in my room and I couldn’t climb up into the room I wanted to be in until I figured some shit out.

I knew I was facing one of those life-changing decisions. One of those defining moments. I was at a fork in the road. Would I continue down the same self-destructive, familiar path or would I choose to make a change, scary and unknown as that change would be?

A flashing sign with the answer in front of me would be really nice.

A light streaming from the living room caught my attention. The house was quiet except for my footsteps padding around the kitchen floor, so someone must have left a light on. I shuffled through the foyer, and when I entered the living room, I didn’t find it empty like I thought I would.

Rose sat on the floor, a few photo albums spread out around her, along with a pot of tea still steaming on a tray.

My instinct was to back away before she noticed me. I went against my instinct.

“Couldn’t sleep either?” I said, crossing the room toward her.

She didn’t look surprised to see me. In fact, when I took a closer look at the tea tray, I saw two cups instead of one. She’d been expecting me, it would seem.

“No.” She shook her head. “I never can when I know one of my babies is hurting. I suppose it’s a mother’s curse.”

I stopped at the edge of albums. “You talked with Jesse?”

She reached for the teapot and poured some into the other cup. “I did. He let me know that he told you about his past. About his adoption.”

I played with the hem of Jesse’s shirt. “Did he tell you about us?”

Rose set the teapot down and sighed. “He didn’t need to, sweetie. I could see it all on his face.”

I shifted and fought the urge to turn around and leave. “I didn’t mean to hurt him, Rose. I just want what’s best for him, you know?”

“Believe me, Rowen, as his mother, I know plenty about wanting what’s best for him.” She looked up at me with a serious expression. “I’m just hoping you’re going to realize sooner rather than later that you are what’s best for him.”

“You don’t mean that,” I whispered.

“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t. And neither would Jesse. Maybe one day, Rowen, you’ll believe that, too.”

I didn’t reply. I wanted to believe that, but I wasn’t sure if I ever could. “Is everyone else asleep?” I wanted to steer the conversation away from the current topic.

“The girls are, but Neil and Jesse headed out about an hour ago with a few of the other ranch hands to look for a missing calf.”

I narrowed my eyes. “In the middle of the night? In the middle of this?” Another clap of thunder rocked the house to prove my point. “Couldn’t it have waited until morning?”

“Well, it could have,” Rose replied with a lift of her shoulders. “For anyone but Jesse or my husband.” She smiled and shook her head. “I think Neil was eager to get out of the house after the . . . earlier events, and Jesse looked like he needed the distraction even more.” I didn’t need to wonder why or what he needed a distraction from. “It’s probably for the best, anyways. There are plenty of predators out there, cliffs to tumble over, or fences to get tangled up in. A calf won’t last long once it’s separated from the herd.”

It still seemed extreme, but that seemed to be the status quo when it came to ranching and cowboys. “I hope they find the little thing soon then.”

“Me too,” Rose said with a nod. “I was getting these out for you.” Rose swept her hands over the photo albums. “When Jesse let me know he told you about the adoption, I figured you’d have questions and you know what they say . . .” she studied a photo of a young boy with white blond hair and smiled, “a picture says a thousand words.”

I tip-toed around the half dozen albums she had spread around her and took a seat beside her.

“And then I started thumbing through one, and I just kept thumbing.” She waved at the mass of albums.

I picked up the one closest to me and opened it to the first page. A young Neil and Rose stood with a young boy with sad eyes. He clung to Rose where she held him. Neil and Rose were smiling. Five-year-old Jesse was not. A note below the photo read, The day we brought our baby home.

A lump formed in my throat. I was so familiar with the hopeless, lost look on young Jesse’s face I could have been looking in a mirror.

“I’m glad he told you.” Rose leaned over and studied the picture. “It’s something he doesn’t like to relive, but it will always be a part of him.” She was quiet for a few moments as she gazed at the photo. “What those people did to him was unthinkable. His own flesh and blood abused and neglected him in ways worst enemies wouldn’t even conceive of doing to one another.”

I polished my thumb over Jesse’s sad face. I couldn’t comprehend how anyone could show anything but total love and adoration for the child in the photo.

“When the agency described what had happened to him . . . When we had to read through pages and pages of notes detailing the abuse he’d gone through . . .” Rose’s voice trembled, but she cleared her throat and continued, “Neil and I couldn’t not adopt him. We knew the risks. A young boy abused in the ways he had been had a high likelihood of becoming an extremely troubled young man. But you know what we said?” She chuckled and smiled down at the picture. “We told them to stick their ‘likelihoods’ where the sun doesn’t shine and asked to take our son home.”

I smiled with her and flipped the page. “And you all lived happily ever after.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” she said, taking a sip of her tea, “but we didn’t underestimate the power of a stable home and a loving family. We gave him that, and the rest was up to him.”

The next page was his first day of kindergarten. Well, homeschool kindergarten, but he still had a backpack and a new pair of boots, and he posed in front of the Walkers’ front door. His eyes were still sad, but he wore a smile.