A moment was necessary for my brain to switch tracks, but when I did I saw that Jethro was frowning. His usual good-natured temperament had been eclipsed by something dark.
My first instinct was to avoid the question and respond, I don’t know. Based on what I knew about Jethro—both from him and from others—his label likely hadn’t been a good one. It had been unkind, though perhaps well earned.
I took too long to answer. His brow clouded with murky melancholy as his eyes darted to mine. “You can say it.”
“I didn’t know you growing up.”
“But you can guess.” Jethro gripped the steering wheel tighter and swallowed; his tone was hollow and quietly demanding as he insisted, “Guess. Please.”
I pressed my lips together in a flat line, not wanting to add any more fuel to his fire of perpetual self-recrimination.
So instead I said, “Jethro, labeling kids isn’t fair—it doesn’t matter if the label is good or bad. It puts them in a box and makes them feel like they have to live inside it.”
We were quiet after that, my words hanging between us. He was considering them. As he pulled into the parking lot in front of Daisy’s, I was relieved to see his brow clear and a soft smile whisper over his features.
But then he said, “Billy was the responsible one. Cletus was . . . well, he’s the odd one. Ashley was the beautiful one. Beau was the charmer. Duane was the quiet one. Roscoe was considered the overachiever, or something like that. And I was the disappointment.”
My heart twisted. His words physically hurt me. He may have made bad decisions as a kid, as a teenager, but shaking off a label affixed during childhood was almost impossible.
“You’re not a disappointment.” I grabbed his hand as soon as he parked, brought it to my lap and cradled it there. “Your family is so proud of you. Most people live up or down to the expectations set by their label. Very few people are able to transcend it.”
“I know.” He gave me a charming shrug. Both his expression and words were laced with a healthy dose of self-confidence. “I turned it around.”
Then he grinned a charming grin.
My mouth parted with surprise and I marveled at this man. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“In one breath you’re so negative about yourself, and in the next you’re singing your own praises.” An astonished laugh tumbled from my lips.
“I’m negative about who I used to be, Sienna. But not who I am now. I admit though, sometimes I don’t feel deserving of my own happiness.” He turned his hand in mine and threaded our fingers together, bringing my knuckles to his lips. He brushed soft kisses over the backs of my fingers, and when he spoke his words were introspective. “It’s frustrating, as you say, having the history of the label. I see it in people, the way they look at me, what they expect. They expect dishonesty. They expect me to be a joke.”
I felt compelled to say, “People expect me to be a joke, too.”
Jethro gave me a soft, sympathetic smile. “You are more than the jokes you told when you were five, or eight, or thirteen.”
“And you are more than the mistakes of your youth. You are more than the label you’ve been assigned by people who might love you, but don’t really know who you are anymore.”
His gaze captured mine, heated, and then dropped to my lips. “I suppose it’s part of why we seek out a partner. Why we’re driven to build a new family, pursue new friendships. There’s freedom in being a blank canvas to another person and having some control over what is painted on that canvas.”
I studied him in the weighty silence, feeling a kinship that went beyond liking, or even extreme liking. It was a shared understanding that only comes from living through similar experiences.
Jethro had been the disappointment.
I’d been the clown.
Individually we had become more.
But together and with each other, we didn’t need to be our labels.
We were free to just be ourselves.
Coffee? Check.
Doughnuts? Check.
Alone with Jethro in my trailer with the door locked? DOUBLE CHECK!
My call time wasn’t until 10:00 a.m., but Jethro had to check the traps before then. If any bears had been caught over the weekend, he needed to haul them out of the cove before midday, before the sun heated the prairie.
Even so, we had at least an hour until he had to leave.
I pushed the chairs out of the way, leaving just a small circular side table in the middle of the space and an expanse of unencumbered carpet. I placed two plates on the table and stood back to survey my work. Jethro lifted his eyebrows at me while I arranged the furniture. He stood off to one side, holding the doughnuts and his own coffee.