“She's okay. She got married again, but she never had any other kids. She's still here.” Everett nodded. He was leery of seeing her again. Their brief adolescent marriage had left a bitter taste in his mouth and probably hers too. They had shared a miserable three years, which finally drove him away. They were the worst possible match he could have imagined, a nightmare right from the beginning. She had threatened to shoot him once with her father's rifle. A month later, Everett walked out. He figured if he didn't, he'd kill her or himself. It had been three years of constant battles. He had started drinking heavily then, and kept at it for twenty-six years.

“What do you do?” Everett asked Chad with interest. He was a strikingly handsome young man, far more so than he himself had been at Chad's age. Chad had a chiseled face and was a rugged man. He was even taller than Everett and had a far more powerful build, as though he worked in the outdoors, or should.

“I'm the assistant foreman at the TBar7 Ranch. It's twenty miles out of town. It's all horses and cattle.” He looked like the perfect cowboy.

“Did you go to college?”

“Junior college. Two years. At night. Mom wanted me to go to law school.” He smiled. “That's not my thing. College was okay, but I'm a hell of a lot happier on a horse than at a desk, although I have to put in a fair amount of desk time now too. I don't like it much. Debbie, my wife, teaches school. Fourth grade. She's a hell of a rider. She's in the rodeo in the summer.” They were the perfect cowboy and wife, and Everett didn't know why, but he sensed that they had a good marriage. He looked like the kind of guy who would. “Did you get married again?” Chad looked at him with curiosity.

“No. I was healed,” he said, and they both laughed. “I've been roaming around the world for all these years, until twenty months ago, when I put myself in rehab and dried up, long overdue. I was too busy and too drunk for all this time for any decent woman to want me. I'm a journalist,” he added, and Chad smiled.

“I know. Mom shows me your pictures sometimes. She always did. You do some pretty cool stuff, mostly wars. You must have been to some interesting places.”

“Yeah, I have.” He realized that he sounded more Montana himself now, talking to the boy. Short sentences, clipped words, and fewer of them. Everything here was spare, just like the rugged terrain. There was an incredible natural beauty to it, and he thought it was interesting that his son had stayed close to home, unlike his father, who had gone as far as he could from his roots. He had no family here now, the little he had were all dead. He had never come back again, except finally, for his son.

They reached the little church then, where the meeting was, and as he followed Chad down the stairs to the basement, he realized how lucky he was to have found him, and that Chad had been willing to see him at all. It could easily have been otherwise. He gave silent thanks to Maggie as he walked into the room. It was only due to her gentle, persistent persuasion that he had come, and he was thrilled now that he had. She had asked him about his son the night they met.

Everett was surprised to see that there were thirty people in the room, mostly men and a few women. He and Chad sat down next to each other on folding chairs. The meeting had just started and followed the familiar format. Everett spoke up when they asked newcomers or visitors to identify themselves. He said that his name was Everett, he was an alcoholic, and had been in recovery for twenty months. Everyone in the room said “Hi, Everett!” and they went on.

He shared that night, and so did Chad. Everett spoke first, and found himself talking about his early drinking, his unhappy shotgun marriage, leaving Montana, and abandoning his son. He said it was the single event in his life he most regretted, that he was there to make amends and clean up the wreckage of the past, if possible, and that he was grateful to be there. Chad sat and looked at his feet while his father spoke. He was wearing well-worn cowboy boots, not unlike his father's. Everett was wearing his favorite pair of black lizard. Chad's were the boots of a working cowboy, splattered with mud, dark brown, and well worn. All the men in the room were wearing cowboy boots and even some of the women. And the men held Stetsons on their laps.

Chad shared that he had been in recovery for eight years, since he got married, which was interesting information for his father. He said he'd had a fight again that day with the foreman, and would have loved to quit his job but couldn't afford to, and that the baby in the spring would put additional pressure on him. He said that sometimes he got scared of all the responsibilities he had. And then he said that he loved his kids anyway, and his wife, and things would probably work out. But he admitted that the new baby locked him even more into his job, and he was resentful about it at times. And then he glanced at his father, and said that it was weird meeting a father he had never known, but he was glad he had come back, even if long overdue.

The two men mingled with the crowd afterward, after the whole group held hands and said the Serenity Prayer. And once the official format of the meeting was over, everyone welcomed Everett, and spoke to Chad. They all knew each other. There were no strangers at the meeting, except Everett. The women had brought coffee and cookies, and one of them was the secretary of the meeting. Everett had liked the shares and said he had thought it was a good meeting. Chad introduced his father to his sponsor, a grizzled-looking old cowboy with a beard and laughing eyes, and his two sponsees, who were about his own age. Chad said he had been a sponsor in AA for almost seven years.

“You've got some time in recovery,” Everett commented when they left. “Thanks for letting me come with you tonight. I needed a meeting.”

“How often do you go?” Chad inquired. He had liked his father's share. It was open and honest and seemed sincere.

“When I'm in L.A., twice a day. Once, when I'm on the road. What about you?”

“Three times a week.”

“That's a heavy load you're carrying with four kids.” He had a lot of respect for him. Somehow he had assumed that Chad had lived in suspended animation for all these years, a child forever, and instead he was a man with a wife and family of his own. In some ways, Everett recognized, he had made more of his life than his father. “What's with the foreman?”

“He's a jerk,” Chad said, looking suddenly young and annoyed. “He rides my ass all the time. He's very old-fashioned, and he runs the ranch the same way he did forty years ago. He's going to retire next year.”

“Think you'll get the job?” Everett asked with fatherly concern, and Chad laughed and turned to look at him as they drove up to the hotel.

“You've been back an hour, and now you're worrying about my job? Thanks, Dad. Yeah, I damn well better get the job or I'll be pissed. I've been working there for ten years, and it's a good job.” Everett beamed when he called him Dad. It was a good feeling, and an honor he knew he didn't deserve. “How long are you going to be here?”

“That's up to you,” Everett said honestly. “What do you think?”

“Why don't you come to dinner tomorrow? It won't be fancy. I have to do the cooking. Debbie's been pretty sick. She always is when she's pregnant, right until the last day.”

“She must be a good sport to have done it so often. And so are you. That's no easy deal supporting all those kids.”

“They're worth it. Wait till you meet them. Actually”—Chad squinted, looking at him—“Billy looks like you.” Chad actually didn't, he looked like his mother, Everett had noticed, and her brothers, who had looked a lot like her. They had been big solid Swedish stock who had come to Montana two generations before from the Midwest, and Sweden before that. “I'll pick you up tomorrow at five-thirty when I get back from work. You can get to know the kids while I cook. And you'll have to forgive Debbie. She feels like shit.” Everett nodded and thanked him. Chad was being incredibly welcoming, so much more than Everett felt he deserved. But he was grateful that after all these years Chad was so willing to open up his life to him. Everett had been a piece missing from his life for too long.

Both men waved at each other as Chad drove away, and Everett hurried back to his room. It was freezing outside, and there was ice on the ground. He sat down on his bed with a smile and called Maggie. She answered on the first ring.

“Thanks for coming up yesterday,” Maggie said warmly. “It was nice,” she continued softly.

“Yes, it was. I've got something to tell you. It may come as a surprise.” She got nervous listening to him, wondering if he was going to put more pressure on her than he had the day before. “I'm a grandfather.”

“What?” She laughed. She thought he was kidding. “Since yesterday? That was quick.”

“Apparently not so quick. They're seven, five, and three. Two boys and a girl. And another one on the way.” He was beaming as he said it. He suddenly liked the idea that he had a family, even if grandchildren made him feel ancient. But what the hell.

“Wait a minute. I'm confused. Did I miss something? Where are you anyway?”

“I'm in Butte,” he said proudly, and all thanks to her. It was yet another gift she had given him, one of many.

“Montana?”

“Yes, ma'am. I flew in today. He's a terrific kid. Not a kid, a man. He's the assistant foreman at a ranch here, and he has three kids and another one on the way. I haven't met them yet, but I'm going to dinner at their place tomorrow. He even cooks.”

“Oh, Everett,” she said, sounding as excited as he was. “I'm so pleased. How's it going with Chad? Is he okay about things … about you …”