Throughout the whole trip, I did an amazing job of not worrying either about work or about various men. Sure, I felt the pang of wishing I was sharing it with someone even amidst all of the activity, because a cruise just isn’t a good singles thing. But work was easy to forget.

So when we got in to San Diego on Friday and I turned on my phone, I figured that the two voice mails on it were work-related. I didn’t do a very good job of leaving notice that I was gone. I forgot to change my voice mail and left the most cursory autoreply on my email.

I listened to them and one was a Merry Christmas from a former coworker that was nice to hear. The other one floored me though.

It was from Cowboy. He didn’t say what he wanted, only to please call him back. All sorts of things immediately ran through my mind to end up at the pit of my stomach and making my hands shake.

It was at least an hour before I could find a quiet enough place to call him back and see what he wanted. An hour in which I had to herd children through a holiday airport and then wait sitting on the floor in the SouthWest terminal, which is always fun. My mind was racing and my sister said not to let him get to me, but of course he already had.

I found a corner and called him back after the herd before us had shuffled onto their cattle truckplane. I was thinking maybe he just wanted to wish me a Merry Christmas or something, since I’d sent a card to his family. A tiny secret little piece of me was really hoping that he’d missed me and wanted me back, even though all rational thought says that’s stupid.

But it was sad news he had. A friend of ours had died the day after Christmas, and he was calling to tell me about it. The guy who owned the place where Cowboy keeps the horses, and who was my friend too, had apparently gone into a diabetic coma the night before and died. They found him in his recliner. Cowboy knew I would want to know. This is the first evidence that I’ve had that he still thinks of me.

I talked to him tonight to pin down the details. The rosary is tomorrow evening and the funeral itself is on Wednesday. I’m going tomorrow and I’ll play Wednesday by ear since it’s in the middle of the day and I do have to work. Cowboy’s a pallbearer. I think he wanted me there for his own sake, but I’m friends with the whole family, so I would have gone even if I’d just read about it in the paper.

And talking to Cowboy just brings back a whole flood of emotions. I can tell that he misses me too, although obviously not enough to continue a relationship. I would take that leap if I thought there was a chance, but we’ll just have to see if there is or not. Seeing him for the first time since April is going to be excruciating, and acting as if we’re family again is going to be both heart breaking and as easy as slipping on my favorite old boots.

It is my family I’ll be seeing, after all, and it is my heart that he still has in his pocket.