Rip - Becoming Whole

A Picture tells a thousand words

As Rip continued with his therapy things became a lot quieter for him, and everyone else around him as well. The new way of working with Isabelle helped him make sense of what had happened to him or at least make peace with it where this was not possible.

Although it was already late summer and thus their time in the camp slowly but surely came to an end, Mr Dutton was relieved to see that Rip finally started to settle into being there. Better late than never, he thought. 

Up until that point it had seemed Rip only ever noticed the discomfort of being exposed to the raw elements of nature and his own feelings of vulnerability. It had seemed Rip had merely learnt to endure it and Mr Dutton had been saddened by the fact that Rip did not appreciate the opportunity the change of routine and scenery was meant to provide.

For him the camp had always been a chance to rest his busy mind and escape the day-to-day responsibility of running his expansive ranch. He delighted in the beauty of the countryside and found the experience of living out of a tent so close to the elements of nature humbling as it gently reminded him of his own insignificance in the world. He loved listening to the rain falling on his tent at night and the howling of the wind outside and liked to believe that it had a strengthening effect on his spirit and his soul. 

On several occasions he had tried to explain this to Rip in the hope that Rip would agree and admit to having a similar experience to his, but obviously, Mr Dutton's expectation were completely unrealistic in that. Maybe if there had been Wi-Fi, Rip told him with a grin, he could have enjoyed it but otherwise he was just looking forward to it coming to an end, to sleeping in a proper bed, to riding Thunder and Chip every day, hanging out with his friends at school and most of all Chrissy coming back home soon.

Despite this claim however, Rip had become noticeably a lot less irritable with everyone and everything. He seemed to have decided to take a leaf out of Frank's book and bury the hatchet between his grandfather and him as well. Ignoring the misgivings, he had about Paul Rip started to form a relationship with him that was based on their mutual love and appreciation of music, as well as their quiet understanding of each other that had seemed to come so naturally to them when they had first met on that day that Paul had picked Rip up and accompanied him to the tattoo parlour.

In the evenings, Mr Dutton often found them sitting beside each other, heads stuck together over a sketch pad in front of the campfire, and later when they had descended back down to the ranch, they sat in front of their fireplace in the house or in the dim light on their porch, where Rip had Paul draw pictures for his tattoo that he described to him without ever having to explain their actual meaning.

Mr Dutton looked on contently but at the same time worried intensely about the day his brother would take off again which was to come as sure as the leaves were going to fall in autumn. He worried about how the boy would take it but also about the things that remained unsaid between the three of them. He wasn't sure if he did or didn't hope for a chance to have those conversations with either of them that would allow him to clear his conscience. He was surprised that Paul had let the swallows leave without him and wondered if Paul possibly felt the same.

When Chrissy returned from her trip to Europe, she and Rip picked up their friendships exactly where they had left it, even though much had changed for both. If Chrissy's horizon had been broad before, her time on the continent had only broadened it even further, while Rip finally had started to feel truly at home on the Dutton Ranch. He no longer had a sense that he was alone in the world but had a family that he belonged to. He finally reciprocated Mr Dutton's claim on him. The idea of making plans to leave it all behind, to make a future elsewhere was now even further from his mind than before but for a different reason of course. This is where he belonged. It didn't seem to make much of a difference to them though, they were as thick as thieves as ever and dreamt of various ways of how they could make it work. The latest was Chrissy contemplating becoming an overseas journalist embedded in the UN army in some war-torn country, coming home every so often to be with her Rip. She was hopelessly romantic like that but then again so was Rip. Apparently, the old cliché, 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' was really true and neither could imagine a life without the other no matter what the future held and for now, that was all that mattered.