Holiday Horseman
The sequined Christmas top seemed like such a good idea three hours ago.
Now it felt like a costume for a play she didn’t understand because apparently nothing in Evergreen Springs, Montana was what it seemed.
Not even reality itself.
Fiona Walker sat in her ancient Honda in the Rusty Spur’s parking lot, engine running, heater blasting, trying to process what had just happened.
The dashboard clock glowed 10:47 PM, but time lost all meaning over the last thirty minutes when her best friends informed her that magic was real and cowboys from 1878 kept appearing in their town.
Time. Traveling. Cowboys.
She pressed her forehead against the steering wheel and laughed. Or maybe it was closer to hysteria. The sound echoed in the empty car, bouncing off the windows fogging from her breath.
Wyatt McCready was from 1878. Wyatt, who helped Jamie with a school project about Montana history. Wyatt, who was living in domestic bliss with her good friend, Eliza, watching Netflix and eating popcorn like a normal person.
Except he was from another century.
And Cade, poor Tessa’s Cade, vanished back to 1878 because the magic Christmas card took Tessa at her word when she said she didn’t need Cade.
“Magic Christmas cards, that pull cowboys through time,” Fiona said aloud, tasting the absurdity. “Sure. Why not? And I suppose next you’ll tell me Santa is real and my ex-husband actually had a justifiable reason for leaving.”
She lifted her head and caught her reflection in the rearview mirror. Mascara smudged from laughing. Or had she been crying? Hard to tell. She looked like what she was. A twenty-eight-year-old single mom who thought her biggest problem was making rent and keeping Jamie in occupational therapy.
But no. She was living in some kind of Hallmark movie meets The Twilight Zone.
“How did I miss this?” she asked her reflection. “How did I not notice cowboys from the eighteen hundreds cropping up?”
Though, thinking about it now, there were signs. The way Wyatt had stared at the automatic doors at the grocery store like they might attack. His complete bafflement the first time Jamie’s tablet made noise. The time he asked if electric lights ever caught fire like oil lamps.
She thought he was quirky. Perhaps raised by those off-grid survivalist types who lived up in the mountains. Who knew he came from 1878?
A knock on her window made her jump so hard she honked the horn with her elbow.
The bartender, Ned Sinclair, stood outside, huddled against the cold and looking concerned.
She rolled down the window, cold air rushing in and sending a shiver down her spine.
“You okay, Fiona? Been sitting here a while.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just processing the evening.”
“Tessa looked pretty rough tonight.” Ned leaned against her car. “That cowboy of hers coming back? My brother’s still looking for someone to work with his cutting horses.”
“I don’t think so,” Fiona said. “He had to go back home.”
“That’s a shame. Don’t see horsemanship like that much anymore.”
No, because horsemanship like that came from another century.
“I should go.”
Ned stepped back, tipping his hat. “Drive safe. Roads might be icy.”
She rolled up the window and pulled out of the lot, navigating the familiar streets while her mind reeled. Christmas lights blurred past, wreaths on lampposts, inflatable Santas in yards, trees twinkling in windows. The whole town dressed up for the holiday.
The radio played I’ll Be Home for Christmas, and she had to turn it off because the irony was too much. Cade wouldn’t be home for Christmas. He was more than a hundred years away from the Christmas he planned with Tessa.
And that card. God, that card. She touched it. It had been warm, like it was alive, like it was waiting.
Tessa had pulled it out of her purse like it was a live grenade that could explode your whole life and send people careening through time.
Fiona turned onto Maple Street, and then had to pull over because her hands were shaking too hard. She gripped the steering wheel and tried to breathe through the paradigm shift.
Magic was real. Time travel was real. Her best friends had been keeping massive secrets. The world was fundamentally not what she thought it was when she put on this stupid sequined top and thought her biggest concern was taming her unruly hair.
She checked her phone, saw an unread message from her mother.
Jamie’s asleep. Dad and I need to talk to you when you get home. It’s important.
Great. Because this night needed more drama.
She pulled back onto the road, driving the last few blocks to her apartment on autopilot.
The thing was, and this was the part that really got her, if magic Christmas cards were real, if time-traveling cowboys were real, then what else was real?
What other impossible things were happening right under her nose while she worried about grocery lists and therapy schedules?
The small complex came into view, modest and familiar, its windows dark except for the glow from her living room. Normal problems. Parents who thought the biggest mystery in life was why Jamie insisted on arranging his toy dinosaurs by geological period.
How was she supposed to walk in there and pretend everything was normal when nothing would ever be normal again?
She parked in her usual spot and sat for a moment, trying to pull herself together. Her parents were waiting. Whatever they needed to tell her, it couldn’t be stranger than what she just learned.
Time-traveling cowboys. Magic Christmas cards. Her best friends keeping impossible secrets.
Fiona grabbed her purse and headed inside, keys jingling too loudly in the quiet night. The sequins on her top scratched at her arms as she moved, each one catching the streetlight like tiny stars, reminding her that the world was full of impossible things that sparkled in the darkness.
The door opened before she could get her key in the lock, and there were her parents, standing close together, both looking too solemn.
Her mom’s hands were clasped, her dad’s mouth pressed into the stern line he wore when he told her Grandma had passed.
A cinnamon candle glowed on the coffee table.
The afghan rested on the arm of the couch, folded but unused.
In the corner, the space where the Christmas tree usually stood was bare.
No lights. No ornaments. Just emptiness, waiting.
The sight hit harder than it should have.
Her parents always helped her put it up, and made sure Jamie got to hang the first ornament.
This year, the corner lay empty. They just hadn’t had time to get to it yet.
“What’s wrong?” The words came out sharper than she intended, her nerves already frayed from trying to process time travel and magical Christmas cards. “Is Jamie okay? Did something happen?”
“Jamie’s fine, sweetheart.” Mom’s voice held the careful quality that meant bad news was coming. “He went down easy tonight. Out by the middle of the second book.”
Her dad didn’t speak right away. He rubbed at the back of his neck, shifted his stance, and stared at the floor like the words were heavy stones he couldn’t quite lift. He cleared his throat, the roughness sounding worse than usual.
Mom smoothed her palm over the afghan’s fringe. “We’ve been sitting here trying to figure out how to say this.”
Fiona’s pulse quickened. “What is it? Money trouble? Did something happen with the car? You’re both okay?”
Neither answered.
Dad exhaled. “I had my appointment with Dr. Teague on Friday.” His voice carried its old command, but underneath, resignation bled through. “The tests showed these lungs can’t take another Montana winter. The cold. The altitude. It’s too much.”
Fiona blinked, the words clanging without meaning at first. Her dad. The firefighter who carried kids out of burning buildings. The man who seemed indestructible her whole life. Saying can’t.
“Friday? You went to the doctor Friday and you’re just telling me now? It’s Monday night.”
Mom’s eyes brimmed. “We didn’t want to ruin your weekend, honey or your girls’ night out. We thought we could wait until after the holidays to tell you, let you have Christmas before—”
“But the doc was clear,” Dad cut in, jaw clamped tight.
His hand curled around the sofa’s edge. “If I don’t get to a warmer climate soon, we’re looking at another hospitalization.
Maybe worse. Your Uncle Paul’s has the casita behind his place ready.
Told us to come when we needed. And we need to go.
” He paused, forcing the next words. “We’ll spend the winter there.
Just until spring, when it warms up enough that I can breathe again. ”
“Not forever,” Mom said. “Just for the winter. We’ll be back as soon as it warms up.”
But Fiona heard only the absence. Weeks. Months. The entire stretch of the year that held Christmas, New Year’s, Jamie’s birthday. All the pieces she couldn’t imagine surviving without them.
“Tomorrow?” Her voice shot high, threatening to carry to Jamie’s room.
She lowered it fast. “You can’t leave tomorrow.
Christmas is in ten days. Jamie’s been practicing Jingle Bells on his keyboard for you.
He made ornaments. He asked if Grandpa would read ’Twas the Night Before Christmas because, his exact words, ‘Grandpa does the voices best.’”
Mom reached for her, tears spilling. “We’ll FaceTime every day. We’ll read stories over the phone. We’ll—”
“It’s not the same.” Fiona wrapped her arms around herself. Sequins scratching her skin. “You’re the ones who pick him up when I work late. You’re the ones who know how to calm him when routine changes unexpectedly. You’re the ones who—”
Who keep me sane and believing I can do this.
“I know, Fi.” Dad’s voice gentled. “You think I want to leave? Miss his Christmas morning? But if I stay…” His hand pressed against his chest. “If I stay, there may not be another Christmas.”
The fight bled out of her. She saw it then, the gray undertone to his skin, the way his stance sagged, the shallow breaths that ended with a cough. When had her father, her fire-eater, become this fragile?
Mom’s voice cracked. “We tried everything else first. Called about oxygen systems, looked into treatments, even considered Billings for the lower elevation. But Dr. Teague was firm. Montana’s too high. Too cold.”
Dad nodded once, as if each syllable cost him. “Phoenix is closer to a sea level and warm. That difference gives me a chance at good years. Years I can still toss a ball with Jamie. Years your mom doesn’t sleep with one ear tuned to my breathing.”
Fiona’s eyes burned. She glanced at her mom and saw the fatigue etched deep, and the way her gaze never left Dad’s face. They hated it too. They spent their weekend searching for ways to stay and had run out of options.
“Okay, you’re right. You have to go.”
Mom broke then, pulling her into a fierce hug that smelled of White Shoulders perfume and cinnamon candle. Dad’s arms came around them both, and for a long moment, they stood locked together, grief braided with love.
When they finally let go, Fiona swiped at her face with the back of her hand. “I need to check on Jamie.”
She slipped down the hall, every step heavy. The dinosaur nightlight cast green shadows across the wall. Jamie lay sprawled under his snowflake quilt, a giraffe clutched to his chest.
Fiona sank to her knees beside the bed, brushing hair from his forehead. Her father’s chin. Her mother’s lashes. Her own wild hair that never laid flat without intervention. Seven years old and unaware that tomorrow would tilt his world off its axis.
Tomorrow she would pack his lunch alone. Get him to school alone. Figure out pickups around her jobs. Navigate his routines without his grandparents’ magic touch.
“Your Nana and PopPop love you very much. They’ll miss you every day. But love doesn’t care about distance. It just keeps going, like starlight.”
Jamie stirred, burrowed deeper into his quilt, untroubled.
Fiona stayed until her knees ached, memorizing his peace, knowing how fragile it could be. She thought of meltdowns soothed only by Grandpa’s humming, nights when Mom’s steady calm carried them through. Who would step in now when she reached the end of herself?
She pushed to her feet and returned to the kitchen. Her parents were moving through small motions, Dad jotting notes on the fridge pad, Mom unloading the dishwasher, as if they just kept busy, it would hurt less.
“Your Uncle Paul’s got everything ready,” Dad said without looking up. “Casita’s furnished. Pulmonologist nearby. We’ll drive in stages, and take our time.”
“Forecast looks clear through Utah.” Mom held up the weather report on her phone. “I left lasagna in the fridge. Made Jamie’s lunch too. Peanut butter and honey sandwich, grapes halved, cheese crackers.”
“Mom, I can handle his lunch.”
“I know.” Her smile wavered. “I just wanted to do it one more time.”
At the door, goodbye stretched too long and not long enough. Dad hugged her tight, Old Spice and medicine clinging. “You’re stronger than you think, Fiona Grace. Always have been.”
Mom kissed her cheeks, one after the other, like always. “We’ll text before we leave. And call when we stop for the night. And tomorrow. And every day after.”
Then they stepped into the night.
The door clicked shut, final and hollow. Fiona stood staring at it. Outside, a car alarm blared, silenced, blared again. Ordinary sounds of an ordinary night. Except nothing was ordinary.
Her heels pinched. She kicked them off and padded barefoot to the fridge. The notepad bore her dad’s block letters that included Uncle Paul’s contact info, Doctor Teague’s number and a reminder to get the oil changed in her car when it hit 125,000 miles.
Beneath it, her mom’s looping script:
You’ve got this, sweetheart. One day at a time. We love you to the moon and back.
One day at a time.
Fiona pressed her forehead to the door and let the tears fall. She had survived hard seasons before: divorce, lawyers, the nights when Jamie screamed until dawn, and she held him until her arms went numb. But through all of it, her parents had been her safety net.
Now, with Christmas a ten days away, that net was gone. Even if it was “just for the winter,” it felt like forever.
And she had no idea how to keep Jamie’s world safe without them.