7. Clara
— ? —
Clara
The old radios scattered around Fleming Ranch had been there since before Quin made his first million, and they had a habit of picking up conversations that were never meant to be heard.
Two weeks had passed since the gala, of sleeping in the guest room, and of passing Quin in the hallways like we were strangers sharing a house instead of partners sharing a life. Two weeks of silence so thick I could feel it pressing against my skin every time I walked into a room.
We hadn’t talked about what happened. Hadn’t talked about the speech he didn’t give me credit for, or the gala he left without me, or the door I closed between us that night. We just… stopped.
Katie noticed. She’d started clinging to me more, asking to sleep in my bed, following me from room to room like she was afraid I’d vanish if she let me out of her sight. She couldn’t name what was wrong. She just knew it was.
I wasn’t sure I could name it either. At least not out loud.
The radio replacement project had been on my to-do list for months.
The ancient units were a relic from the early days of the ranch, installed back when Quin’s father was still alive and the property was barely scraping by.
They were scattered throughout the buildings and pastures, meant to help coordinate work across the sprawling acreage.
But they were unreliable at best and embarrassing at worst.
I still remembered the time about a year ago when one of the units in the hay barn had gone live during a very private moment between two of our younger ranchers.
The whole property had been treated to about three minutes of enthusiastic audio before someone figured out how to shut it off.
Tomás and his girlfriend hadn’t been able to look anyone in the eye for weeks.
We’d all laughed about it eventually, but the point stood. These radios needed to go.
Today felt like as good a day as any to finally get it done.
Katie was spending the day with Perla, who’d offered to take her into town for ice cream and new shoes, and Quin was off somewhere with Eva, probably planning more expansion projects I wouldn’t hear about until they were already underway.
I had the barn to myself, a box of new digital units, and a task that required just enough focus to keep me from thinking about everything else.
I started with the unit nearest the main door, unscrewing it from the wall and disconnecting the wires. One down, seven to go. The work was meditative, a mindless physical labor that let my brain go quiet for a while.
I was on the fourth unit, the one tucked into the corner near the tack room, when it happened.
Static crackled through the speaker. I paused, screwdriver in hand, waiting for it to fade. Sometimes the radios did this, picking up interference from God knows where and broadcasting it to anyone unlucky enough to be nearby.
But this wasn’t interference.
“I noticed Clara’s been quiet lately.” Eva’s voice, clear as a bell, coming through the ancient speaker like she was standing right next to me. “Is everything all right?”
I froze.
“I don’t know.” Quin’s voice now, tired and distant in a way that made my chest ache. “We used to always be together. Then work happened. Then Katie got bigger. Everything changed after we had her.”
I should have walked away. Should have covered my ears or ripped the radio out of the wall or done anything other than stand there listening. But I was rooted to the spot, my hand still raised with the screwdriver, my heart pounding so loud I was surprised it didn’t drown out the transmission.
“I thought the rodeo would fix things,” Quin continued. “But it only lasted a little while. I don’t know. I’m not sure I still feel the love in our marriage.”
The screwdriver slipped from my fingers and clattered against the concrete floor.
I don’t remember sitting down, but suddenly I was on my knees in the dirt, my hands pressed against my chest like I was trying to hold my heart inside my body. The radio kept crackling, kept picking up fragments of conversation, but I couldn’t hear anything anymore over the roaring in my ears.
I’d known things were bad. I’d known we were drifting, disconnecting, losing each other piece by piece.
But I’d thought… I don’t know what I’d thought.
That it was temporary. That we’d find our way back.
That underneath all the distance and the silence, the love was still there, waiting to be rediscovered.
I was wrong.
The tears came without warning, ugly and unstoppable. I pressed my fist against my mouth to muffle the sounds, even though there was no one around to hear. The barn was empty. The ranch was quiet. I was completely, utterly alone.
I sat there until the sun went down.
The light shifted from golden afternoon to dusky purple to deep blue, and I didn’t move. My legs went numb. My tears dried on my cheeks and started fresh again. The radio eventually fell silent, and still I sat there, trying to process a grief I wasn’t prepared to feel.
When I finally stood up, my body aching from hours on the cold floor, something had changed inside me. The desperate hope I’d been clinging to, the belief that things would get better, that Quin would see me again, that we could fix this together. It was gone.
In its place was something harder. Something that felt like a decision.
***
It was past one in the morning when I finally slipped inside, and the house was dark.
Quin was in the master bedroom, I could hear him snoring faintly through the door.
The sound that used to comfort me now just reminded me of all the nights I’d lain awake next to him, reaching for a connection that wasn’t there.
I moved through the house like a ghost, gathering what I needed with quiet efficiency.
Two suitcases from the hall closet. Clothes for me and Katie, enough for a few weeks.
The important documents from the filing cabinet in my office, birth certificates and social security cards and the emergency cash I’d always kept hidden.
Katie’s favorite books and the stuffed bunny she couldn’t sleep without.
His name was Bunbun, and Katie would sooner leave an arm behind than go anywhere without him.
I packed everything into the car in three silent trips, my heart pounding every time I passed the master bedroom door. But Quin didn’t sense that his wife was dismantling their life twenty feet away. Didn’t wake up to stop me or ask me what was wrong or tell me he didn’t mean it.
He just slept.
Katie’s room was the hardest part. Perla must have brought her back and put her to bed hours ago.
She was sprawled across her little bed, her dark hair fanned out on the pillow, one arm wrapped around a stuffed horse and the other flung over her head.
A shoebox sat on the dresser, new shoes still nested in tissue paper.
She looked so peaceful. She had no idea that her world was about to change.
“Katie.” I knelt beside the bed and brushed the hair from her face. “Katie, baby, wake up.”
She stirred, her eyes fluttering open. “Mommy?”
“We’re going on a trip,” I whispered. “Just you and me. Won’t that be fun?”
“What kind of trip?”
“A surprise kind. But we have to be very quiet so we don’t wake Daddy, okay? It’s still nighttime.”
She was too sleepy to ask questions. She just held up her arms and let me lift her, her head dropping against my shoulder, her body warm and heavy with sleep.
“Bunbun comes too,” she murmured.
“Bunbun always comes too.”
I carried her out to the car and buckled her into her car seat, adjusting the straps around Bunbun so he wouldn’t fall. She was asleep again before I finished, her breath soft and even, her face peaceful.
Then I went back inside one last time.
I stood at the kitchen counter with a pen and paper, trying to figure out what to say. How did you summarize the end of a marriage in a note? How did you explain years of loneliness and invisibility and grief in a few sentences?
In the end, I kept it simple.
I heard what you said on the radio. I am taking Katie. Do not follow us.
I left the note where he’d find it, propped against the coffee maker that he used every morning. Then I walked out of the house I’d called home for five years.
I got in the car and pulled down the long driveway with the headlights off, letting the moon do the work until I reached the main gate.
In the rearview mirror, the ranch got smaller and smaller until it disappeared behind the curve of the hill.
I gripped the steering wheel and kept my eyes on the road ahead.
***
The drive was surreal in the predawn darkness.
Empty highways stretching out before me, the headlights cutting through the black, Katie’s soft breathing the only sound in the car.
I’d chosen a city two hours away, far enough that starting over felt possible but close enough that Katie could still see her father if… when…
I couldn’t think that far ahead yet. All I could do was drive.
The sun started rising somewhere around the halfway point, painting the sky in shades of pink and gold that I couldn’t appreciate.
The light spread across the fields on either side of the highway, across Katie’s sleeping face in the back seat.
Behind me, everything we’d left was already an hour gone.
I didn’t let myself turn around.