Jesse
Dad’s was one of four apartments carved out of what had once been a single-family home, his on the ground floor, so he didn’t have to manage stairs.
He was lucky I’d gotten him this place, an expense I could write off, but not for much longer if Lucas pulled me up on it.
Nearly every cent I took from Snow Creek as my meagre salary went back to paying the costs here.
I knew he’d been looking at the accounts, but he hadn’t gotten anywhere near specific enough to look at small details, too busy cataloging what he could sell.
I let myself in with my key, and where he’d usually be watching TV, tuned to one of those channels that never stopped being angry, it was quiet. I stood there for a second, listening for movement, for anger, for anything sharp enough to brace for. Nothing came.
He was asleep in his chair, sprawled this way and that.
He was a big man, even now—broad shoulders, heavy hands, built to take up space and make people think twice.
Before the accident, before he’d stopped being foreman, that size had come with real strength.
Now it was dulled, edges worn down, his body weakened even if his temper hadn’t softened one bit.
Mouth slightly open. Hands loose in his lap.
His chest rose and fell in an even rhythm, telling me he was likely medicated.
The bitter figure who’d once filled every room with noise and temper was reduced to this decaying thing that refused to die.
Guilt poked at me, but guilt was complicated and meant maybe I loved him, but I didn’t feel love.
I checked for it, out of habit. Nothing.
Still, I didn’t feel hate either.
What I felt was responsibility. A dull weight that never shifted.
I made sure the back door was locked. Checked the fridge. Threw out milk that had gone sour. Left a note by the kettle reminding him to eat something in the morning. The kind of things I did when I couldn’t fix the bigger damage, but still knew what neglect looked like.
I heard him stir behind me.
“Get the hell out of my house, Hoyt!” he snarled, voice thick.
“It’s Jesse,” I said.
Spit gathered at the corner of his mouth as the words forced their way out.
“You killed my Molly!” he yelled, then slipped into talking about me as if I wasn’t there. “Jesse did.”
My chest burned. “Mama had pre-eclampsia,” I reminded him. “You can’t put that on your son.”
For a second, I thought it had landed. His eyes flicked toward me, unfocused but searching.
Then, something shifted.
“Hoyt,” he shouted, sudden and violent. “I won’t have your queer ass in my house, touching my stuff!”
The old venom came rushing back with it—spit-flecked words, the same ugly rants I’d grown up with.
He slurred about men not being men anymore, about weakness, about sin and rot and shame.
About boys who deserved what they got. About how the world had gone wrong, and people like my big brother, Hoyt, were the reason.
I stood there and took it. I always had.
He didn’t know about me, because… why would I even tell anyone, let alone him?
The fury burned hot for maybe thirty seconds.
Then, it sputtered. His voice dropped off mid-sentence.
His head sagged back against the chair, mouth slack again, breathing evening out.
Just like that, he was asleep again, and I headed out as soon as I could. I was pulling the door closed behind me when I saw Olivia.
She’d been waiting, bundled up in a coat, under the shelter of their shared porch, arms folded, braced to talk to me.
“Jesse,” she said, her voice tired rather than angry.
“Hey.”
“You were inside,” she said. “I saw the light.”
“I was checking on him.”
She nodded once. “I can’t keep doing this.”
“You can call me anytime,” I said. “If there’s a problem—”
“I try,” she cut in. “You don’t always answer.”
That one stung, because it was true. If Ruth were in the kitchen, she might answer, but when I was away from the ranch, I didn’t get the messages. Then, when I did get them, sometimes the issue was fixed, and god help me, that was a way out sometimes.
She took a breath, then let it out slowly. “People in town think he’s my responsibility. They look at me like I’m supposed to handle it. Like I signed up for this.”
“I know you didn’t—”
“I’m not family! I’m just a neighbor. And I’m sorry, Jesse, but I can’t keep being responsible for what people think. It’s not fair to me. He’s your blood, and he needs to be back on the ranch where you can deal with him.”
The thought of that made me sick. “I’ll fix it,” I said.
“Jesse… the mercantile,” she said, voice shaking now.
“He lost his temper with Evan Roberts just because his hair’s longer than most,” she said.
“He was ranting at that poor kid, Jesse. Calling him names. Slurs. Loud enough, the whole store heard. Then, he threw something,” she went on.
“A can of saddle polish. It missed Evan’s head by inches.
” Her eyes were bright, furious, and wet all at once.
“His mom had to step in, and Abel went for her too! People were shouting. I thought someone was going to get hurt.”
My stomach twisted. Shame cutting through the numbness.
“I called you! You weren’t there, so I was the one who got him out of there,” she said.
“Do you know what that looked like? Me apologizing. Again. Like I’m responsible for what comes out of his mouth.
Like I’m supposed to manage him. People in town are looking at me, and I didn’t do anything.
” She wiped at her cheek. “I can’t do that anymore. ”
“Fu—I’m sorry. You’ve done more than anyone should’ve had to.
” The old man’s hate wasn’t on her, it was on me alone.
Again. Always. The weight of it pressed down on my shoulders, my ribs, my lungs, until breathing felt like hard work.
The past, the damage, the mess he kept making of other people—it all funneled straight toward me as if I was the one it belonged to.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, softer this time.
“Don’t be,” I told her. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Thank you for what you do. I’ll fix it.”
Fix it how? Fuck knows.
Every option I turned over came up wrong.
He couldn’t stay on the ranch—not without more damage, more talk, more days like today.
But he couldn’t be on his own either. Not like this.
He was clear enough to dodge help and volatile enough to make forcing it a disaster.
There were no good options. I was out of room.
If I sold the ranch—if I agreed with Lucas—I could put him somewhere permanent.
No scrambling. No favors. No waiting for the next call.
I could make it someone else’s responsibility.
The thought came easily, and I hated the relief that followed.
Because it wasn’t only about him. It was about me not having to keep showing up for a man who never showed up for me.
If something broke here, it wouldn’t be the land. It would be me.
The calls when he wandered. The looks from people who didn’t want him back. The weight of things I hadn’t done but still owned. And knowing that if he crossed another line, it wouldn’t be his name that stuck. It would be mine.
I stood there, staring at the closed door.
I didn’t love him.
But I was still the one left holding it together.
I went to the Roberts’ house first. I stood on their porch longer than necessary, rehearsing words that all sounded thin and useless in my head, before knocking anyway.
Evan’s mom answered. I apologized. She called him down, and I said I was sorry for what he’d been put through, sorry it had happened at all, sorry it had happened in public.
Standing there owning something I hadn’t done but still knowing it was mine to carry was freaking impossible.
After that, I walked down to the mercantile and did it again. Same apology, different faces. Every eye in the place went to me, then away. Pity first, edged with suspicion. Like they were wondering whether this was the part where I promised it wouldn’t happen again, or the part where it did.
By the time I left, my chest hurt with the effort of holding myself together.
I couldn’t put it off any longer after that. I needed to talk to Doc Alvarez.
Doc didn’t sugarcoat it. He never had. He told me Dad needed a higher level of care, regular check-ins at the very least, and that the real issue wasn’t logistics but authority.
Without a medical power of attorney—a health care proxy, whatever name you put on it—I couldn’t make decisions for him, couldn’t give instructions, couldn’t step in when things went wrong.
He didn’t hold back, telling me straight that Dad’s mental capacity was deteriorating and that it wouldn’t be a straight line. There would be good days and bad days, but the overall direction was clear.
He slid leaflets across the desk—emergency in-home care, short-term respite—and said he could arrange something temporary if I needed it, but that I had to get a lawyer and proper advice if I wanted any control at all.
What stuck wasn’t the paperwork or the inevitability of decline, but the fact he was telling me this in the first place, crossing a professional line only because he knew my family and knew this town.
I nodded once. Hard. There was nothing else left to do.
I called and managed to grab an appointment with Joseph Buckler, local lawyer, in two hours; his secretary—someone I’d gone to school with—took the call as if she’d been expecting it, the way people do in small towns when they already know the situation, or at least enough of it.
That left me with time I didn’t want, and there was no point heading back home, so I ended up at the Laughing Fork Diner.
Same booths as when I was a kid, same vinyl seats.
I slid into a booth by the window and stared out at the street, counting the minutes until I could sit across from a lawyer and start turning responsibility into something official that could help.
My head was full of potential numbers and options I didn’t want—care costs, legal fees, timelines—and one ugly, tempting thought I hadn’t been able to shake since I left Doc’s office.
If I sold my share of the ranch, I’d have money. Enough to set up proper care for Dad. Enough to step away and let professionals handle him. I wouldn’t have to be involved with the old man at all anymore.
The thought scared me almost as much as it steadied me. I’d be destroying other lives, the men and women who worked for Snow Creek, the town that would suffer if there was development on their doorstep, for my own selfish reasons.
Cathy appeared at my elbow before I could decide whether to bolt. She took one look at my face and didn’t ask questions.
“Coffee and the breakfast sandwich, please.”
Cathy leaned one hip against the table and kept her voice low. “How are things out at Snow Creek?” she asked.
I lifted my eyes long enough to meet hers and gave a careful nod. “Busy, ma’am,” I said. Polite and hoping for no follow-up.
She studied me for half a second longer, then nodded. “I’ll have that right out for you, Jesse.”
God, my head hurt.
And it didn’t get much better at the lawyer’s office when Joseph started talking about competence—whether Dad was still capable of understanding what he was agreeing to, and how narrow that line could be.
He said medical advice wasn’t clean or decisive; everything was conditional, dependent on assessments and timing, and whether doctors were willing to put their names to it.
There was no immediate legal fix, no piece of paper that could solve anything fast enough. Until something formal could be decided, the responsibility defaulted back to me. Out of my own pocket. I’d have to hire someone to look in on him, manage the worst of it, keep him safe. At least for now.
Money meant choices, but selling meant I might end up losing everything—all for a man who’d spent his life hating me.
And the worst part was knowing I might still do it and regret it for the rest of my life.