Chapter 12
Twelve
Tessa
Iwasn’t looking for anything; I was just opening drawers, moving through the kitchen, because sitting still meant thinking, and thinking meant remembering the way dirt hit the top of Ray’s coffin.
The kitchen felt wrong without him. His mug sat upside down on the drying rack.
His notebook sat on the end of the table where he always wrote feed numbers, weather conditions, and things he meant to fix.
The light over the sink hummed faintly. Late evening slid through the window, soft and gold, touching every surface that still smelled like him.
I pulled open the junk drawer near the phone.
The same one that had been a disaster since I was ten.
Batteries that might be dead. Twist ties, old receipts, a tangled extension cord.
Two faded takeout menus from places that probably didn’t even exist anymore.
And tucked between them, like it had slid sideways and gotten buried, was a small spiral notebook.
I froze.
It was one of the cheap ones from the hardware store, with a bent cardboard cover and wire coils half crushed on one side. I pulled it free, scattering rubber bands and a dead pen across the floor. For a second, I almost put it back. Then I saw the handwriting on the front page.
Ray’s uneven scrawl looped across the paper, slanting downhill just a little, like it always had.
Ranch To Do List: Spring
I smoothed the page with my fingers, feeling every groove of pen pressure like it might be the last physical proof that he stood at this counter, in this house, making plans. I flipped to the next page.
Fix the south fence.
Patch the barn roof before storms.
Replace the tractor belt.
Call Tessa. Ask about her job. Tell her I’m proud of her.
The words blurred. I blinked hard, once, twice, but the sting behind my eyes only sharpened.
He had written it down like it was just another chore. Right there between fixing fences and changing belts, like it was something he could schedule for a rainy afternoon.
Call Tessa. Ask about her job. Tell her I’m proud.
He never had.
He never asked about my job. Not more than a short, gruff, are you eating and are you getting yourself killed with those city dogs. And he never said he was proud, never once uttered the words I wanted you or I’m glad you’re mine or anything that even came close.
Now I was staring at proof that somewhere inside his stubborn, silent skull, he meant to.
I pressed my fingertips over the sentence, slow and careful, like the ink might smear if I touched it too hard.
I turned the page. The next sheet was messier. Less list, more thoughts crammed in around the margins.
She doesn’t need my problems.
She has a life.
Be better. Be strong.
Just make it to winter.
Give her something worth coming back for.
I read it twice, the words sinking slowly under my ribs, heavy and hot. My hands weren’t just shaking now. They were trembling hard enough that I could hear the paper rustle.
He had been trying to hold it together for me. To protect me from the truth, while the truth chewed through him. I hadn’t known. I had been too busy surviving my own life to ask the right questions about his.
A sob broke out of me then. My knees went weak. I folded over the counter, clutching the notebook to my chest like it was a lifeline and not a catalogue of everything I lost.
Tears hit the laminate in small, scattered drops. They made tiny circles that spread and faded, just like everything else in this house. The refrigerator hummed. The clock ticked. Somewhere outside, a truck passed on the distant road.
Inside, all I could hear was that list in my head. Call Tessa. Ask about her job. Tell her I’m proud of her.
I didn’t know how long I stood there, shoulders shaking, forehead nearly touching the counter, crying into a notebook like a child.
Long enough that the sunlight outside shifted from gold to amber.
Long enough that the shadows from the table legs stretched across the floor, reaching for the opposite wall.
Long enough that my skin felt tight, my eyes ached, my nose was clogged, and my throat burned.
Grief didn’t care about dignity.
Eventually, my legs started to go numb. I peeled myself upright and wiped my face with the back of my wrist. My reflection in the dark window looked wrecked. Swollen eyes. Red nose. Hair falling out of its braid in frizzy strands.
I grabbed my boots from beside the door, shoved my feet into them without bothering with socks, and snatched the notebook off the counter. I couldn’t seem to leave it behind. It felt alive in my hand, like proof and apology and accusation all at once.
Outside, the yard glowed bronze under the last light of day. The air cooled enough to raise goosebumps on my arms when the breeze hit. The sky to the west was a smear of orange and violet, clouds catching the color like they didn’t understand that today should’ve been grey.
Crickets were already singing in the grass near the house.
The wind carried the dry, eerie chorus of coyotes floating up from somewhere deeper in the valley.
That sound always unsettled me, even when I was little.
It reminded me that there were things with teeth out there watching, waiting for weakness.
The fencing bucket waited on the porch, in its usual place, so I grabbed it mid-stride, tossed the notebook in it, and started walking toward the south pasture.
My footsteps crunched softly over the packed dirt and gravel. Each step steadied me a little more. Movement pulled the grief into something sharper, something that could be turned outward instead of letting it chew at me from the inside.
Ray’s list echoed in my head.
Fix the south fence.
The farther I walked, the more obvious the neglect became. A leaning post here, a sagging wire there. Nothing catastrophic, but nothing good either. Ray would’ve torn into me for letting things slide like this, then cursed himself for not doing it sooner.
I saw the problem before I reached it.
The fence at the low point of the pasture had collapsed in a tired heap, like it finally given up and decided to lie down. Two posts leaned at odd angles, the wire hung slack and twisted, and the brace was mostly on the ground.
“Dammit,” I muttered.
The nearest cattle were higher up on the slope, just dark shapes against the fading light, but if they wandered down at night and found this hole, they’d be through it before I could even get my boots laced. Then I’d be chasing them through Hargrove coulees and draws all over hell’s half acre.
I didn’t have the energy for that. I barely had energy to stand upright.
I swung my leg over the fallen portion of the fence and walked along the opposite side to inspect the damage. The ground dropped a little here, just enough to make my footing unstable. The last windstorm had probably done most of the work. Time and stress finished it.
“Of course,” I said softly, voice dry.
I set the notebook on the nearest intact post, flipped it open to the page with the list, and weighed it down with a rock.
“Fine,” I said to the invisible ghost of Ray hovering over my shoulder. “I’m fixing it.”
I grabbed the top wire and pulled. It shifted under my hands, the barbs catching my palms as it slid, but with enough coaxing, it might untangle and flip back into place.
I braced my feet, bent my knees, and pulled.
The muscles in my shoulders protested. I let it drop before I lost my grip and cut up my palms.
Sweat slid down my spine again, this time from effort rather than heat. Coyotes called farther up the valley, their voices rising and falling in a strange, layered chorus. The sound crawled up the back of my neck.
“You’re fine,” I told myself. “You’re not five years old anymore, you can do this.”
I scanned the line until I spotted an old wire stretcher hung off a post like he’d always left it. Rust flecked the metal, but it still looked solid.
Boots slipping occasionally in the dirt, I wedged the stretcher in place and hooked the wire. My hands were already sore from the earlier battles, but I ratcheted it, and the wire tightened.
Reaching into the bucket, I grabbed a gleaming silver fencing staple, reached for the fencing pliers from my back pocket, and hammered it in.
I followed the line and fixed what I could. When I headed back to the other end, I spliced the barbed wire and wrapped it around itself so it would hold tightly.
One down, three more strands to go. The sound echoed across the quiet pasture as I hammered in staples, bouncing back from the hill like someone else was working with me.
Darkness thickened around the edges of my vision as the light drained out of the sky. The corners of the pasture fell into shadow. The notebook on the post became a pale square in the dim.
Coyotes cried again, closer now. Their calls layered over one another like a steady, hungry chorus. My chest tightened.
“Almost done. You’re not bait. You’re fine.”
My hand slipped on the next swing. The pliers glanced off the staple and slammed into my knuckles. Pain exploded up my fingers and into my wrist. I cursed loudly, dropping the tool into the dirt as I clutched my hand.
Tears sprang to my eyes faster than I wanted to admit. This kind of pain was small compared to everything else, but it was fresh. Immediate. Sharp enough to crack something I’d been holding together all day.
“Mother fucker, son of a whore bitch, ass hole,” I hissed, cradling my throbbing knuckles against my chest.
Blood already smeared across my skin, mixing with dirt as the coyotes called again. The sound seemed to come from behind and to the side now. They were moving. Or my imagination was easily spooked. Both were entirely possible.
I bent to pick up the pliers, stubbornness rising to meet the pain. I wasn’t leaving this fence half-finished. I wasn’t letting Ray’s list beat me on the first task. That would’ve been too on the nose, even for my life.