“What do you mean?” My voice shakes so badly I barely recognize it. “What’re you talking about?”
He runs a hand down his face, and the motion looks painful. “She was living in Oregon with some cousins. They called me tonight. She got sick. It happened fast.”
A strange, sharp feeling slices straight through me—grief for a woman I don’t remember, grief for a mother whose absence shaped every piece of my childhood, grief for all the moments we could’ve had and never did.
It’s ridiculous. She left. She never came back. She didn’t write, didn’t call, didn’t send a postcard.
But the moment my father says she’s dead, something inside me tears like a seam pulled too hard.
I sit down across from him because my knees won’t hold me. The picture between us feels heavier than anything I’ve ever carried.
For the first time in my life, I grieve for my mother.
Not the idea of her.
Her.
The woman I will never know.
CHAPTER FOUR
Billy
Sedona hasn’t spokenin over an hour. Her body is angled toward the passenger window, her cheek against the glass, her eyes distant in a way that twists something deep inside my chest.
She cried for most of the morning, cried during the funeral and wake, cried through the drive out of Oregon, cried through the long stretch of highway before we hit the border. She hasn’t cried since lunch, but the silence she’s wrapped herself in feels heavier than anything I’ve seen her carry.
Tex and Seth sit in the back seat, both of them worn out, both respectful enough not to fill the car with noise. I’m so glad my brothers agreed to drive down with me. Joey stayed behind to take care of the ranch, but he’s been calling and asking for updates every five hours or so.
We’ve been on the road for almost thirty hours. My shirt sticks to my back, the collar of my shirt feels like a rope around my neck, and every muscle is stiff from the miles stacked behind us.
The smell of coffee that Seth spilled on the floor mat mixes with the scent of fast-food bags and the last traces of funeral flowers.
I haven’t been to a funeral since my father’s eleven years ago—it feels like it could’ve been last week.
The pastor’s voice, the smell of the church, the way Tex gripped my hand so hard I couldn’t feel my fingers—all of it crawls up the back of my throat if I let myself think too long. I shove the memory away and reach for Sedona’s hand.
Her fingers lie limp until I curl mine around them. Only then does she respond, the faintest squeeze, like she’s reminding herself I’m here.
Prairie Pine comes into view a little after nine in the evening. The lights along Main Street glow through my windshield as we turn toward Wildflower Hollow Road.
The sky is thick with clouds, hiding the stars she loves so much. The whole damn world feels hushed and somber, like it knows one more piece of her life has been taken.
Her father followed us separately this morning, but we left him behind at the inn outside Eugene when he couldn’t stop himself from reaching for another drink. Sedona didn’t say a word about it, but I saw the way she folded in on herself as she walked back to the truck.
I park in the driveway and breathe in the cool air as the engine dies. Tex elbows Seth lightly, and the two of them climb out quietly to give us space.
I turn in my seat and brush a hand along Sedona’s shoulder.
“We’re home,” I whisper.
She blinks slowly, like the words take time to land. Her face looks drained, all the usual color gone, her beautiful mouth drawn tight from holding herself together too long.
She unbuckles her seat belt and steps down from the truck with the kind of exhaustion that settles into bones and refuses to let go.
“Give me a minute,” I tell my brothers and step out of the truck.
Tex nods once. Seth claps my shoulder before climbing into the driver’s seat of the truck. They understand. They always do when it comes to her.
