In New York, I have a different life. I have a job I love. I have my friends.
In New York, there’s no Billy. No one hates me there.
The engine turns over with a groan, and I put the sedan in drive, tires crunching over the gravel as I pull away from Copper Creek Ranch—away from the stench of sickness and the ghost of Billy’s cold stare.
The road unfurls before me, a gray ribbon cutting through the green of the valley, but all I can see in my mind is the bloated body of a cow, the panic in Tex’s eyes, the sheer, unadulterated loathing rolling off Billy in waves.
He hates me. The thought isn’t a new one, but seeing it confirmed, feeling it in the air between us like a physical force, is a different kind of pain.
It’s a sharp, clean slice, straight through the scar tissue I’d built up over the years. I saved his herd, and he looked at me like I was a snake he’d found in his boot.
I press the accelerator, the landscape blurring into patches of pine and pasture. Every fence post, every rolling hill, is a memory I don’t want.
The drive home is short, but it feels endless, each mile a countdown to a confrontation with a ghost.
I pull into the driveway, killing the engine. The silence that rushes in is deafening. The house sits there, a tired, familiar structure with peeling white paint and a porch swing that still lists slightly to the left, just as it always has.
It’s Dad’s house. Not my house. Never my house.
His voice comes to me, thin and reedy over the phone line, static crackling between New York and Prairie Pine. It’s one of the last times we spoke.
“Sedona,” he says, using that soft tone that always turns me into a little girl again. But something is off. The edges of his voice are worn down. Frayed.
“Dad? You okay? You sound tired.” I’m standing in my tiny Manhattan apartment, staring at a brick wall, feeling a million miles away from home.
He makes a sound that is half laugh, half sigh. “Just… the town, you know. Things are changing. People are leaving. The young ones, they all want to run.” He pauses, and I hear him breathing. Shallow. Uneven. “I miss you, kiddo. The clinic feels empty without you.”
My chest tightens. “I’m happy here, Dad. You know that. My work?—”
“I know,” he cuts in, but there is no fight left in his voice. Just something hollow. “I just worry. About you. About me. About this place. Feels like I’m holding onto sand and it’s all just slipping through my fingers.”
I want to reach through the phone. I want to shake him. I want to tell him to fight harder, to be the strong, unbreakable man I have built my whole life around.
But I don’t.
Instead, I change the subject. I ask about the new colt that was born last week, and he lets me. We talk for another ten minutes about nothing at all, while everything that matters sits between us.
He sounds so small.
And I do nothing.
After the call, I hang up and go back to my life.
Now he’s gone. The sand has slipped through his fingers, and I’m left here, standing in the empty space where he used to be.There’s nothing for me in this town. Only ghosts and the man who hates me for leaving them.
A hot tear tracks a path down my cheek, and I angrily wipe it away with the back of my hand. I’m not going to cry. Not here. Not for him.
A soft knock on the driver’s side window makes me jump. I turn, my heart hammering against my ribs.
Clara’s face is peering in, her brow furrowed with concern. I unlock the door with a fumble, the mechanism clicking open in the quiet afternoon.
She pulls the door open and crouches beside me, bringing her face level with mine. “Sedona? Honey, are you okay?”
A sob rips out of my throat, raw and painful.
“No,” I choke out, shaking my head. “I’m not okay.” The words tumble out in a torrent of guilt and shame. “I feel so guilty, Clara. I missed his memorial. At The Dusty Boot. I just… I couldn’t go in there. I sat in the car like a coward while everyone else… God, what kind of daughter does that? It’s horrible.”
Her hand is warm on my shoulder. “It’s not horrible, Sedona. You’re grieving.”
