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It made Jack want to smash things.
“Why all the questions, Jack?” Mia asked, her eyes narrowed.
“I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on around here.”
“Work,” she said. “Like always.”
“Right. Work with half the staff you need. No housekeeper. No cook.” Jack pointed down at her breakfast. “After four eighteen-hour days, you’re eating ham out of a bag, Mia.”
Mia pushed the bag away. “What’s your point?”
Finally, he turned and faced his father. Walter’s cheeks were covered with nicks and little Band-Aids, as if a raccoon had shaved his face for him. “Where’s the money?” he asked his dad. “Your savings, the emergency accounts?”
“It was a bad winter,” Mia interrupted, as if trying to deflect his attention from his dad.
“There have been other bad winters,” he said, not looking away from his father’s runny gray eyes.
“Jack—”
“I am talking to my father,” Jack snapped.
“What do you want me to say?” Walter asked. “We’re broke. Your mom took a chunk in the divorce.”
”Mom, of course,” Jack muttered.
“Your dad got sick,” Mia said. “The medication is expensive and a lot of it isn’t covered by insurance. There were some tax problems—”
”What kind of tax problems?” Jack asked.
“The kind that cost money,” Mia said on a sigh.
“How much?” Jack asked, through thin lips.
“Enough—”
“How much?”
“Fifty thousand dollars. But with the calves—”
“Holy shit, Dad, what happened?”
“I screwed up,” Walter said. “After you left and your mom and I split up, I…screwed up.”
“Were you drinking again?” Jack asked, and Walter nodded, lifting trembling hands toward the coffee cup in front of him. “Are you still?”
Walter said nothing, and Mia’s sad sigh was all the answer Jack needed.
“Alright,” he said. “That, in a way, makes things easier. Dad, I know you’re not going to agree with this, but you’ve pretty much screwed yourself out of the ability to make this decision.”
“What kind of decision?”
“I’m going to sell the ranch.”
Mia laughed. She couldn’t help it. The laughter just sputtered out of her.
“You’re kidding, right?” she asked, picking the bag of ham back up.
“No, Mia, I’m not,” he said, and she could tell by his face he wasn’t joking.
A thousand bees invaded Mia’s head, spread throughout her body, making it impossible to breathe. To think. This was her home. Her life. He was talking about selling her life, like it was nothing.
And he could do it.
She had no legal rights to any of what she’d built here. If he really wanted to do this, she had no say.
The injustice of it, the ridiculousness of it, burned through the numbness.
“You’re getting ahead of yourself, Jack,” Walter said, his voice laced with the old steel. “I’m not dead yet.”
“No,” Jack agreed, looking cold and removed. “But it won’t be too hard to prove that you’re unfit to make the decision. You’re drinking. You’re sick and my guess is you’re not taking your meds—”
”I am,” he said, and Mia started to shake her head. Were they nuts? Was Jack…nuts?
Anger churned in her belly. She would fight him. She would fight him with everything she had.
“In order to clear whatever debt you have, and make sure that you’re cared for as you get sicker and that Mia has a chance at a life she deserves, you need to get rid of this place.”
“A life I deserve?” she asked. She stood, and the legs of the chair screeched against the floor as she backed up. “What the hell would you know about it, Jack?”
“I know this place is going to wear you down to nothing,” he said. “Between the work, paying down the debt and taking care of an old drunk—”
Walter flinched at the word and Jack saw it but didn’t say anything. Clearly didn’t care.
“We’re not selling the ranch,” she said. “As your wife, I get a vote.”
“We’re getting a divorce, remember? You don’t get a vote.”
She reeled back as if he’d slapped her. He wouldn’t be so low. Or maybe he would; she didn’t know anymore.
“You can’t do this, Jack,” she snapped. “You can’t just swoop in here—”
“I’m not trying to be malicious,” he said.
“Let me finish my sentence!” She banged her hand on the table. That got his attention. “You’re not listening to us. You can’t swoop in here and sell this ranch. You don’t have the right to make that decision.”
“Someone has got to make the decision that needs to be made, and you two sure as hell can’t make it.”
She shook her head, so angry, so hurt she trembled. Every argument she needed to make against him sputtered and died under the weight of her anger.
Between the work and the lack of sleep, the last week had worn her out, and she couldn’t put together a string of coherent words. She needed a second to get her thoughts together, to make the arguments that wouldn’t end in her smacking that confused look off his face.
