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“I don’t want to do anything with you,” I say more sharply than I should. I take a breath to calm myself. “I just don’t want to do it at all, okay?”
“This is the best I can offer you,” he says. “I’ll come and I’ll stay and I’ll help you survive it. We’ll spend one week at that stupid ranch, we’ll make a big show of it, and then we’ll take your father’s check and get the hell out of there. This is your chance, Melody.”
This is my chance. I close my eyes, squeeze them tight. I know he’s right, and I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to do it at all.
I see Rosie again. Her bubbles popping in her face like a big pink wound. Dead Rosie, gone a long time now, her face purple and swollen, her eyes wide and disbelieving in those last moments, the panic as her legs thrashed. Her moment touches everything at that ranch, and she’s the real reason I can’t bring myself to go home. She haunts the place, every inch of it, her and everything that came after her.
“One week,” I whisper, my hands trembling, my toes numb. “I can do one week.”
“It’ll be an adventure. Or at the very least, we’ll walk away with a good chunk of money.” He holds up his beer. “To going home.”
I shove my stool back and stand. “Tell my dad we’ll see him in a couple days. I need time to pack and get things settled with Ford and Kat.”
“Whatever you want.” He lowers his glass and watches me, his face serious. “I meant it when I said I’ll stay with you, for whatever that’s worth.”
“Don’t pretend like you give a shit about me now, War,” I say and turn my back on him. “You’re doing this for the money, just like me.”
“Yeah,” he says almost too quietly for me to hear. “Sure I am.”
I walk away, steeling myself, trying to make myself believe this is really happening.
I’m going home.
Chapter10
Melody
It’s an hour drive from the sprawl of Dallas to reach Leader Ranch. The closer we get, the tighter my stomach feels, like I’m going to lose my lunch on the side of the road. We barely talk and it’s like War understands I need the silence right now, for once in his life. There’s too much crowding my head and too many bad memories trying to force their way to the surface. I fiddle with the radio and let the dread take me deeper and deeper into fear and anxiety as more familiar landmarks from my childhood appear like weeds: the old movie theater, the Wal-Mart, Frank’s Barbecue Joint with the ugly red pig sign, everything looking unchanged in the years since I left, like my life’s been paused and this is reality reasserting itself.
And finally, the ranch itself, surrounded by a silver metal fence tarnished by the sun. The gravel driveway from the main road to the big house bumps more than I remembered. As I stare out the window at the fields, I notice more weeds, a couple rusting tires, and barely any animals, only a few sad-looking cows and a lone horse grazing. It looks strange, desolate, and I wonder where the workers are, the herd of sheep, the goats and chickens and pigs. It feels wrong—this place should be bustling and alive on a workday like this, except it’s like nothing’s opened, like an old town shuttered.
“Seen better days,” War remarks as the house approaches, and I bite back my sharp retort.
Because he’s right. The place looks cluttered. An old car’s rusting near the far garage. Work equipment’s left out near the barn: a wheelbarrow, sandbags filled with something I can’t identify, shovels and rakes left to bleach to bone white in the sun. During my time here, my fatherneverwould’ve let the place look like this. He had pride in the ranch and it was an extension of him. To let the fields and outbuildings rot would be like letting his own body decay.
Worst of all, it feels abandoned. In my mind, Leader Ranch is a bustling place full of people and animals. There were always workers everywhere moving from one place to another, always a cousin nearby, always an aunt or uncle chatting away at whoever will listen, none of them willing to do any real hard work but all of them trying to look like they’re involved. This, though, it’s like a bad dream, like a ghost.
At least the house looks the same. It’s a rancher with a slanted modern roof, lots of red wood and stone, like a mixture between a castle and a barn. Big, wide windows gape out at the wreck of the land like they’re accusing me for leaving the place. Sitting toward the back is the tower, a tall structure connected to the house and overlooking everything, built for my mother when she was on her death bed. Dad told me she used to sit up there and stare out at their property for hours in those last days, and I’d do the same thing when I was a little girl, up in that airy and lovely room at the top, alternating between reading adventure novels and daydreaming.
Those were perfect afternoons, far away from the stress of work and the disdain of my family. Except now the tower looks abandoned, like nobody’s bothered using it for years.
“You ready?” War asks me, putting the car in park and killing the engine.
I sit in the sudden quiet. “No. Not at all.”
“One week,” he says and puts a hand on my leg. “You can do this.”
I stare at the hand. I stare at the man it belongs to. I try to connect the things in my head—War touching me, War’s comforting smile, his serious face, his handsome mouth—but I’m having trouble forming coherent thoughts. Eventually, I push it away and step outside.
He follows. We walk up the steps to the house together. I start to knock but stop myself. When did I ever knock on my own door? Never, not once in my life. I’m a Leader still, even if I did leave home. I turn the knob and step into the cool, airy entryway. “Hello?” I call out.
Quiet. Deep and heavy quiet.
“Maybe nobody’s home,” War says, sounding skeptical.
“Hello?” I call again, poking my head into the sitting room. It looks unused and untouched, dusted and cleaned, but like it’s a photograph. There’s nobody in the office, in the kitchen, or in the living room. Everything feels so familiar, but slightly off—there are fewer pictures of the family hanging on the walls, replaced by modern paintings that I don’t recognize. I can’t imagine Dad would ever want this stuff around. Abstracts, colorful and contemporary, at odds with the traditional vibe of everything else. He’d hate this stuff.
“Oh, hi there.” A woman appears, looking startled. She’s older, dark skin, and wearing a blue nurse’s uniform. Her hand presses to her chest. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
