That was me, at exactly 5:53 AM, when a voice the size of Montana boomed from somewhere in the house and snapped me out of the kind of sleep usually reserved for the dead or the criminally innocent.
“Knox!” It was not a friendly call, nor the kind that heralds pancakes or even the prospect of coffee. It was more the kind of shout that made you think: this is it, the Civil War is back, and my side is losing.
Knox was out of bed before the second syllable, which would have been impressive if I wasn’t so preoccupied by the fact that he was, as usual, only half-dressed.
He threw off the covers, swung his legs to the floor, and stood in one motion, all six-foot-plus of him bristling with the kind of energy you usually see in disaster movies when the warning sirens go off.
And he was only wearing pajama pants. I am not saying this was a formative visual experience, but if I had to describe the exact texture and topography of Knox McKenzie’s back, I could do so with the kind of detail usually reserved for NASA moon landings.
He looked over his shoulder at me, eyebrows in full “DEFCON 1” mode. “Stay here,” he ordered, which I ignored by instantly rolling out of bed and trying to find my own pants.
You know those dreams where you’re naked at school, and everyone’s staring, but the real horror is that you can’t even find your locker, much less your locker combination?
That’s what putting on clothes was like for me at that moment. Every item of clothing I owned seemed to have developed a grudge against me. I got my shirt on inside out—tag in the armpit, sleeves twisted so hard my thumb went numb—and, in my panic, grabbed the sweatpants I’d been using as a pillow and put them on backward.
I spent a full thirty seconds yanking at the drawstring before realizing my left leg was stuck in the right pant hole. By then, Knox’s footsteps—barefoot, somehow heavier than boots—were thundering down the hall. The whole house vibrated like it was trying to shake me loose.
By the time I staggered out of the bedroom, the rest of the McKenzie house had already woken up and was doing what McKenzies do best—converging on a problem with maximum density and minimal warning.
The smell of percolating coffee was the only thing keeping me from passing out, and I used it as a homing beacon to stumble my way to the living room.
The entire clan was assembled.
Harlow stood by the front door, shirtless and frowning, arms crossed so hard his biceps looked like they were trying to choke him out. Quiad loitered behind the couch, sleepy but alert, hair sticking up like an electrified hedgehog. Ransom sprawled on the armrest in sweatpants and nothing else, cigarette tucked behind his ear, eyes bloodshot but sharp. Uncle Cyrus and Aunt Georgia were already in their flannels, but you could tell from their faces that neither one had slept.
And at the center of it all was Pa, perched in his throne-chair, hands gripping the arms so tight you’d think he was trying to steer the house through a tornado.
His white beard was bristling at an angle I had previously considered mathematically impossible. His eyes—normally bright and mischievous—were flat, black, and dangerous.
Knox was pacing a groove into the ancient rug, jaw so tight I was pretty sure his molars were fusing into a single bone. He looked up as I entered, and the look he gave me was pure possessive relief—quick, bright, and gone before anyone else could see.
“Sit,” he barked, pointing at the only empty spot on the couch. I sat, immediately, which put me between Aunt Georgia and Harlow. Aunt Georgia patted my knee, Harlow just kept frowning at the door.
No one said anything for a few seconds. The only sound was the wet, desperate gurgle of coffee filling the carafe in the kitchen.
It was Pa who broke the silence. “It’s your father, son,” he said, not looking at me. “He’s called in the loan.”
I blinked. “He—what?”
“The mortgage,” said Knox, voice like ground granite. “Your dad’s the bank’s managing partner. He waited until the government moratorium lifted and filed a demand for full repayment. Sixty-five grand, due in two weeks, or the farm goes up for auction.”
I processed this at the speed of an overloaded dial-up modem. “But—that’s—he can’t just—”
“He can,” grunted Ransom, who was staring at the ceiling like it owed him money. “And he did. He signed the paperwork last night.”
My mouth was dry, my tongue a small dead fish. My vision swam. “But why?”
“Because he’s a vindictive son of a bitch,” said Pa, and this time he did look at me. “And because he wants you back or wants to ruin us if he can’t.”
A heavy silence settled over the room, weighted at about a hundred pounds per square inch. Knox stopped pacing and glared at the floor, fists clenched at his sides.
I felt the full force of every eye in the room swing my way. There was no accusation there, but I felt it anyway—a familiar, centuries-old guilt. I had never, in my life, wanted to vanish so completely as I did right then.
My stomach went hot, then cold. My jaw actually dropped, which I didn’t think happened in real life, but there you go. I could hear my pulse, quick and brutal, and I was suddenly certain I was going to throw up all over the vintage McKenzie heirloom rug and become an anecdote for future generations.
I did the only thing I could think of. I blurted, “I have money. Like, a lot of money.”
Every McKenzie in the room froze.
