I breathed out through my nose, the sound rougher than I meant it to be. “Am I?”
“You are.” She tilted her head, studying me like I was one of her horses about to spook. “Are you mad?”
“No.”
She didn’t even pretend to believe that. “Are you sad?”
I swallowed. The road shimmered ahead, heat already rising off the pavement even though the sun wasn’t fully up. “I’m… thinking.”
Maddy made a small sound. “That’s worse.”
I glanced at her, despite myself. “How’s that worse?”
“Because when you think, you go quiet,” she said. “And when you go quiet, you decide things without telling anyone.”
That one landed clean.
I tightened my grip on the steering wheel until my knuckles ached, then forced my fingers to loosen. “I’m not trying to decide things without telling anyone.”
“You kind of are,” she said gently, which was infuriating because she was right. “It's about Tessa, isn’t it?”
The name hit like a bruise pressed too hard.
My eyes stayed on the road. “Not just her, I’m thinking about you too. You’ve made the ranch feel like a home again, and I hate that you’re leaving.”
Maddy’s laugh was soft, without humor. “Dad.”
I didn’t answer, and silence stretched between us for a few miles, the kind that wasn’t empty. It was full of words I didn’t want to say because saying them made them real.
I swallowed again, jaw working even though I didn’t want it to. “I’m alright.”
“No, you’re not,” she said, and her voice was steady, not accusing. Just certain. “You look like you did when I was little and you thought I didn’t notice.”
My chest went hot, then cold. The road blurred for a second, a white line stretching out like a thread I was holding onto with my teeth.
“You shouldn’t have had to notice,” I said quietly.
Maddy shrugged a little. “I did anyway.”
I nodded once, stiff. “Yeah.”
Her shoulders eased, like my admission loosened something in her, too. “Then why are you taking me back first? Let’s go get her.”
Because you’re the one thing I won’t drag into this, I thought.
“Because you come first.” I looked over at her, and she gave me a crooked smile. “I know you want to see Tessa, and if I knew what was going to happen, I’d take you with me, but kid, she’s not in a good place. So as soon as I know what’s happening, we’ll find you.”
Maddy’s expression softened, and for a second, she looked younger as she nodded. We drove in silence again, but it wasn’t the same silence.
When the city finally rose up on the horizon, glass and steel catching the sun, my stomach knotted. Calgary always made me feel like I was wearing the wrong skin. Too many people. Too many lanes. Too much noise. The world pressed closer here, and it didn’t leave room for the kind of quiet you could hear a fence line in.
Maddy’s mother lived on the south end, wide streets. Neat yards. Houses that looked like they’d been designed to impress.
I pulled into the driveway and killed the engine. The sudden quiet rang.
Maddy didn’t move right away. She stared at the front door, then turned toward me. Her eyes were bright but stubborn, like she refused to cry even when she wanted to.
“Text me,” she said.
