It helped more than anything else could have.
When we finally hung up, I wasn’t fixed. But I didn’t feel as alone. And I wasn’t about to roll over. I wiped my face, squared my shoulders, and pulled the first stack of overdue bills toward me. The envelopes felt heavy, the paper stiff. Debt. Taxes. Notices. Things left unopened, ignored, shoved in drawers.
Wyatt Hargrove might have plans for this ranch. But this land was Ray’s. Ray was all I had aside from Dani. And I wasn’t letting anyone, bank, buyer, or cowboy, take it without a fight.
I had just opened the first envelope when the knock came. Sharp. Three beats, and my entire body tensed. Not again. I was not doing Round Two with Wyatt.
I stomped to the door and flung it open, and stared right into the face of Marla Fincher.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she gasped, hand flying to her chest in dramatic slow motion. “You look terrible.”
I blinked. “Marla?” She was in her sixties. Floral dress. Pearls. Makeup done like she was attending church. She didn’t wait for an invitation, just brushed past me, carrying a casserole so aggressively cheesy it could suffocate a grown man.
“I made a lasagna,” she said. “Ray hated it, but grief makes people hungry for carbohydrates, dear.” Marla set the casserole on the stove and turned to me with watery eyes. “I’m so sorry, darling.”
Before I could respond, another knock came. I turnedslowly. I opened the door again, and Todd Halpern stood there. Wearing his feed store jacket and holding a pie tin.
“Your uncle always liked my wife’s apple crumble,” he said gruffly. “We figured you might need it.” Behind him, Mrs. Kowalski from the quilting group peered past him like she was casing the joint.
I barely had time to register the sight before Todd shuffled inside, murmuring condolences while trying not to trip over his own oversized work boots.
“Oh,” he added, “we told a few folks you were here.”
“Why, why would you do that?”
Todd shrugged. “People want to help.”
Another knock. This one is fast and urgent. I opened the door to find three more people: Jeanine, her husband, Mark, and someone carrying a crockpot the size of a toddler.
Jeanine brushed past me, sniffing loudly. “Tessa, sweetheart, why didn’t you call us? We would have come sooner.”
“I—”
Mark set the crockpot on the counter with a grunt. “Bison stew. Figured you’d be hungry.”
“I’m… not,” I stuttered.
“You will be. Grief is an appetite.”
“What is wrong with all of you?” I whispered. But they weren’t listening. People kept arriving. Knock after knock after knock. Condolences, casseroles, and unsolicited advice are pouring into the house like a flood.
Within fifteen minutes, Ray’s kitchen was full. Three pies, four casseroles, a Tupperware container of muffins, a tray of Nanaimo bars, a crockpot full of soup, eight condolence cards, unsolicited hugs, and more busybodies than should legally be allowed on one property. It felt like a fucked up scene from the twelve days of Christmas.
Someone started making more coffee, and someone else reorganized the fridge. Then someone rearranged Ray’s bootsby the door “for tidiness.” I stood in the middle of it all, dizzy from grief and noise and the scent of six different baked goods.
Jeanine squeezed my arm. “Do you need anything, dear?”
Yes. For all of you to leave. My brain screamed, but that’s not what came out of my mouth. “Water,” I croaked instead.
“Of course. Sit, sit.” But I didn’t sit. I started to move toward the back door, needing air, needing escape, and then I saw Wyatt’s truck drive into the yard and park near the barn.
Inside the kitchen, Marla clapped loudly. “Everyone, let the girl breathe!”
The noise swelled, voices overlapping, plates clinking, casseroles warming, busybodies consoling each other about how devastated they were. I pressed my back to the wall and dragged a shaky breath into my lungs. This was too much.
All of it.
I pressed myself deeper into the wall, palms flat, breath thin and high in my chest. The kitchen had always been small, but now it felt microscopic.
