Now I was staring at proof that somewhere inside his stubborn, silent skull, he meant to.
I pressed my fingertips over the sentence, slow and careful, like the ink might smear if I touched it too hard.
I turned the page. The next sheet was messier. Less list, more thoughts crammed in around the margins.
She doesn’t need my problems.
She has a life.
Be better. Be strong.
Just make it to winter.
Give her something worth coming back for.
I read it twice, the words sinking slowly under my ribs, heavy and hot. My hands weren’t just shaking now. They were trembling hard enough that I could hear the paper rustle.
He had been trying to hold it together for me. To protect me from the truth, while the truth chewed through him. I hadn’t known. I had been too busy surviving my own life to ask the right questions about his.
A sob broke out of me then. My knees went weak. I folded over the counter, clutching the notebook to my chest like it was a lifeline and not a catalogue of everything I lost.
Tears hit the laminate in small, scattered drops. They made tiny circles that spread and faded, just like everything else in this house. The refrigerator hummed. The clock ticked. Somewhere outside, a truck passed on the distant road.
Inside, all I could hear was that list in my head. Call Tessa. Ask about her job. Tell her I’m proud of her.
I didn’t know how long I stood there, shoulders shaking, forehead nearly touching the counter, crying into a notebooklike a child. Long enough that the sunlight outside shifted from gold to amber. Long enough that the shadows from the table legs stretched across the floor, reaching for the opposite wall. Long enough that my skin felt tight, my eyes ached, my nose was clogged, and my throat burned.
Grief didn’t care about dignity.
Eventually, my legs started to go numb. I peeled myself upright and wiped my face with the back of my wrist. My reflection in the dark window looked wrecked. Swollen eyes. Red nose. Hair falling out of its braid in frizzy strands.
I grabbed my boots from beside the door, shoved my feet into them without bothering with socks, and snatched the notebook off the counter. I couldn’t seem to leave it behind. It felt alive in my hand, like proof and apology and accusation all at once.
Outside, the yard glowed bronze under the last light of day. The air cooled enough to raise goosebumps on my arms when the breeze hit. The sky to the west was a smear of orange and violet, clouds catching the color like they didn’t understand that today should’ve been grey.
Crickets were already singing in the grass near the house. The wind carried the dry, eerie chorus of coyotes floating up from somewhere deeper in the valley. That sound always unsettled me, even when I was little. It reminded me that there were things with teeth out there watching, waiting for weakness.
The fencing bucket waited on the porch, in its usual place, so I grabbed it mid-stride, tossed the notebook in it, and started walking toward the south pasture.
My footsteps crunched softly over the packed dirt and gravel. Each step steadied me a little more. Movement pulled the grief into something sharper, something that could be turned outward instead of letting it chew at me from the inside.
Ray’s list echoed in my head.
Fix the south fence.
The farther I walked, the more obvious the neglect became. A leaning post here, a sagging wire there. Nothing catastrophic, but nothing good either. Ray would’ve torn into me for letting things slide like this, then cursed himself for not doing it sooner.
I saw the problem before I reached it.
The fence at the low point of the pasture had collapsed in a tired heap, like it finally given up and decided to lie down. Two posts leaned at odd angles, the wire hung slack and twisted, and the brace was mostly on the ground.
“Dammit,” I muttered.
The nearest cattle were higher up on the slope, just dark shapes against the fading light, but if they wandered down at night and found this hole, they’d be through it before I could even get my boots laced. Then I’d be chasing them through Hargrove coulees and draws all over hell’s half acre.
I didn’t have the energy for that. I barely had energy to stand upright.
I swung my leg over the fallen portion of the fence and walked along the opposite side to inspect the damage. The ground dropped a little here, just enough to make my footing unstable. The last windstorm had probably done most of the work. Time and stress finished it.
