“Because it’s true.”
I poured myself coffee while she talked, listening to the rustle of sheets on the other end of the line. Summer breakmeant she slept crooked and late unless someone forced her upright, and I pictured her sprawled across her bed in Calgary, hair probably sticking out in three directions.
“How’s the rest of your day looking?”
“Mom’s taking me shopping. Apparently, I’ve outgrown everything, like a beanpole.’ Her words.”
“You did grow. Last time I saw you, you were taller than Angie.”
“I’ve been taller than Angie since grade four.”
“Still counts.”
She giggled, and the sound settled somewhere warm in my chest. Too warm. Too easy. Too far from the weight that’d been sitting there since Ray died.
“Hey,” she said, quieter now. “You okay?”
I hesitated, just long enough for her to catch it.
“Yeah, just busy.”
“Busy like ranch-and-brewery busy,” she asked, “or busy like ‘Dad’s thinking too hard again’ busy.”
Kids noticed everything.
“Both,” I admitted.
She hummed. “You’re doing the thing where you pretend everything’s fine, but your eyebrows look stressed.”
“I don’t have stressed eyebrows.”
“You totally do.”
I rubbed my face. “I’m alright. Just working through some stuff with a neighbor.”
“A neighbor,” she repeated. “Like land stuff or people stuff.”
“Both.”
There was a pause. “Is it bad?”
I thought of Tessa in the barn the night before, folded in on herself, fighting to breathe through grief she didn’t know how tocarry.
“It’s complicated.”
“Are you fighting with them?”
“Something like that.”
She didn’t miss a beat. “Well, you’re stubborn and you always think you can fix everything alone. Maybe stop doing that.”
A laugh slipped out of me before I could stop it. “Who taught you to talk like that?”
“You did.”
Fair enough.
“I’ll be out before school starts. I wanna see the horses. And help with the calves if you’ve still got any left.”
