Me:I'm tired.
Shae:No excuses. We're not letting you hide.
I stare at the screen. Shae won't let this go, and part of me doesn't want her to. I just need one more night before I face everyone. Before the questions start.
Me:Fine. Tomorrow night then. One drink.
Shae:We both know that's a lie.
I laugh softly and set the phone aside.
Tomorrow. One drink.
What could possibly go wrong?
Chapter two
Hazel
Iwake before dawn.
The room is still dark, the house quiet around me. Too quiet. Five years of city noise trained me to sleep through sirens and traffic, but this silence—this deep, heavy silence—won't let me rest.
I lie there for a while, staring at the ceiling, trying to convince myself to go back to sleep.
It doesn't work.
Finally, I give up and get dressed. Jeans. Boots. One of my old flannels pulled from the back of the closet, smelling faintly of dust and cedar.
I slip outbefore Mae wakes.
The sky is starting to lighten at the edges, pale gray bleeding into the dark. Stars still visible overhead, fading. The air smells like dew and grass and earth turned over by recent rain.
My feet carry me without deciding. Past the barn. Past the equipment shed. Out toward the fence line where the land rises slightly, cresting a low hill.
The family cemetery.
Generations of Clarks are buried here, tucked under the cottonwoods on the north edge of the property. My great-great-grandfather chose this spot—high enough to see the whole ranch spread out below, sheltered enough that the wind doesn't cut too hard in winter.
I haven't been here in five years.
Not since the funeral. Not since I stood in a black dress I bought the day before, numb and hollow, while the whole town gathered on this hill and watched me cry.
The wrought-iron gate creaks when I push it open.
I move slowly, weaving between headstones I've known my whole life. Names I learned before I could read. My great-grandparents. My grandparents.
I find his grave near the back, under the big cottonwood.
The headstone is simple. Gray granite. His name. The dates.
John Michael Clark
Beloved Brother, Father, Friend
No flowers. The grass is trimmed neat—Mae's doing, probably—but there's nothing decorative. Nothing soft.
That feels right somehow. He wouldn't have wanted fuss.
