But every time I saw his name in Rawley’s texts, every time the wind came off the pasture with that green-apple tang, I wanted to rip the world open and find a way to start over.
Rawley finished the last stretch of fence and clapped dirt from his gloves. “Lunch?”
I nodded, throat too dry to speak.
We drove back to the house, windows rolled down, letting the wind whip the sweat from our faces. I could tell Rawley wanted to say something else, but he waited until we were parked and halfway up the steps to the porch.
“You know he’s not coming back, right?” Rawley said, not looking at me.
My mouth went dry. “Who?”
He gave me a sideways look, like I was the world’s worst liar. “You know.”
I thought about denying it, but what was the point? “Yeah,” I said. “I know.”
He nodded, then went inside, the screen door banging behind him.
I stood on the porch a minute longer, letting the sun burn my skin. The world was too quiet, like it was waiting for somethingto happen. I wanted to punch the siding, to scream, to call Carter and demand an explanation. But I didn’t. Instead, I wiped my hands on my jeans, went inside, and ate two cold sausages from the fridge without tasting them.
The afternoon was more of the same. Mending, hauling, sweating, breaking, repeating. Every so often I’d check the horizon, half-expecting to see a rental car crawling up the drive, Carter behind the wheel with his hair all wild and his eyes rimmed in gold. But there was only the wind, and the endless stretch of land that refused to forget anything.
By four, my muscles were soup. I finished the last of the day’s chores, wiped my face, and headed for the barn. I had a ritual now: check the horses, sweep the aisle, then sit on the hay bale where Carter and I had sat that night, just to remind myself it really happened.
I was halfway through sweeping when my phone vibrated in my pocket. I fished it out, hope blooming and dying all in the space of a heartbeat. It was Burke, texting from the feed store: “You want the good hay or the cheap shit?”
I thumbed back,“The good. Always.”
But my hands shook after, the adrenaline dump leaving me weak. I stared at the phone, thumb hovering over Carter’s contact. I still had his number. I still had every message he ever sent me, even the dumb memes and the one-word answers.
I wanted to text him. More than that, I wanted to hear his voice, even if he just told me to fuck off.
But I didn’t. I set the phone down, finished the sweep, and sat on the hay bale, elbows on knees, breathing in the dust and the memory of what could’ve been.
This was how you paid penance in Montana: in sweat, and silence, and all the words you never got to say.
The barn was empty, but for a second, I swore I could hear Carter’s laugh, soft and unguarded, echoing off the rafters. Iheld onto the sound until it faded, then stood up, squared my shoulders, and went to finish the day’s work. One foot in front of the other, just like always.
Maybe tomorrow I’d be strong enough to call.
* * * *
If you want to know when a day is about to go to hell, listen for the way time slows right before impact. The afternoon had been steady, the kind of predictable that makes you believe nothing could knock the world off its axis.
I was tossing fifty-pound bags of feed into the bin with Burke, working through the list and feeling, for once, like maybe tomorrow I really would call Carter. Maybe I’d find the words, or at least an apology.
The sun slanted low, drenching the yard in that high-summer gold, dust floating in the air like fallout from some distant explosion. The only other sounds were the engine tick of the truck and the chorus of flies buzzing over the sugar beet pile.
That’s when I heard it: the crunch of tires on gravel, not the lazy roll of a local, but the careful, tentative approach of a rental car. Out-of-towners always drove like they were waiting to see if the road would turn on them.
Burke cocked his head. “We expecting visitors?”
“Not that I know of,” I said, squinting through the sunlight. The car—a compact, silver, city model—slowed at the edge of the drive, then coasted to a stop by the barn. Dust billowed up, blurring the world for a second.
My body went cold, every nerve locking up. My arms were full of a sack of grain, but the weight didn’t register. I watched the car door open, slow like a movie scene.
Then he stepped out.
Carter. Hair longer than I remembered, tied back with a blue band that looked like it had cost less than a dollar. No suit, no silk—just jeans, a massive black sweater that swallowed his frame, and boots that still had the store tags half-torn on one heel.
