Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 70445 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70445 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
“Renee, what happened?” But I already know. I knew the second she picked up the phone. Coldness builds in my feet, a numbness spreading up my legs, threatening to stop my heart.
“Honey, your father died this morning. I’m so, so sorry.”
I sit there and stare at the wall as my mind runs laps trying to process what she just said. She’s still talking, but I can’t hear her anymore, and all I can think is, Daddy’s gone, Daddy died, that giant of a man, that titan, that blinding light, he’s gone, he’s all gone, and I left things the way I left them, the way I always leave them, messy and horrible.
“Sorry, I have to go,” I manage to say and hang up.
My father is dead, and I can’t pretend like I don’t care anymore.
I lean forward, put my face in my hands, and I cry, tears rolling down between my fingers. I cry for my lost father, for my lost childhood, for the ranch, for everything that’s gone and will never be again. I cry, sobbing so hard my stomach twists like I might be sick, and I don’t know how I’ll ever come back from this.
Chapter 26
Melody
Daddy’s buried in a family plot not far from the ranch.
It’s a hot Texas day. I’m sweating in my black dress as I walk toward the gravesite. The rest of the family huddles together ahead of me—Daisy crying like she really gives a shit, Uncle Lovett and Uncle Dudley both staring like they’re shell-shocked, Dean and Evan limping and looking bruised and battered and unable to meet my eye—but I stay away, off to the side with Renee. The old ranch hand looks like a dozen years were sucked out of her in just the last few days, and that breaks my heart even more. Leader Ranch was my father, but it was also Renee, and all the other men and women that worked with them.
I put an arm around her, and she smiles sadly at me. “Never thought I’d see the day,” she admits. “Your daddy was one of a kind. He held that place together.”
“He was the ranch,” I agree and try not to gaze over at my aunts and uncles and cousins.
It’s hard to listen to the priest as they lower my father’s casket into the ground. There’s so much rage and hate in me, and I don’t know what to do with all this churning madness. It’s like someone lit a match and held it to a fuse and now I’m burning down, burning bright, and I’m going to break apart when it reaches the end.
None of them will speak to me. Not the uncles, not the cousins. Kerry squeezed my hand and said sorry, but that was all. She was the only one that seemed truly broken up about my father’s death—the others are all playacting. And I hate them for it.
The funeral was packed. Daddy was popular in the area. His old employees, his clients, the other ranchers, men and women from his various points in his life, they all packed into the big Catholic church to pay their respects. I heard stories about Daddy I’d never heard before, and some of them made me laugh, but most of them made me cry. I stood apart from the family like a leper, like a rat.
Not that I care. None of it matters. Daddy’s gone and I have no ties to the ranch anymore.
He didn’t leave the place to anyone. Not to me, not to Daisy, not to anyone. It’s not in the will at all, and arguably the language is vague enough that we could all lay claim if we wanted to fight it out in court. I’m sure Daisy and the uncles already hired counsel and plan a long and protracted legal battle, the winner of which will walk away with the deed to all that prime land, but I don’t give a damn. Ford offered to fund my own claim if I wanted, even said he knows an extremely talented lawyer that would take on the case for a reasonable price, but I told him no.
Let my family rip themselves to shreds.
When the priest finishes and Daddy’s in the ground, I spend a minute by the grave, saying my goodbyes. I remember him as he was: tall and proud, laughing and harsh, lifting me up on his shoulders and swinging me around and telling me that he loved me, and all the hours we spent riding together, and all the hours we spent sitting at the top of the tower reading together, and all that love and all that affection. I try not to think about the later stuff, with Rosie and with War. I focus on the good, on my daddy as I think he’d want me to remember him. As a good man, a father and a ranch hand. A real leader.