[english] After The Rain (sau Cơn Mưa)

Author: Renee Carlino

My middle name is Jesus. Actually it’s Jesús de los Santos. In Spain it means Jesus of the Saints; in America it’s just a really strange middle name to grow up with. My parents came to America from Spain in the early eighties so my father could go to work on his cousin’s cattle ranch in Central California. To my mom and dad, America meant freedom, education, prosperity, and happiness. I was born here in ’85, ten years after my brother Daniel. My mother, being a devout Catholic, continued her family’s tradition of giving daughters religious middle names. I was her only daughter, born Avelina Jesús de los Santos Belo, which was quite a mouthful, so on school and medical records my mother shortened it to Avelina Jesús Belo. No pressure there.
Aside from putting up with the occasional jokes from classmates about my middle name, I had an otherwise idyllic childhood living on the ranch and attending the local public schools. Since before I can remember, I was riding horses and moving cattle with my father, brother, and cousins. The work was in my blood and riding horses came to me naturally, unlike making friends or doing other typical girlie things.
We had everything my parents wished for when they came here until I turned sixteen. That’s when my father was diagnosed with lung cancer. He was the first of many whom I loved but wasn’t able to mend. There were no healing powers in my hands; I was just a little girl with too many hard lessons to be learned. After he passed, my mother fell apart. His memory haunted her and made her frail. For months she sat in the ranch house, in front of the window, looking out for someone toe and rescue her—perhaps my father’s spirit, or maybe death.
I resented her for not being stronger, for not seeing...

 

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CHAPTER 1

Healer

Avelina

FALL 2003

My middle name is Jesus. Actually it’s Jesús de los Santos. In Spain it means Jesus of the Saints; in America it’s just a really strange middle name to grow up with. My parents came to America from Spain in the early eighties so my father could go to work on his cousin’s cattle ranch in Central California. To my mom and dad, America meant freedom, education, prosperity, and happiness. I was born here in ’85, ten years after my brother Daniel. My mother, being a devout Catholic, continued her family’s tradition of giving daughters religious middle names. I was her only daughter, born Avelina Jesús de los Santos Belo, which was quite a mouthful, so on school and medical records my mother shortened it to Avelina Jesús Belo. No pressure there.

Aside from putting up with the occasional jokes from classmates about my middle name, I had an otherwise idyllic childhood living on the ranch and attending the local public schools. Since before I can remember, I was riding horses and moving cattle with my father, brother, and cousins. The work was in my blood and riding horses came to me naturally, unlike making friends or doing other typical girlie things.

We had everything my parents wished for when they came here until I turned sixteen. That’s when my father was diagnosed with lung cancer. He was the first of many whom I loved but wasn’t able to mend. There were no healing powers in my hands; I was just a little girl with too many hard lessons to be learned. After he passed, my mother fell apart. His memory haunted her and made her frail. For months she sat in the ranch house, in front of the window, looking out for someone to come and rescue her—perhaps my father’s spirit, or maybe death.

I resented her for not being stronger, for not seeing how blessed she was. After burying my father, my brother dove into his own life, going to college and starting a family in New York City, far away from the ranch. The horses became my friends . . . and family. I started barrel racing in rodeos and competitions to make extra money while I watched my mother wither away in front of my eyes.

In my last year of high school, right after I turned eighteen in October 2003, my brother made the decision to send our mother back to Spain. Daniel promised me it was for her own good as well as mine. He agreed to take me in so I could finish my last year of high school, which meant moving all the way to New York, living in the city with his pretentious wife, starting at a new school, and being without my horses. I had no other options. I knew I would have to go somewhere, and New York sounded like a better option than Spain at that point.

Two weeks before we were to move, wild brush fires began raging in Southern California, sending clouds of smoke and haze into our valley, so I took my mother with me to a rodeo in Northern California to escape the dreadful air. We trailered all four of our horses, stopping periodically and letting them graze in the beautiful, untouched land of California’s Central Valley. During our drive, she spoke few words to me. She stayed hunched in the passenger seat, gazing out the window. When we traveled west to a small stretch of road where the mountains met the ocean, she sighed and said in her heavily accented English, “You are a healer. You have a gift. You’ve brought me home, belleza.” Beautiful, she called me. I looked exactly like her, with brown eyes too big for my head and long, dark, unruly hair.

“I’m not, Mama. I’m just a girl and we’re still in California,” I said to her. She didn’t respond—she was too far gone. Most of the time she was despondent like this. There would be the occasional nonsensical observation and then she would go back to quietly mourning my father. She existed in a grief-filled world that was off limits to the living. She existed in the past, and I knew I would never be able to help her, which made it the second time in my short life that I felt utterly powerless.

She spent most of that weekend in the cab of our truck or the dingy motel room where we were staying while I practiced and competed. I brought her meals and made sure she was okay before I went back to tending to the horses. I was scheduled to race for the last time on Sunday afternoon so I spent the morning watching the other events, sitting atop the corral just outside of the arena. It was a small rodeo composed basically of a main arena and two corrals freckled by a few sets of old, wooden bleachers. There wasn’t much money in the purses at those rodeos, but it was good practice and it wasn’t too far for me to drive.

During the men’s team-roping finals one of the horses, saddled and waiting in the corral, sauntered over to me. She nudged my leg and sniffed at my jeans. I let her smell my shoes and then I pushed back against the front of her face, in the space between her eyes and nose. “Go, get outta here.”

As soon as the words left my lips, I heard a brief whistle. Across the corral stood a man, his face shadowed by the large brim of his black Stetson. The mare left my side abruptly and trotted over to him. I watched as he climbed into the saddle with grace before giving the horse a subtle foot command to move forward into the arena. His team-roping partner entered from the other side. Just before the steer was released, the man looked over to me and nodded, the kind of nod that means something. It’s the quiet cowboy’s version of a wolf whistle. I lost my balance on the top of the corral and wobbled just for a moment before smiling back at him.

Instantly, the steer was out of the chute, followed by the men, one on each side. They roped the speeding creature in 5.5 seconds. It was fast, very fast but not fast enough to win. I fully expected to see two sulking cowboys trot back to the gate but only one looked totally defeated. The other, the man in the black Stetson, was smiling and riding toward me.

 

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As he approached with the reins and lasso in his left hand, he removed his hat with his right. He was so much younger than I expected and he was grinning emphatically. Two deep dimples appeared on the sides of his boyish cheeks. “Hey there, you distracted me,” he said, still smiling.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled.

“I’m kidding. I picked me a dragger. We didn’t have a chance.” His voice was smooth and confident. He was referring to the fact that the steer wouldn’t lift his hind legs to be roped.

“Good thing, I thought I blew it for you.”

“It takes more than a gorgeous woman perched on a fence to throw me off my game,” he said, placing his hat back on his head. I never thought of myself as gorgeous or even a woman for that matter. My heart leapt and bounced inside my chest. He maneuvered his horse through the gate, hopped off, and led her into the corral where she came up to me again. “Bonnie likes you.” He laughed. “You’re the only one besides me.”

I stepped down and began helping him remove her saddle and bridle. “She’s a fine horse.”

“She’s a baby—a little too eager, but she’ll learn,” he said, almost to himself.

“Bonnie, huh? Cute name. Are you Clyde?” I asked.

He smiled, removed his hat, and reached his hand out. “Oh, excuse me, ma’am. Where are my manners? I’m Jake McCrea.”

I took his hand and shook it firmly. “Avelina Belo.”

“Beautiful and exotic name. It suits you.” The corner of his mouth turned up into a handsome smirk. His eyes were the most vibrant blue. In the sunlight it looked like little electrical currents circled his pupils.

“Thank you,” I said but found myself at a loss for more words. His compliment awoke a feeling in me I had never experienced. I was never interested in dating, and I never thought of myself as attractive. That tingly feeling girls get long before they’re eighteen finally hit me like a million pulses of light striking my chest and moving south.

“What’s a girl like you hanging around the corrals for?”

I hesitated. “Like me?”

“Yeah, like you?”

“I’m racing.” I pulled my phone from my back pocket and checked the time. “Oh, shoot. I’m going on in twenty minutes. I gotta warm up my horse and change.”

“I can warm up your horse, just point me in the right direction?”

“She’s the Appaloosa, right over there. The one trying to bite that kid.”

He followed my gaze to where Dancer was stretching her neck through the corral slats, trying to bite the arm of a young kid who was leaning back against the fence. Jake whistled to call her over but Dancer ignored him. He glanced over to me with a questioning look.

“Dancer,” I said just above a whisper. She pinned her ears before turning and trotting toward me.

“Huh,” Jake said, shaking his head. “Never seen that before.”

I led her out of the corral to the back of the trailer and began dressing her for the race.

“She has great lines.” He smoothed a hand over her spotted flank.

“Most people think she’s ugly.”

“No, she’s beautiful.” He was stroking the horse but looking right into my eyes when he said it.

My heartbeat spiked. “You can just take her around a couple of times while I change. She tires fast.”

“Okay,” he said as he worked to lengthen the stirrup. He lifted himself into the saddle and Dancer immediately bucked. He sat firm in his seat, clearly a great horseman. Pulling the reins tighter, he caused Dancer to trot back a few steps. She swished her tail and then pricked her ears up with irritation. Jake leaned down and spoke to her in a smooth tone. “Easy now. You’re not gonna embarrass me in front of this pretty lady, are you?”

“She always takes the third barrel too wide. I can’t break her of it, just so you know.”

Dancer trotted in place, anxious to run toward the practice barrels. “How can you win if she’s always making mistakes?” Jake asked, smiling.

“She’s fast enough.”

“We’ll see.” He gave her a tight squeeze with his boot heels and off they went.

I changed quickly into my competition shirt, jeans, and boots, and within five minutes he was back. Dancer was warm but Jake looked downright worn out.

“You okay, cowboy?” I smiled up at him.

There was a glistening stream of sweat dripping down his sideburns. He jumped off and handed me the reins before removing his hat and brushing his dirty-blond hair back. He let out a huge breath. “Man, she’s a mean bitch, full of piss and vinegar, that one. I don’t know how you race that horse, skittering around like that. She didn’t take the third barrel wide, she practically tossed me over it.”

I laughed. “You’ll see.” I took the reins, hopped up into the saddle, and headed toward the arena. “This is no roping horse. She dances on air,” I shouted back to him.

He was right; she was a hard horse to handle but not when I rode her. I got to the gate just as they called my number. The buzzer rang and we were off. I bent low into her body as Dancer raced toward the first barrel. She rounded it with perfect ease and then we were off to the second barrel and then the third, which she took just a bit wider than perfect. It was an improvement. I kicked her hard and smacked the end of the reins back and forth against her shoulders. She picked up and flew home to the gate, barely touching her hooves to the ground.

 

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As I glanced toward the time clock the announcer called my score. I won.

After collecting my prize, I headed back to the stable where my truck and trailer were parked. Jake was sitting on the tailgate, laughing as I approached.

“You got something good there, honey?” he asked.

I held up my trophy and shook it in the air. “I won three hundred dollars!”

“Are you telling me you’re gonna take me out for a beer to celebrate?”

I swallowed hard as I looked down at him from atop Dancer. I shook my head slightly and then tried desperately to peel my eyes away from him. He had changed into a clean pair of Wranglers and a white button-down shirt. Still wearing a confident grin, he swung his legs back and forth playfully on the edge of the tailgate.

When I jumped down to remove the saddle and bridle, he came around and put his hand over mine. “I was kidding. Not about the beer but about buying. I’d like to take you out for a proper dinner. Can I do that?”

He squeezed my hand, gazing into my eyes, waiting for my answer.

“My mom is at our motel. I’m . . . only eighteen.” My voice shook embarrassingly.

“Oh, well, I only just turned twenty-one.” He smiled again. “I’m far away from my home in Montana, doing the rodeo circuit through California. It’s just me and my roping partner, so it gets kind of lonely.” I could tell he meant lonely in the genuine sense, not in a sexual way. “Maybe you can bring her along? You both need to eat, right?”

“Okay,” I said to Jake McCrea just three short months before I married him.

CHAPTER 2

Regimented Exercise

Nathanial

SPRING 2005

Flying up and down the rows of a crowded parking lot while my mother screamed in the backseat was not how I pictured the day I would officially become a doctor. My dad, in his token Hawaiian-print dress shirt, sat in the passenger seat, calm as ever, while I anxiously sped up and slowed down, periodically glancing at the clock on the dash. I had ten minutes to be in my seat before the ceremony started. There were no open parking spaces—the lot was littered with graduates hurrying along in their green and black gowns while my dad sat there humming “Yesterday” by the Beatles.

“I’m gonna be late. Shit! I’m gonna be late.”

“Christ, Nathanial, you’re going to kill somebody. Calm down!” my mother shouted.

“Mom, please, you’re not helping. And Dad, quit with the fucking humming.”

“Nathanial, are you really going to call yourself a doctor and use that kind of language?” I looked into the rearview mirror to see my peeved mother with her arms crossed, smirking at me.

“Oh that doesn’t matter, Elaine.” My dad finally awoke from his nostalgic daze. “Our boy here needs to choose his battles. First he needs to find a parking space in this godforsaken hellhole they call a university.”

I zipped through a group of pedestrians and spotted an open space on the other side. When I hit the gas, I could hear my mother whining under her breath.

“Dad, how can you say that about your alma mater and the very hospital you practice in?”

“Times have changed, Nate. That’s all I’m saying.” He stared out the window and went back to humming “Yesterday.”

Graduation day is a turning point for so many, but for me it was just the next box to check off as I followed obediently in my father’s footsteps. The David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA is a challenge for most, even if your dad is the head of cardiothoracic surgery, but for me medical school was a breeze. It was a party. Half of my courses consisted of a professor spewing information that had been planted in me and nurtured from the time I was able to speak. Courses in anatomy were like reciting the alphabet. The brachiocephalic veins are connected to the superior vena cava. The superior vena cava is connected to the right atrium. The right atrium is separated from the left ventricle by the atrioventricular septum. I knew these things not because my dad was a doctor but because my dad was the most passionate and revered cardiothoracic surgeon in all of Los Angeles. Even with his offbeat and sometimes risky methods, my dad was considered, within the large community of surgeons throughout the country, as the very best in his field.

The three of us jumped out of my beat-up Nissan Altima and started booking it toward the sound of the MC already beginning his speech. I scurried along, carrying my cap in one hand and car keys and cell phone in the other.

“Wait!” my mother yelled. I turned to find her standing at the edge of the parking lot with her hand on the hip of her black pantsuit.

“What is it, Mom?”

“Come on, Elaine,” my father barked.

“Wait, just wait, goddammit!” My mother never cursed. “Come here, Nathanial.” She was a petite woman with childlike features, a black pixie hairdo, and the tiniest elfin nose. Most of the time her timorous posture and gentle smile made her seem soft. I had towered over her five-foot-three frame since I was twelve years old but all she had to do was jerk her head up at me and her glare alone was as powerful as any weapon. My mother was a fearless force to be reckoned with. You know how they say behind every great man there’s a great woman? My mother would say, No, the woman is three steps ahead.

Even though she stood behind my father and me that day, she was three steps ahead of us, and by all accounts, in charge of the situation. I looked down at my feet and back to her face and saw her expression change from anger to pride.

 

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I walked toward her. She stood up on her tippy-toes and cupped my face.

“You’re my only child. This is the only time I will get to have this moment. Before you walk up on that stage and officially become an MD, I want you to know that I’m proud of you. Even if you take all of this away—the white coat, the degrees—even if you take it all away, that doesn’t matter because I’m proud of who you are in here.” She poked me solidly in the chest, over my heart, and then she grabbed my cell phone from my hand. “And no cell phones today. I’ve already confiscated your father’s.”

I grinned at her and she winked. “Thanks, Mom. I love you.” I leaned down and kissed her cheek.

“I love you, too, and you know if this doctor thing doesn’t pan out I still think you’d make a great model.”

“I think that ship has sailed, Elaine,” my father chimed in.

It wouldn’t be fair to say that my father had pushed me to become a doctor because he didn’t—at least not overtly. I had wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps from the very beginning. But ever since I was a child, he had very carefully nudged me in the specific direction of heart surgery by basically discounting every other profession in the world. He would say, “Son, what’s more important than keeping people’s hearts beating?”

I thought I was so clever that once I had said, “What good is a beating heart without a functioning brain?”

He had, of course, very quickly replied, “It’s as good as any beating heart. The important thing to note is that you can keep even a nonfunctioning brain alive as long as you have a beating heart. Doesn’t work the other way around, does it?”

There had been about five minutes in my junior year of undergrad, when I had come home after reading about the use of power tools in orthopedic surgery, during which I had said to my father, “I think orthopedics is going to be my thing, Dad.” The next day he had brought home a trunk full of items from Home Depot and one extra-large cow femur bone. He then ran the cow bone over with his car in the driveway until it splintered, cracked, and broke in several places, and then he gave me a bag of tiny screws and bolts and a cordless drill.

“Have at it, kid.”

I had spent sixteen hours straight in the garage without so much as a drink of water. By the time I had finished, I was exhausted and thoroughly spent but proud of the fully assembled cow bone, which I paraded through the house. My mother was mortified and told my father he had created a monster. He just laughed from the couch, hollering back to me, “Looks pretty, but will it support sixteen hundred pounds?”

As I studied the bone in my hands, I became frighteningly aware that I knew nothing about orthopedics. I had spent the better part of an entire day meticulously planning and assembling an insanely complicated puzzle only to learn that the purpose of the surgery had nothing to do with how the bone looked but how the bone would function. Moments after that realization, I had another one, almost instantaneously: I didn’t care at all about how bones worked. Orthopedics was not my passion. Sure, I understood the importance of learning the basics in biology, anatomy and physiology, and general medicine, but I had been dreaming about doing heart surgery. In my dreams I would travel inside the heart. I lived in it and inspected every detail in each chamber like the parts were individual rooms. I had become obsessed with the heart and its physical functions. Even now, the only broken hearts I was interested in were ones that required surgery.

Darting between aisles and chairs, I found my seat next to Olivia Green, my lab partner through most of medical school. She had a fiery personality to go with a shock of red hair she often wound into a thick braid over her shoulder. To many of our classmates, Olivia seemed socially awkward because of her literal interpretation of just about everything. She had a certain candor about her, which I liked because occasionally we used each other for other things and she never gave me any emotional bullshit.

“You’re late. You missed the walk up.”

“I noticed. I was trapped in the parking lot.”

“Trapped by who?” she whispered in a concerned voice.

My best friend, Frankie, was sitting on the other side of Olivia. He leaned in, shot me a look, and laughed. “Nate meant the parking lot was busy, Olivia.”

“Oh,” Olivia said. Frankie shook his head and then whispered across to me, “And she’s going to be performing heart surgery? That’s a scary thought.”

“Shut up, Frankie,” she said, elbowing him in the side. Frankie and Olivia just barely got along, and I think it was for my sake. Olivia was going to make a better doctor than both of us combined, and I think that got under Frankie’s skin.

The MC, Rod Lohan, who was also a friend and colleague of my father’s, began his speech. He announced the new physicians of the class of 2005, and before I knew it I was being called up to the stage.

“Nathanial Ethan Meyers.”

I thought that would be the last time I would hear my full name without the word “doctor” in front of it, like the rest of my life would be defined completely by my profession.

As I approached Dr. Lohan, whom I’d respected most of my life, I saw a glimmer in his eye. He was proud. I turned and searched for my mother and father in the crowd and found them looking up at me the same way. The long years of hard work paid off in that moment, but just as Dr. Lohan placed the graduation hood on my shoulders, I realized that my work had only just begun.

 

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After the ceremony, I had dinner with my parents and then met Olivia, Frankie, and a few other rowdy med school grads for drinks. We went to McNally’s, a local Irish pub. A man played the guitar and sang traditional pub songs from a tiny stage in the back. Between verses he would shout, “Chug it back, lads!”

I shook my head and wondered how I had been talked into going to a place like this. Olivia sat there bored, nursing a tiny cocktail, while Frankie, the social butterfly, made his rounds through the crowd.

“I’ll just have a water,” I said to the bartender.

“What’s the matter with you, bro? You’re not gonna have a celebratory drink?” Frankie shouted from halfway down the bar.

Olivia looked up at me, shaking her head. “Doesn’t he know you don’t drink?”

I shrugged. “Whatever, he’s just having fun.”

“He’s an imbecile.” She had no expression on her face.

I tugged on her braid. “Now, now, doc. Don’t get all hot.”

By then Frankie had walked up. “Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Boring. Don’t you two have some medical journals to be studying?” Olivia rolled her eyes.

“Actually, I do need to split, Frankie.” I gave him an apologetic look.

“I’m outta here,” Olivia mumbled.

“How about lunch tomorrow?” he asked me as I helped Olivia down from the stool.

“You got it.” Frankie was a good and loyal friend but he could be obnoxious, so I understood Olivia’s lack of patience with him.

I held the door open as Olivia and I headed out onto the street.

“I’ll walk you home,” I said to her. Her apartment was about four blocks from where we were and mine was six blocks in the other direction, but I knew she’d invite me in.

“Why are you staying in L.A. for your residency? I don’t get it,” she said as we walked briskly, shoulder to shoulder, down the sidewalk.

“Not everyone gets the privilege of doing their residency at Stanford.” I bumped my shoulder against hers in a teasing gesture.

“You would have been accepted but you didn’t even try.”

“What’s your point, Olivia?”

“I don’t know. It seems like you’re sticking around here because of your father.”

I could feel the heat spreading across my face. I clenched my jaw, stopped in my tracks, grabbed her shoulders, and turned her so she was facing me. Her large, dark eyes and freckles made her look younger but her lips were always pursed in an act of scrutiny, which sometimes made her look older. “My father has nothing to do with it. And I haven’t been given special treatment, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

She shrugged and one skinny eyebrow darted up. “Okay, whatever you say.”

“You know how hard I’ve worked. It has nothing to do with him. I’m not going to live in his shadow. I can be a better surgeon. It’s what I was born to do and I want to do it here. I like L.A. I’ve been here my whole life. I don’t need to be distracted in a new place.”

She turned and walked away, calling back, “I get it, Nate. You don’t have to walk me the rest of the way. I’m fine. Good night.”

I watched her walk down the block to the front of her building before I started jogging toward her. “Wait up, Olivia.”

She held the door to the lobby open. “What’s up?”

I hesitated. “Can . . . can I come in?” I smiled just enough to let her know I wasn’t mad at her.

She laughed once and then motioned with her hand for me to walk through the door. Once we were alone inside the elevator, I pinned her against the wall and kissed her. Her hair always smelled like tea tree oil. It was kind of a turnoff and I think she knew that. Like me, she wasn’t looking for someone to distract her. I tried not to breathe through my nose. She kissed me back, hard and demanding, and then began tugging at my belt. There was nothing warm or romantic about her.

“Hold on,” I whispered. “Not in here.”

When the elevator doors opened she grabbed my hand and pulled me down the hallway. “Hurry,” she said. “I want to be in bed by nine.”

“I’m getting you into bed right now.”

Unlocking the door to her apartment, she turned and looked at me. Her nose was scrunched up in revulsion. “I don’t want to do it in my bed, Nate.”

We had never had sex lying down. I think, in Olivia’s mind, that was too intimate. It was a miracle I could even get excited enough to be with her. She was gorgeous, but sex with Olivia was like a regimented exercise that was exactly the same every time. She told me where to put my hands and how to move and I would basically follow her directions, close my eyes, and pretend for a few moments that we weren’t just using each other night after night. It wasn’t that I wanted to find love, though. I didn’t have time for a relationship, so my arrangement with Olivia was perfect. It was just hard to overlook her cold nature sometimes.

“Over here.” She moved toward the small dining table in her kitchen. With her back to me, she pulled her tights and panties down to her ankles, lifted her skirt, and looked over her shoulder. “Come on.” She smiled playfully.

I fucked Olivia like that all the time, against a table with most of my clothes on. When I bent her over farther, I ran my hand up her back, inside of her shirt, and moved my other hand to her front. We were about ten minutes in before she came loudly, screaming, “Oh fuck!”

 

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I finished twelve seconds later and five minutes after that I was back in the elevator heading home.

Olivia was leaving the following week to go to Stanford. I didn’t know if I would ever see her again, but sadly the thought didn’t bother me. It truly felt like the beginning of my life, and all I could think about was becoming the best heart surgeon in the country.

CHAPTER 3

What Breaks Us

Avelina

SPRING 2005

Jake was my first kiss—my first everything. After my mom eventually went back to Spain, he took care of me and made me feel safe. We got married in Las Vegas at one of those quickie chapels, but it didn’t matter to us because we loved each other. We sold my three other horses, my truck, and my trailer, but Jake let me keep Dancer. He knew I would never part with her.

I always thought I would go to nursing school or become a veterinarian, but instead, the moment I met Jake, I dropped out of high school and never bothered getting my GED. The winter we got married, we were hired as wranglers on a ranch a hundred miles northeast of Great Falls, Montana. Ranching was something I knew well but it wouldn’t have mattered what I was doing, as long as I was with Jake.

The owners of the ranch were an older couple, Redman and Bea Walker. They didn’t have any children, just hired help, so we lived there in one of four cabins off the main ranch house. Bea cooked our meals while Redman, who got more ornery by the minute, rode around the ranch on a great big bay horse, barking orders at the rest of us. There was also Dale, who was in his forties—he was a large animal vet—and Trish, his wife, who was once a national rodeo queen. Dale helped out on the ranch but his veterinary practice also extended to other ranches nearby. Trish was a wrangler, like Jake and me, which meant she worked the horses and cattle and handled the general caretaking duties around the ranch. There were no children at the Walker Ranch; Jake and I were the youngest, and sometimes Trish, Bea, and the other ranch hands would call us “the kids.” I’d overheard Trish telling Bea that her condition made her barren. I never pried any further to find out what condition Trish had, but I knew Bea had struggled to have children herself, which made her very sympathetic to Trish’s situation. Redman and Bea had one child that I knew of who died at birth, so those who lived on the ranch became their family instead. There was history and wisdom inside of Bea and Redman and a lot of old, painful memories that they’d share as lessons whenever the opportunity arose.

Ranching is a dangerous life and not for the faint of heart. Sometimes the pain behind Bea and Trish’s eyes, which I knew was from not being able to have their own children, made the ranch feel like some sort of graveyard of broken dreams, only made beautiful by the breathtaking landscape, the huge, endless dreamlike skies, the millions of stars we saw on clear nights, and of course, Bea and Trish’s strong female drive to carry on and be mothers to us all.

For Jake and me, our hearts and dreams hadn’t been broken yet. We were excited about life and we talked about it all the time. And we wanted kids. Every time Jake would make love to me, he would say, Make a baby with me, Lena. That’s what he called me for short. This time it will work, he would say, though it didn’t for almost a year.

In the meantime, we took refuge in each other. He wasn’t much more experienced in the relationship department than I was, but he was tender and sweet with me and we learned together. We explored each other’s bodies and our own, and we figured out how to feel good while we were tucked under the thick wool blankets in our tiny cabin at the Walker Ranch.

Jake’s parents lived a couple of hours north, near the Canadian border. We didn’t hear from them much except for an occasional phone call from Jake’s mom. Jake didn’t want me to meet them because he said his dad was a mean drunk and his mom had taken the abuse so long that she was just a shell of a woman.

In the summer of 2004 we did the rodeo circuit again, traveling back to California and down to Texas. Neither one of us ever got national attention but it was what we loved doing. In the fall we would drive the cattle back to the ranch and in the spring we would take them out to pasture.

The winters were long and cold in Montana but we had each other and our horses. Jake had bought me a little herding dog. He was an Australian shepherd mix and he hated everyone. He only had one purpose in life and that was to herd the cattle. We named him Pistol.

The following spring Jake and I made a plan to take the cattle out to pasture and then camp for a week or so in the valley before heading back. Once Redman agreed to it, we decided to think of it as a little honeymoon, even though we had been married for more than a year. We would take our time coming back, fish in the streams, and enjoy nature.

“I want to bring Dancer,” I said to Jake as he sat on the steps going up to our cabin.

“No, she’s no good for this type of thing. You know that. She’s got no stamina.”

I sat down next to him. Tucking a strand of my dark hair behind my ear, he squinted his eyes and smiled, revealing his boyish dimples. “We’ll take Bonnie and Elite. They’re good girls. Okay, sweetie?”

He sat there in his tight Wranglers and cowboy hat set low on his head. His legs were spread wide and his chest puffed out, broad and firm. He had such a strong and convincing presence. I could never say no to him. “Okay.”

“Come here, Lena.” He pulled me onto his lap and brushed my hair off my shoulders to fall down my back. The roughness of his jaw tickled my neck as he laid small kisses near my ear. “You’re mine,” he whispered. “No one else can ever have you.”

 

After the Rain
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I kissed him on the mouth, expressing my agreement. I was the luckiest girl in the whole world. I turned in his embrace and pushed my back against his chest. His hands clasped together over my center, holding me tight against his body. I wondered briefly what his hands would feel like clasped over my pregnant belly. “What are you thinking about, angel?”

“I wonder what our kids will look like.”

“I can only imagine precious little girls as beautiful as their mother.”

Turning to look up at him, I smiled. “You mean you don’t want boys?”

“Oh I do. It’s just hard for me to imagine them.”

“What will you teach them?”

He looked up thoughtfully. “Besides the work and the horses, the cattle, I guess. Maybe I’ll teach them how to find the perfect girl and how to be a man.”

I looked up to the sky and rested the back of my head on his shoulder. “Tell me, Jake McCrea, how does one find the perfect girl?”

“You have to look real hard for that sparkle in her eye.”

I began to giggle and then he tickled me and I fell into fits of laughter. “You’re a silly man,” I shouted. “Stop that right now.”

We were quiet for several moments. He turned me in his lap and kissed me softly, holding my bottom lip between his teeth for a second before letting go and murmuring near my ear, “You’re a sexy woman. Come to bed with me, Lena.”

We packed our things in our saddlebags and rode out at dawn. It was a two-day ride to the pasture and one back without the herd. The skies were clear but it was brisk. I wore a thick down coat and heavy jeans over thermals but I was still cold. Jake wore a T-shirt, Carhartt jacket, jeans, and a baseball cap.

On the first night, we set up camp at dusk near a stream. Jake built a fire so I could warm up some tea. I unwrapped sandwiches Bea had made for us while I watched my silly husband strip down to nothing. He was completely naked, standing outside the tent. “What are you doing?” I asked in amusement.

“Going for a swim.”

“Jake, you’ll freeze.”

“No I won’t. Watch me.” He put his cowboy boots back on and ran down the short embankment toward the stream. I grabbed a blanket and chased after him. Before I could reach him, he tore off his boots and quickly walked into the deepest part of the river, shouting back at me the whole way.

“Oh, baby, this feels great!” he yelled. “You have to get in here! Come on, get naked.”

“No way! You’re crazy!” He only lasted about two minutes and then he came jogging out of the water, cupping his hands over himself. “You don’t want to see this, Mrs. McCrea.” He was shaking but still smiling. His abs and chest and biceps flexed as he squeezed his arms in toward his body.

“You are one sexy cowboy, even freezing.” I threw the blanket around him and he laughed, shivering under the wool.

“You gonna warm me up, sweetheart?” he asked, his eyes glimmering with hope.

“I’d love to warm you up, handsome.”

Back in our tent, Jake never got dressed. He climbed into our sleeping bag and just grinned at me as I undressed. There was one small lantern on the floor of the tent but it gave off enough light for me to see the desire in his eyes.

“Hurry, Lena, I need you to warm me up.”

I got undressed and slipped into the sleeping bag, facing toward him. “Should we turn out the lantern?”

“No one will see us; we’re in the middle of nowhere. Let’s leave it on so I can look at you.” He grinned and then sunk down and kissed his way from the hollow of my neck to my breasts. “Your body is perfect,” he said as he continued to kiss every inch of me. We made love twice that night and then we stayed twisted up in each other for a long time after. Sometime later in the night, he stirred at the sound of the wind rushing through the nearby trees.

The temperature had dropped dramatically once the sun went down, and I thought it would be wise to get dressed again. I reluctantly left the warmth of the sleeping bag.

“It’s just the wind,” I said through chattering teeth as my body trembled uncontrollably.

“You’re freezing, Lena. Just get back in here.”

“But . . .”

“Trust me, I’m warm enough to heat you up throughout the night.”

He was right, as usual. I stripped back down to nothing and pressed myself against his warm, naked body. He threw his muscular leg over me and I ran my hand down it, finding the wiry hair on his thighs and the smooth part where his Wranglers had chafed the skin. His big body enveloped me and made me feel loved and protected.

They say that home is where the heart is. Mine was always right there, tucked between Jake’s big arms.

At sunrise we were back to business, packing up our camp and saddling the horses. There was an eerie calm through the valley, as if it were part of a landscape painting, vivid and bright but frozen in time. The hills looked one-dimensional. No wind rustling the trees, no sounds from nature, and no vocalizations from the herd, which gave me a foreboding feeling.

I looked to Jake, who was cinching the saddle on Elite, our beautiful black-and-tan bay horse. His face was drawn down in a worried expression.

“Calm before the storm?” I asked.

“I don’t think so,” he said quickly. “The horses would be twitchy.” He kneed Elite in the belly so she would inhale, allowing him to cinch tighter. When he yanked up, she spooked, jumped sideways, and began skittering backward. Jake grabbed the reins, pulling them up and in against her neck. “Sit, sit,” he hissed through gritted teeth. It was his command to stop the horse from moving backward. He was trying to get control but Elite was skittish. She sensed something.

 

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He jumped into the saddle without hesitation and turned her in a circle as she chomped down and tugged at the bit in her mouth. “Get Bonnie ready,” he said to me. “I’m gonna run this one out a bit.”

“There’s a storm coming, right Jake?” I asked in a shaky voice.

He turned the horse once more and stared down at me, gauging my expression. His lips turned up into a self-assured smile. “Don’t worry, baby, everything will be okay.” With that, he let the reins out and gave Elite a little squeeze with his heels. From her back legs, she leapt forward, and they were off.

Horses are beautiful, majestic, and useful, but they’re not intelligent creatures. They have no way of judging a situation—they just react. Jake wanted to tire Elite out so she wouldn’t be so jumpy and endanger us. I would be the one riding her. He was trying to control her so she wouldn’t react to the doom that we all felt looming around us.

Once he was back with Elite, he seemed anxious. He wanted to get going and move the cattle out. He slid off of the saddle and handed me the reins. “She’s good. Let’s go,” he said and then he kissed me on the nose.

We gradually moved through the valley as the weather began to pick up. Jake sat back, relaxed in his saddle as he jogged Bonnie back and forth behind the herd, periodically whistling or clicking commands at her. At times I could hear him growling, “Get, get-up you.” A cow and her calf lagged behind, slowing our progress down. Pistol worked one side, prowling low and keeping the cattle in line while I trotted Elite on the other side. I stole glances at Jake every time I felt the wind pick up. He wore his baseball cap low, shadowing his eyes, but I could see his mouth. Every time I looked back he would flash me his dimpled grin, a piece of straw peeking from the corner of his lips as he chewed on it.

As the sun dropped down in the sky and fell behind the distant mountains, big storm clouds moved in, fast and hauntingly dark. The sky went almost black at three o’clock in the afternoon. I was shivering from the gusty bursts of wind blasting through me. Jake’s expression began to change. His jaw tightened and flexed and he sat upright in the saddle. We found a section of tall grass where the cattle could bunch together.

“We’ll stop here and camp over by the trees,” he shouted to me over the loud, rushing wind. The herd began to react and Elite began jumping nervously. Jake raced Bonnie toward me. “Get down from her!” he yelled.

I tried to pull her in a circle but she only went halfway and then began nervously shifting backward. “Get down!” Jake’s tone was harsher than I had ever heard from him.

Elite sat back on her haunches slightly and pinned her ears back. I slid off the saddle, jumped down, and moved away quickly. Jake was already at her side, grabbing at the reins and pulling her toward the trees. He tied the horses up as I spread the tent out to begin setting up. I was freezing before but then it began snowing. My hands went numb as I fumbled with the tent anchors.

Spring storms were not totally uncommon, but this storm had a fervor and fury to it that I could tell frightened even Jake. The wind was fierce, whipping the tent about as I tried ineffectively to set it up. We weren’t prepared for such a drastic temperature drop or for the several inches of snow. It felt like we were on the top of a mountain in a blizzard.

Jake jammed the last post into the ground and then turned to me. “Get in there, Lena.” He was out of breath.

“No, I’ll wait for you.”

He pulled me toward his chest. “I’m going to check on that calf and bring Pistol back. Just get in there. I’ll be back in a minute.” He touched his freezing lips to my mouth and pressed hard before untying Elite from the tree and jumping into the saddle.

Just as he passed me, one of the tent lines flew off the anchor, forcing the material to fly back and make a sound like a cracking whip. Elite reared right over me, and I saw as fear and panic swept over Jake’s face, almost as if the scene were playing in slow motion. Elite’s hooves fluttered just inches from my head. Stumbling back, I fell on my bottom and looked up to see Jake pulling Elite’s reins tight, forcing her from the reared position to fall backward, on top of him. He was trying to protect me. He had forced a thousand-pound animal to fall backward onto himself, crushing his body, allowing me to escape without a scratch.

“Jake!” I screamed so loudly that Elite immediately rolled over, got to her feet, and took off frantically. My husband, my cowboy, was lying there, nearly lifeless in the snow and the mud. I had seen Jake on a rearing horse and I knew he wouldn’t have pulled her back that way if I hadn’t been standing there.

I ran to him and dropped to my knees. His eyes were closed but he was moaning. “Jake, please, look at me.” For several minutes he stayed that way, moaning as blood began dripping from his nose. Panicking, I quickly secured the loose tent line to the anchor, grabbed him from under the arms, and dragged his six-foot-two massive body into the tent. He moaned and made horrifying guttural sounds as I yanked him across the rough terrain. I had to get him out of the cold or he would die there. After making sure that the tent was stable, I covered him with the sleeping bags.

My mind was racing. What could I do, how could I help, how could I heal him?

I knelt beside him when he began to stir.

“Jake, say something. Are you okay?”

He looked up at me and there were tears in his eyes. “I can’t feel my legs.”

The air rushed from my lungs as if I had been punched in the stomach by a thousand fists. I was gutted and had no words. I could feel myself shaking my head back and forth slowly but I wasn’t making a conscious effort to do so. I was in a state of complete disbelief and shock.

 

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“No,” I said finally, but the word rushing over my lips barely made a sound. Jake grimaced, clearly pained by the realization he saw on my face. “It can’t be,” I said. He nodded and then closed his eyes, pressing tears to the corners before a steady stream began running down his cheeks. That was the first time I ever saw Jake cry. Even then, he tried to turn his head away.

“No, Jake, I won’t believe it, I promise you, it will all be fine. Look at me.”

I turned his head to face me but he wouldn’t look. “Open your eyes and look at me,” I sobbed, then my own tears began dropping into his hair.

God wouldn’t do this to me, I thought. I tried to convince myself that no God would let this kind of tragedy happen to two people so in love with such a long, hopeful future in front of them. But of course, I knew that wasn’t true. I knew that kind of pain and sadness; I was familiar with it and I knew it didn’t discriminate.

I spent that night holding him, counting his breaths and praying. We were a day’s ride away. We had a cell phone but no service in the valley. In the morning he fell in and out of consciousness as I prepared for the ride back. The weather had calmed but it was still snowing and very cold. I was terrified and every time I looked down at him lying there, the sinking feeling I had in my stomach would fall deeper. During one of his more lucid moments, he mumbled something to me as I sat next to him to put my boots on. I bent close to his face. “Tape your feet,” he said in a low voice, barely audible.

I shook my head up and down quickly and then rifled through his bag until I found a roll of duct tape. I ran the tape over my socks and then taped the outside of my lace-ups.

“Good girl,” he whispered to me.

I grabbed my pack and leaned over to kiss him. When he moved an arm up to touch my face, he winced and sucked air through his teeth. “Don’t move, I’ll be back soon.” I could taste the iron tanginess of blood when I kissed him.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you, too.” Tears flooded my eyes and dropped onto his face where they mixed with his. “Jake, you’re going to be fine, I promise,” I said slowly, as I took deep, deliberate breaths.

My heart was heavy and thudding along painfully as I watched his expression turn bleak. He swallowed and shook his head. “Get yourself to safety, don’t worry about me. Don’t come back for me. I’m no good,” he said, and then he lost consciousness. I fell apart, sobbing over his chest for several minutes before I could force myself to stand.

Crying hysterically, I stumbled out of the tent and discovered that Bonnie was gone. I fell to my knees again, cursing God and my middle namesake. Both horses were gone. I had no choice but to walk and hope that Redman and Dale would come looking for us. I had little faith that Jake and I would survive.

For the first time in his life, Pistol came up and licked my face, whimpered, and nuzzled his nose into my arm.

“Let’s go, boy.”

I headed back through the familiar snow-covered landscape I had traveled many times before. In parts where the vegetation was dense, the snow had already melted, creating thick, slushy mud. There was water sloshing in my boots, making my feet go numb. I fell several times by midday. On horseback, even at a slow pace, I would have covered twice as much ground.

Pausing near a tree, I hunkered down and called Pistol to me. I tucked him into my chest and tried to use his warmth to heat my body. I dozed off for a minute and dreamt of my horse Dancer coming to me. I woke with a start and realized the weather was getting bad again. To stay warm enough to survive, I would have to keep moving. I got up, whistled, and called out, hoping that Bonnie or Elite would turn up to take me home. As I trudged on against the storm, I kept my head down, trying to shield myself from the snow. At one point the wind was so strong that the snow looked like it was coming toward me, not down on me.

Every time I wondered if Jake was still breathing, my heart sank so low in my chest that it physically hurt. I tried to stay focused on getting back to the ranch. In the evening, the snow stopped falling long enough for me to make a shelter with branches and leaves, but it didn’t last long. Everything was saturated with snow, so I found a large rock and lay across it. Pistol jumped up and curled into me. We stayed like that, curled in a ball for hours until I had the strength to move again.

Before light filled the sky I was walking out of the valley, delirious, hungry, thirsty, and hopeless. “Dancer,” I whispered over and over. After hours of wishing, she came to me, as if in a dream. She walked out of the foggy haze, her striking white mane flapping against her neck. “Dancer,” I called, and she came trotting through the snow.

It was the first time in my life I truly surrendered. Dancer could have been a dream or an illusion, but at that point nothing mattered anymore except for my next breath. My body was numb and my eyes burned. Swinging my leg over her bare back, I gripped her firmly, taking a handful of her mane near her ears with one hand and a handful near her neck with the other. I bent low and close to her body and squeezed my legs as tight as I could. “Go home,” I said, and she took off, dancing in a full gallop across the open plain.

When she slowed, she was laboring heavily and foaming at the mouth. Pistol was still following us. We had one large plain to cross and then we would be near a road that led to the ranch.

I dozed off and only came to when I heard Redman shouting at Bea, “Call an ambulance!”

Draped over Dancer’s back, I kept my eyes closed, finally feeling safe after hearing the familiar voices. I let my mind wander to the days when I met Redman and Bea. They made Jake and me feel like we were part of a family again. Redman’s face was handsome, weathered as it was, and his voice was deep and rich. I imagined the younger version of himself as the Sundance Kid. Bea, a skinny, feisty woman, would have made the perfect Etta Place in her day. Now her hair was completely gray, always carefully pinned into a neat bun at the nape of her neck, and she never wore makeup. Like Redman’s, her face was covered in deep lines from many years of working outdoors. Redman’s hair still had some hint of ruddy color streaking through the gray but his eyes were a dull blue, which sometimes happens when the color fades with age, making even the brightest eyes look lifeless over time. He was an intelligent man and a skilled horseman, and he was compassionate and funny around the people he knew well, but he had a short fuse. Bea took a lot of crap from him, so occasionally she would give it right back.

 

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“Jesus Christ, Red, why did you let these kids go alone?” she yelled as she pulled me down from Dancer’s back. I collapsed into her and spoke with the very little breath I had left.

“Jake is . . . hurt . . . bad. Three hours . . . east of the pasture. He needs . . . help,” I managed to let out. That was my last memory before waking up in a hospital room.

I woke to the sound of beeping from a monitor above me. I was alive. It wasn’t a dream. I turned my aching body and pressed a button to call a nurse. After what felt like an hour, a nurse finally came in and shut off the monitor alarm.

“You were just tangled up, sweetie. How are you feeling?”

“Where is my husband? Where are Redman and Bea and Dale and Trish?” The nurse smiled, looking pleased at my alertness.

Before she could answer, I heard Trish’s thick Texas accent echoing from the hall. “Oh, she’s awake?” She came running in, followed by Dale and Bea.

Trish wore her hair big, blond, and curly as she had in her rodeo-queen days. “Oh, Avelina, you’re awake, it’s so good to see those big brown eyes staring back at me.” Her hair bounced on the tops of her shoulders.

There was pity on all three of their faces. My eyes welled up. “Jake?” was all I could squeak out.

Dale’s entire face looked forlorn, and it looked like he had aged since I had last seen him. Dale was more handsome than most men you might come across in Montana. He had an air of sophistication about him. His dark brown hair was straight and always neatly combed, matching the eyebrows that framed his light green eyes. But that day there was no glimmer in his expression like there usually was.

Bea stepped up with an obligatory smile. “Jake is down the hall. Redman is with him.”

“That’s not what I want to know, Bea.” My voice was high, loud, and demanding.

“Don’t sass me, girl,” she shot back.

I started crying and then sobbing. “What is it, Dale? You’ll tell me, won’t you?”

He was at a loss for words. I ripped my I.V. out. Holding my hospital gown closed in the back, I scurried toward the door. Trish stopped me from heading out into the hallway. She had a wrinkled upper lip that drew the pink color from her lipstick into the tiny lines above her mouth, which were only visible when you were standing about five inches from her face. The result of so many years of smoking, I assumed.

She frowned. “Thank Jesus, Jake is alive, honey. He was awake earlier today, talking to all of us.”

“Then why are you frowning?”

She huffed and swallowed audibly, trying to fight back tears. With her hands gripping the outsides of my shoulders, she looked me right in the eyes and said, “He broke his neck, baby. He’ll never walk again.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing I could disappear. I knew Jake would not be the kind of man to take that news easily. Terrified to see him, I shuffled into the hallway and followed Trish to his room. His eyes were open and he was staring at the ceiling from his hospital bed when I walked in.

Redman rushed past me on his way toward the door. “Glad to see you up and about. He’s all yours.”

I grabbed Redman’s arm and pulled him around. “Why was Dancer out there?” I said, staring intensely into his cloudy blue eyes.

He squinted and then shook his head. “I don’t know. We were packing the horses to head out and noticed that her stall was open and she was gone. A few minutes later she was coming toward the house with you draped over her. All that matters is that you’re both here with us.” He bent, kissed my cheek, and left the room.

I moved to Jake’s bedside and leaned over. He wouldn’t make eye contact with me.

“Hi,” I whispered. He didn’t respond. He continued staring past me toward the ceiling. His eyes looked hollow. “Jake?” I said softly.

I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed his fear and spoke. “You all should have left me out there.”

“Oh Jake, I’m so sorry.” I fell forward onto his chest, overcome with guilt. He was paralyzed because of me.

I knew he could move his hands and arms but he didn’t even try to cradle me. He just let me slide off of him. I collapsed onto the floor in sobs.

Jake spent a month in the hospital and then a month in a recovery center. For each milestone he achieved—regaining full use of his hands and arms, using a wheelchair—I danced around and celebrated while he sat there and glared at me. One day, when we were with his physical therapist, I asked her if Jake could try to work up to using his legs again.

Jake snapped before the therapist could answer. “The doctors said it would be impossible. Are you deaf? Did you not fucking hear that?” Before the accident he never spoke a hurtful word to me.

“I’m sorry, babe,” I mumbled.

He didn’t respond. Instead he wheeled himself down the hall toward the exit.

At our cabin, Dale and Redman built a ramp and made other accommodations for the wheelchair. Life didn’t get any easier once Jake was home. He didn’t want me to bathe him or care for his needs in any way that would embarrass him. Instead, he would call Bea, and even then it was only to do the bare minimum. It made me feel useless and drove a big wedge between me and Jake. By winter his hair and beard had grown long and his eyes had become more expressionless and distant. The electrical current that animated his eyes had disappeared, and they dulled in color to a doleful, hazy blue. He spoke few words to me or anyone else. He would sit in his chair all day long in the front room and stare out the window. People on the ranch would walk past and wave to him but he would never wave back. There was a small TV in the corner that he kept on all day, usually on a news or sports channel. I think it was to drown out his own thoughts.

 

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Besides Jake’s looks, his personality changed a lot in the months following his accident. He didn’t talk to me about how he felt. He wouldn’t kiss me; he would barely even look at me. Dale tried over and over to help him. He even encouraged Jake to begin studying so he could go back to school and become a veterinarian, or at least an assistant. Dale offered to let Jake work with him but Jake refused. He oftentimes got very agitated at anyone who made suggestions like that.

I stopped trying to convince Jake that he could have a normal life. He would sometimes call me stupid and then he would beat himself up afterward for treating me that way. The only thing I could do was try my best to make Jake comfortable. I continued working on the ranch so that we would have money. I ordered everything that a handicapped person could possibly need and had it all delivered right to our doorstep.

The doctors convinced me that Jake didn’t need pain medicine anymore but he would get so aggravated if I tried to lower his doses. He would tell me that I was lucky I didn’t know what it felt like to be crushed by a horse. He was wrong, though; the pain and guilt I felt was like a stampede of twenty wild horses trampling my heart every day.

On the coldest night that winter after the accident, Jake found a bottle of whiskey under the sink. I sat on our couch and watched him drink glass after glass in front of the fire. Before I went to bed, I went to him. I brushed a hand down his arm from behind and bent to kiss the side of his face.

He grabbed my hand, stopping me, and squeezed it so hard I had to hold my breath to prevent a scream from escaping my lips. Pulling me down toward his face, he seethed through gritted teeth: “Don’t. Touch. Me.”

He let go and I grabbed the bottle. “No more of this, Jake.”

He reached his long arm up, took a hold of my hair and neck from behind, and slammed my head down on the TV tray over his chair. I tried to pull away but he slammed me down over and over again. Scratching at his arms and trying desperately to get away, I could feel my hair being yanked out with every effort. I was crying and screaming and shocked by his strength. When I tasted blood in my mouth, I pleaded for mercy.

“Please, baby, stop,” I cried.

He held me down over his chair and whispered, “I’m taking you with me.” He smelled of whiskey and thick B.O. mixed with the muskiness of his greasy hair.

I fell to my knees as he gripped my neck tighter. “Please! Let go, you’re hurting me!”

“You want to come with me, don’t you?” he said, matter-of-factly.

Seconds later, I felt Redman forcing me out of Jake’s grasp. He didn’t say two words to Jake as he scooped me up and carried me out.

Walking toward the big house with me in his arms, Redman said, “You’ll be okay.” His voice was low and soothing.

He took me into the guest room and laid me on the bed. Bea came in with a bowl of warm water and a washcloth to clean my face. I reached up and felt my swollen cheeks and the blood mixed with tears.

Bea’s expression was stoic as she dabbed at the cuts over my eyes. “You don’t deserve this,” she said.

“Yes I do.” I believed it like it was the ultimate truth, just like I believed that the sun would rise in the morning and fall in the evening.

She started singing “Danny Boy” quietly while she continued cleaning my face. I fell asleep wondering when Jake would come back to me. If he would ever come back to me.

One eye was swollen shut in the morning. I shuffled back to our cabin with my head down and found Jake staring out the front window with his usual blank expression. He turned his chair and looked up at me, studying my face for an entire minute. It was the first time since his injury that I saw any sign of compassion or of the man I knew before. He was guilt-stricken by what he had done to me. He scowled and shook his head but didn’t say anything. He just turned and went back to looking out the window.

After cleaning the cabin, I put on a thick jacket, baseball cap, and sunglasses and headed for the door. “I’m going to get milk and bread and cheese for sandwiches. Is there anything else you want?”

He didn’t answer me, which wasn’t unusual. At the bottom of the ramp, I looked up to the window and saw that he was watching me.

I love you, I mouthed to him.

I love you, he mouthed back.

I let a smile touch my lips before turning toward my truck. When I reached for the handle, I heard the explosive, ringing sound of a gunshot. I whipped back toward our cabin and saw, through the window, Jake slumped over in his chair.

It was a cold January morning when my husband, Jake McCrea, put a pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger, taking his own life just seconds after he had told me he loved me.

I couldn’t fix him. There were no healing powers in my hands.

He hadn’t physically taken me with him, as he had threatened to, but he took what was left of my heart, ending any semblance of life inside of me. At nineteen, I became cold and hard and looked forward to the end of my bleak existence.

CHAPTER 4

Binds Us

Nathanial

SPRING 2010

At twenty-nine I was the youngest attending physician at the UCLA medical center, which earned me the annoying nickname of Doogie. I had skipped a couple of years of the bullshit in high school that the rest of my classmates got stress-acne over. I could do calculus in my sleep so it was no surprise that my general surgery and cardiac residency also flew by at a faster than normal pace.

Every other doctor from my residency found a way to screw up and extend the already painfully long road to becoming an attending. Frankie blew his chances by fucking everybody in the program. Then there was Lucy Peters, who started dating a senior resident and then botched an appendectomy after he broke up with her. But the biggest loser of all the degenerates was Chan Li, who came to work hungover one day and left a thirteen-inch metal retractor inside the abdomen of the patient he had performed a textbook surgery on. Idiot.

 

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My dad started to pull away from me as I climbed the ranks at the hospital. He was still the chief but I think he was trying to avoid rumors of nepotism that plagued me, especially after I began acing every surgery. I went to work and occasionally went back to the apartment I lived in with my cat, Gogo. My mom and dad expressed concern that I was making work my entire life. I thought: So what? How else can you be the best?

I met Lizzy Reid one Monday as I stood over her hospital bed and examined her chart. The fifteen-year-old was asleep when I walked in but began to awaken while I read through her medical history. She looked up at me through piercing green eyes and smiled. Her skin was tan and lush. It was hard to believe she had a faulty heart.

“Hi, Doc,” she said shyly, reaching her hand out to me.

“Elizabeth, I’m Doctor Meyers. It’s nice to meet you.” I shook her hand and went back to reading her chart.

“You can call me Lizzy.” I didn’t respond. “You seem kind of young for a surgeon.”

“I assure you I’m old enough.”

“Oh.” She shrugged and looked away. She mumbled something to herself.

“What’s that?” I asked.

She smiled coyly. “Oh, I was just thinking out loud. Just wondering something. I’m just super curious about stuff.”

“What do you want to know?”

Her lips flattened and her tone went harsh. “I wonder if they teach bedside manners in medical school anymore?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. I placed her chart into the slot at the front of her bed, slipped my pen into the pocket of my white lab coat, and crossed my arms over my chest.

Smiling I said, “Technically it’s ‘manner.’ ”

“Same difference,” she shot back.

“Maybe you’re right.” I put my stethoscope in my ears and warmed up the diaphragm on my arm, rubbing it back and forth. “Can I have a listen to your heart?”

“Thank you for asking, Doc. Your manners are getting better. And thanks for warming that up,” she said as she pulled the top of her gown down just enough for me to slip the chest piece in. I heard the atrial bigeminy right away but I expected it from her ECG results. Her heart sounded like a musical beat. Instead of boom-boom . . . boom-boom . . . boom-boom, it sounded like boomboom-boom . . . boomboom-boom. I moved the stethoscope and heard a deep heart murmur caused by an interatrial septal defect.

“Well?” she asked.

Her parents entered the room with concerned faces.

“Doctor Meyers,” the mother said. “We heard you’re the best around.” She reached out to shake my hand.

Lizzy spoke up and jutted her thumb toward me. “You mean this young guy is the best?”

“Elizabeth,” her mother scolded then turned back to me. “Sorry about that.” She shrugged. “Typical teenager. I’m Meg and this is Steve.”

I shook their hands, picked up the chart, and began writing down notes. Without looking up I said, “Elizabeth’s condition is very common. She has an irregular heartbeat but it shouldn’t have any long-term effect on her health. What we’ll need to address, and the reason she was feeling light-headed during exercise, has to do with a minor defect in her heart. We’ll use a catheter to correct it.”

“Will you have to open her up?” Steve asked.

“No. We’ll go in through her upper leg into the femoral artery, which leads to the heart. At first the pressure of the heart will hold the device in place. Eventually new tissue will grow over the septum, which will correct the oxygen levels in her blood. I’m confident she’ll be able to go back to her usual activities in a month or two.”

“That’s it. She’ll be fine after that?”

“That’s the hope, Meg.” I grinned confidently but I could tell my attempt at charming Lizzie’s mom was ineffective.

“Okay smart guy, how many times have you done this?” Meg asked.

“Four times, and I’ve assisted and observed a similar procedure on a patient of the same age. It’s textbook, and there’s little risk of complication. But, keep in mind, that doesn’t mean there’s no risk.” I went to Lizzy’s bedside and observed her vitals. “We can schedule the procedure for this afternoon.”

“I trust you, Doc,” she said, “even though I still think you look too young.”

I finally smiled at her. “You’re going to be fine . . . better than before.”

Her eyes sparkled as she smiled back. I wondered briefly what she would look like in ten years. A vision flashed through my mind of her in a wedding dress and then another of her holding an infant. Struck by my uncharacteristically sentimental reaction, I shook my head in an attempt to eliminate the thought.

“What?” Lizzy said.

“Nothing.” I offered a short nod to Lizzy’s parents, left the room, and gave my instructions to arrange the surgery.

Later that day in the operating room, as my surgical team and I watched the X-ray screen and fed the line up from Lizzy’s leg, her pressure started to drop. A few moments passed as I calmly ordered the administration of medicines and gave instructions to the other surgeons and nurses, but her blood pressure continued to plummet. The anesthesiologist looked at me intently, waiting for me to make a decision.

There is something to be said about knowledge and experience in the medical field. You can know every fact and read every case study, but when you have less than ten seconds to make a decision your experience is mainly what is tested. Your ability to be confident in your answers comes from knowing the positive outcomes in study and the negative outcomes from your own goddam mistakes.

 

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“We have to open her up,” I said.

Every nurse and doctor went into motion the moment the words came out of my mouth. Within seconds trays were shoved in front of me with surgical instruments of every kind. The smell of iodine was heavy in the room, even through my mask. The sound of the saw piercing Lizzy’s sternum was like nails on a chalkboard. I had never had an emotional reaction to the gruesomeness of surgery until that moment. Everything about what I was doing seemed wrong. Cranking the spreaders to pull her bone and tissue apart took more effort than usual, and I had to cauterize several leaking ends from the breastbones. I gagged behind my mask at the smell of the vaporized blood and bone. Lizzy’s beautiful chest was peeled apart and spread open, revealing a nightmare about to unfold.

To my absolute shock and horror, her entire chest cavity was full of blood. Like in a dream, my hands and arms moved slower than my brain. “Suction!” I kept yelling, but I couldn’t find the source of the bleeding. Seconds felt like days. “Fuck! Suction, goddammit!”

“She’s crashing,” someone said calmly.

“I’m trying,” I said through gritted teeth. I was doing everything right. I couldn’t understand what was happening and why it was happening so fast. I began running through long procedural lists in my head. Had I checked every possible source, I wondered? I continued barking orders at the team.

Twenty minutes later, a fellow surgeon told me it was over. I called the time of death with Lizzy’s heart still warm in my hands.

The first face I saw when I left the operating room was my father’s. He put his hands on his hips, which forced his overweight Hawaiian-print-clad belly to protrude from his lab coat. He pointed to the waiting room at the end of the hall and said, “Go tell the mother and then meet me in my office.”

Was he mad? I had just lost my first patient, a beautiful fifteen-year-old girl who’d had the rest of her life ahead of her.

I swallowed back anger. “You’re not going to apologize to me?”

“Apologize for what?”

“This is fucking tragic,” I said in a frantic voice.

“Keep your voice down,” he barked back at me, but it was too late. I had already gotten the attention of Lizzy’s mother, who was watching me through a wall of glass from the waiting room. My father leaned over and in a quiet and calm voice said, “It wasn’t a tragedy, it was a mistake—that you made. I read the chart. You misdiagnosed her.”

Shocked, I stared blankly at the wall behind him. I couldn’t blink my eyes. They were dried out and stuck open, and my heart was beating out of my chest. Thoughts began swirling frantically in my head. I was a terrible surgeon. I was a fuckup. I was a murderer.

“Why didn’t you stop me?” I whispered. I still couldn’t look him in the eye.

“Because you were so goddam anxious to get in that O.R., I didn’t have the time.”

I heard a cry from the waiting room. I watched as Meg, Lizzy’s mother, fell to the floor, sobbing. Somehow she knew; she could see we weren’t discussing good news.

I left my father, ran to her, and knelt by her side. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t . . . I tried.” Tears made their way to the front of my eyes and spilled over. I reached out and took her in my arms and rocked her back and forth for several moments while she screamed out, “No!” over and over in loud sobs.

When I felt Steve’s hands pulling me up, I looked into his tearstained eyes and said, “I’m so sorry.” My voice was trembling unprofessionally and laced with sadness and guilt.

He didn’t respond, he just pulled his shattered wife into his chest and walked out the door of the waiting room. I looked down to see my father still standing at the end of the hall, looking unemotional and stoic. I couldn’t face him.

I left the hospital and went to my apartment where I stayed for six days without speaking to a soul. My father rang the doorbell on a Sunday afternoon.

When I opened it, he gave me a pitying smile before walking past me into the living room. “It wasn’t entirely your fault, Nate.” I sunk down on the couch and watched him walk around, opening the blinds. “Son, you are the hardest-working person I know. Please don’t be discouraged. This is part of the deal. Every doctor makes mistakes and every doctor loses patients. We’re humans and we’re flawed. That girl needed a heart transplant, not percutaneous closure. Who knows if she would have made it long enough to get one.”

“You mean, if I hadn’t killed her?”

He stood over me as I stared at my fidgeting hands. “I put you in for leave.”

“What? Why?” I said with no expression on my face.

“I made an executive call. You were getting a little cocky, Nate.”

“You’re punishing me for losing a patient?”

He sat down next to me. “Look around this place. This is where you live? You’re almost thirty years old and you haven’t purchased any décor for a house you’ve lived in for five years, not even a television?”

“I’m never here.”

“You’re always at the hospital.”

“Your point being?”

“It’s not healthy.”

“Okay, so now what? You want me to take time off and decorate my apartment?”

“I called your Uncle Dale.”

“Why?”

“You’re taking a month off. I’ve got your patients covered. Son, look at me. . . .”

 

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It was hard to look him in the eye because I knew he was right. I needed to get away but didn’t know what I’d do without the hospital. “What about Uncle Dale?” My father’s brother, a veterinarian, lived on a ranch in Montana, one that I had visited as a kid. The owners, Redman and Bea, were friends of my grandparents. We visited the Walker Ranch during the summers when I was a kid, but now my uncle lived there.

“Dale could use some help and they have the space. It’s beautiful there this time of year. You could fish. Remember how to do that?” He smiled.

“What, and help Dale deliver calves?”

“Something like that. You’re not above that, are you?” My father’s expression was one of disappointment. It was the first time I had seen that look in his eyes in a long while. The last time he seemed disappointed was when I was seventeen and I drove my mom’s car over her flowerbed in the front yard. That look made me feel small.

My jaw clenched. “No, Dad, I’m not. I’ll go.”

“That’s my boy.” He patted me on the back.

Even as reluctant as I was at the idea, two days later I was packed and ready to go. Frankie was going to live in my apartment and take care of my cat while I was gone. His brisk knock came promptly at six a.m.

“Hey, brother.” He gave me a sideways hug and dropped a large duffel bag in the entryway. He looked around and said, “Wow, you still haven’t decorated this place?”

“Haven’t had time.”

“You bring women back here?”

“Haven’t had time.”

“It’s not like it’s hard for you. You’re a doctor, and you look like . . .” He waved his hand around at me. “You look like that.”

“It hasn’t been on the top of my priority list.” My cat jumped onto the couch in front of us. “Anyway, that’s my girl.”

“Wrong kind of pussy, man. What’s her name again?”

“Gogo.”

He laughed. She went up to him, purring, and rubbed her back on his hip. He shooed her with his hand. “Go-go away.”

“You better be nice to her.”

“She’ll be fine. This situation is kind of pathetic; I don’t know why I agreed to stay here. This apartment and that cat are going to kill my sex life. You might as well get five cats now and just quit. Seriously, Nate, when was the last time you got laid?”

“I don’t know. Let’s go. Are you gonna take me to the airport or what?”

“Tell me.” He began moving toward me.

“A while,” I said, towering over Frankie’s five-foot-five frame.

“Jenny, that neonatal nurse told me that she would be willing to pay you to let her suck your dick,” he said, pointing at my crotch dramatically.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you’re weird, man. You look like a model and women are lining up for you and you haven’t had sex since when? Tell me.”

“I don’t know. Olivia, I guess.”

“What?” His voice was high. “That was five fucking years ago at least. That is not normal.”

Shaking my head, I finally laughed. “Yeah. You’re probably right.”

I landed at Great Falls International Airport in the early afternoon. I had brought one small carry-on suitcase and my laptop—nothing else. When my aunt Trish pulled up to the curb, she rolled down the passenger-side window of her gray dually. I hadn’t seen her in eight years, but she looked exactly the same.

She lifted her sunglasses in a dramatic gesture and said, “Well, well, look at you, all grown up. Get in here, you handsome thing.”

Once I was inside the truck, she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.

“Hi, Aunt Trish.”

As she pulled away from the curb she shook her head, her blond curls bouncing around. “It’s been too long, dammit. I know you and your pop have been busy but we miss you out here. Your uncle Dale misses your father so much.”

“It’s been hard to get away.”

She glanced over and pursed her lips. “Is that so?”

I smiled sheepishly.

“Well, you’re here now. Redman and Bea and your uncle will be thrilled to see you.”

We drove across miles of land as the sun slowly sank toward the horizon. I looked out the passenger window toward a field and saw a few pronghorn antelope grazing.

“Stunning creatures,” I said.

“Yes, they’re gorgeous.”

“God, it’s really beautiful out here, isn’t it?”

“You’ve been trapped in that concrete jungle for too long. You’ll feel more alive out here. The clean air gets into your bloodstream.” A beatific smile etched across her face. “You’ve changed a lot since the last time I saw you.”

“How’s that?” I asked.

“You’re thinner.”

“I work out.”

She chuckled. “You do that L.A. kind of workin’ out. I see those muscles, honey, but those are skinny muscles. We’re gonna beef you up out here.”

I laughed. “Okay, Aunt Trish.”

“When we get to the ranch, I’ll show you around and introduce you to the other folks we have there with us. We’re puttin’ you to work—you know that, right?” She looked over and winked.

I looked down at my smooth, hairless hands. Prized surgeon hands were not meant to shovel shit on a ranch but I smiled at her anyway. “Who lives there with you all now?”

 

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“It’s just Redman, Bea, Dale, me, and Caleb. He’s a young guy, like you. He’s been doin’ the ranch thing most of his life. He works hard. I’d say you two will get along but Caleb can be a little, well . . . he’s a bit of the macho type, and you’re more like . . . what do they call it out there? Metrosexual?”

“What?” I laughed in surprise. “I’m not metrosexual.” Her own laugh rang out.

“Well, you look pretty well groomed to me, and aside from that mess of hair on the top of your head, it looks like you wax every inch of your body.”

“Aunt Trish!” I scolded her playfully.

“But I’m your auntie so I don’t really need to know ’bout any of that.”

After we fell into a few moments of companionable silence, she said, “Anyway, Avelina is still with us. She’s a hard worker, that girl, but she keeps to herself.”

I remembered hearing a story of a man who killed himself on the ranch. I was pretty sure that the woman my aunt spoke of was the man’s wife, but I knew very little other than that. “Avelina is the woman who . . .”

“Yes.” She stared ahead and sighed. “So young to be a widow. It’s been four years since she lost Jake.” My aunt shook her head. “Like I said, she keeps to herself, but she’ll help you with the horses. She’s extremely skilled with the animals. Not so skilled with humans anymore, though.”

“Hmm.” For the rest of the hour-and-a-half drive to the ranch, I thought about how my aunt described Avelina and wondered if I was lacking some social graces as well. Had my career taken such a hold of me that I had lost sight of why I wanted to be a heart surgeon in the first place: to help people live their lives more fully? Yet lately, I hadn’t considered my patients much at all beyond the unconscious bodies on the operating table. It took losing one, so vibrant and young, to wake me up.

“Here we are,” she said, turning the truck up a long dirt road. As we approached the barn, cabins, and main house, the ranch appeared like a photo taken right from my childhood memory. Little had changed. The ranch house had a wide wraparound porch, and sitting there in wooden rockers, the picture of cowboy nostalgia, were Bea and Redman, smiling from ear to ear.

I hopped out of the truck and headed toward them. “Get up here so I can smack you!” Bea yelled, still smiling. Redman and Bea were like alternate grandparents for me.

Redman stood up and hugged me first and then held me out from the shoulders and scanned my face thoroughly. “You’re skinny. We can fix that, but what in God’s name are you wearing on your feet?” he asked, staring at my shoes.

“They’re Converse.”

He ignored me and turned to Bea. “We have something lying around for this kid so we can put him to work?”

She stared at me adoringly. “I’m sure we can find something suitable.” Skirting around Redman, she took me in her arms. “Hello, Nathanial. We’ve missed you.” I could tell by her voice that she was on the edge of tears.

“I’ve missed you, too.”

Someone walked up behind me and put a hand on my shoulder. “Nate,” a male voice said.

I turned. “Uncle Dale, good to see you.” We hugged.

“Glad you decided to come out. Wish I could get your father out here more.” His smile was guarded. He was a much quieter man than my father but just as compassionate and the best in his field of veterinary medicine. He, my father, and I shared the same dark hair and light eyes. When the three of us were together there was no question we were related.

“Let’s get your stuff into your room, honey,” Bea said. “And then we’ll show you around and refresh your memory.”

I followed her into the main house, down the long hall, and past a grand fireplace made of river rock. The guest room was small with a queen-size bed covered in a simple blue comforter. The nightstand was full of framed pictures and the desk on the other side of the room had a small task lamp. I studied a picture of my father and Dale, standing in front of the main house and outfitted for fly-fishing. I could see myself in the background, maybe five years old at most. I looked as though I didn’t have a care in the world. I loved the ranch as a kid; it was like Disneyland to me.

The window in the guest bedroom looked out on the front yard toward the barn, stables, and corrals. Far beyond them were the majestic mountains of Montana. Some in the very far distance were still capped with snow.

Bea stood in the doorway. “Will this do for you, honey?”

“Of course, Bea.” Redman walked up and stood behind her.

“Thank you so much, both of you, for having me. This will be wonderful.”

Redman laughed. “Don’t be mistaken—you’re here to work, son,” he said before walking away.

“Get settled and relax for a bit and come out when you’re ready. We’ll have dinner at the big table around six thirty. I’m making shepherd’s pie. Is that still your favorite?”

“Yes. Thank you, that sounds delicious,” I lied. I had been a vegetarian for years but the pure love and hospitality I felt from Bea was touching—and, frankly, something I hadn’t felt in a long time. Back in L.A., even my mother had stopped asking me over for dinner because I constantly turned her down to stay at the hospital.

I unpacked my bags and set up my laptop but before I could turn it on, something caught my eye—a movement outside the window. There was a woman riding a spotted horse toward the barn. I watched her hop down and tie the horse up to a gatepost. An ugly little dog followed her around as she removed the saddle and took it into the barn. She came out with a large horse brush and began brushing down the long body and mane of the spotted creature.

 

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The woman had long, dark hair, almost down to her waist, wrapped in a loose tie at the nape of her neck. When she turned and looked toward the house, she froze and stared at me where I stood in the window. I smiled very subtly. Even from that distance I could tell she was stunningly beautiful. Her face held no expression at all as she stared back. A second later she turned away and quickly untied the horse, taking her into the barn and disappearing from my view.

“Avelina,” I said to myself.

“Yeah, that’s Avelina.” A strong, unfamiliar voice startled me from behind.

I turned to find a large, foreboding man standing in the doorway, holding a cardboard box. “You must be Caleb?” I asked.

He set the box down and moved toward me, reaching his hand out. “That’s me. And you’re Nathanial.” It wasn’t a question. He had a deep, monotone voice.

“Nice to meet you. So that’s Avelina out there?”

“Yeah.” He paused then with a sardonic smile and said, “Damaged goods.”

“Oh.” Shocked by his callous remark, I couldn’t think of how to respond. He pointed to the box.

“There’s a pair of boots that Red said would fit you and some other clothes that Bea pulled together. Good to meet you,” he said, as he walked out the door.

I turned my attention to the window and saw Avelina again. She was standing in the bed of a large blue pickup truck, lifting white bags that must have been at least thirty pounds. She was tossing them into a big pile on the ground near the barn. Quickly, I changed out of my pants and into a pair of old Wranglers from the box. I slipped on the dark brown boots, which were worn but fit me perfectly. From my bag, I found my gray UCLA hoodie and threw it on. I studied my reflection in the mirror. Clean-shaven with Wranglers that were two sizes too big; old, ugly cowboy boots; and a university sweatshirt. I would make for an interesting-looking character on the ranch. I wondered how my first impression with Avelina would go over and then I wondered why I cared. I was intrigued by the unexpected beauty she possessed, which mesmerized me even at a thirty-yard distance. After seeing Avelina in person, my aunt’s words about her rang over and over in my head. I had a sudden desire to prove my aunt wrong. I headed out, marched down the steps of the house, and waved to Redman, who was rocking in his chair on the front porch.

“Gonna go help Avelina.”

“Good luck with that,” he mumbled.

I approached her as she was bending to lift another bag of what looked like grain. She stood, holding it over her shoulder. I looked up at her from where I stood next to the truck. There was a moment where neither one of us spoke or moved. She had on a checkered black and red long-sleeved flannel shirt tucked into a pair of tight black jeans. She couldn’t have weighed more than one twenty, and from where I stood she looked to be of average height, but she held the huge bag over her shoulder like it was filled with air.

She blinked twice, looked down at my boots, and then looked back up into my eyes but didn’t say anything.

“You’re Avelina?” I asked. She nodded and then bit down on her full bottom lip. Her eyes held no expression. She looked down at my boots again. “Can I call you Lena for short?”

“No.” Her voice was low and urgent.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” I stood there, stunned, not knowing what to do as she hovered over me with the giant bag.

“Call me Ava. Everyone calls me Ava,” she said quickly before tossing the bag toward the barn.

“Can I give you a hand with the rest of the bags?”

“Just toss them into that pile.” She didn’t look at me when she spoke. “I’ll be right back.”

She jumped down and walked off toward the house at a determined pace.

I unloaded all of the grain and pushed the tailgate back into place. When I got up to the porch, Ava was gone but Red was still sitting there, smoking his pipe.

“We’ll go into town tomorrow and get you some boots, kid.” It was almost dark out and the light from the lantern hanging above him only lit one side of his face. The other was hidden completely in the darkness. I studied the deep wrinkles on Redman’s forehead and around his eyes.

“These boots won’t work?”

“Ah, I shouldn’t have given you those boots.” He puffed on his pipe, blowing a small plume of smoke toward my face. “Ava wasn’t too happy.”

“Why?”

“Well, those are her dead husband’s boots,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Jesus, Redman.” I ran my hand through my hair. “I feel terrible. Why would you give me—”

“Supper’s ready. Don’t be letting that get to you, okay? Ava’s got a whole gaggle of demons flockin’ around her. You’re better off keepin’ away.”

“Has she been to counseling?” I sat in the rocker next to Redman but he didn’t look over to me. He stared into the darkness and smoked his pipe.

“People like Ava, people like us, we don’t go to counseling. We turn ourselves over to the Lord.”

“Redman, honestly, that’s crazy. Maybe she just needs someone to talk to.”

He finally turned and faced me. “Her husband blew his head off right in front of her . . . that fucking coward.” It was the first time I had ever heard Redman use that kind of language. “She cursed the Lord instead of turning to him. She cursed herself, and now she’ll pay.”

“With all due respect . . .”

 

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“Ehh!” He made a sound as if he were reprimanding an animal. “Watch yourself, kid. Hotshot doctor come from L.A., think you know a thing or two about our souls, do ya?” His face looked wolfish in the murky light. “You know nothin’ of this business.”

I shook my head and smiled, trying to laugh it off. “Redman, I didn’t mean that I knew what she needed. It’s just that she’s so young.”

“She’s older than me.” He laughed once, finally breaking the tension, but there was still something wry about his smile. “Lookin’ death right in the face and begging, that’s how old she is.”

“I think you’re wrong. Why don’t you have sympathy for her?”

“Sympathy, I have. Time, I don’t.”

Basically Redman was saying he didn’t want to deal with her. I remember hearing stories, growing up, about Redman and Bea. My father had said that his parents, my grandparents, were too warm and nurturing. They were pushovers, so they would send Dale and my dad out to the Walker Ranch for some tough love from Redman and Bea—the almighty wake-up call, they would say. I wondered if my father’s grounded personality was owed to the summers he had spent on the ranch.

My father came from money and I came from money, but at the ranch there was a sense that no one was born with a silver spoon in their mouth. We are all just trying to live right by each other. My father said Redman told him having too much money caused a man’s sense of survival to atrophy. I guess I understood what he meant.

Avelina was the only person on the ranch who was not at Bea’s long dining table that night for shepherd’s pie. I didn’t ask why. Dale and Redman reminisced about the good times with my father while I tried to discreetly dodge the meat in my dinner. Afterward, I helped Bea take the dishes into the kitchen.

Across from the sink was a screen door leading to the side yard where Bea kept chickens. Ava was sitting on the two concrete steps to the yard with her back to the door. I could tell through the screen that she was eating. Next to her, sitting stoically, was the ugly dog.

I walked to the sink and then heard the screen open behind me but I kept my head on the task of rinsing the dishes.

“I’ll take care of that.” Her voice was small. When I turned to face her, she looked down at her feet, her long hair hanging forward.

“I’m Nate. It’s nice to meet you, too.”

She looked up finally and smiled very slightly, just enough to show she could be polite. Staring into her big brown eyes, I said, “I’ll wash if you dry?”

Her smile grew wider. “Okay.”

We did the dishes in silence as the others congregated in the kitchen to say good night.

Patting me on the back, Dale said, “Good, I see Ava’s already puttin’ you to work.”

Ava laughed. “He’s the one who put me to work.”

Everyone in the room turned and looked at her with shocked faces as if they had never heard her speak.

Ava immediately blushed, her pouty lips flattening. Trish warily approached her with outstretched arms but Ava bolted past her and ran out of the house, followed by the ugly dog.

“What the fuck?”

“Language!” Bea scolded me.

Caleb left the kitchen shaking his head.

“Why’d everyone look so shocked?” I asked.

I turned to Dale, whose face was etched with compassion. His dark bushy eyebrows were bunched together. “We just haven’t heard her laugh in five years.”

“Oh.” The kitchen went quiet again.

On my way to bed, Bea caught me in the hallway. “She seemed to warm up to you rather easily. Red and Caleb will tell you to stay away, that she’s cursed. She’s not. Sometimes I think those boys are just tryin’ to protect her. None of us could bear to see her hurt anymore,” she said, her smile sincere and deep.

A sobering feeling ran through me. “I’m not going to hurt her. I barely said five words to her.” I suddenly thought about Lizzy, on her hospital bed, looking up at me with trust in her eyes. Fuck. “I think I need to get some air, Bea. I’m going for a walk.”

“Okay, honey.” She kissed me on the cheek. I pulled her tiny frame into my arms. Her long, gray hair smelled of the tobacco smoke from Redman’s pipe. I thought about the years she had given her life to him, with no children to bind her to him, and I wondered in my pragmatic mind why on earth a person would do that.

“That was nice,” she said, once she pulled away.

CHAPTER 5

A Light

Avelina

They had been shocked that I filled one moment of my life, one second, with a tiny bit of joy. They didn’t think I deserved it. Trish had reached for me cautiously while Nate had stood there with soapsuds on his hands, looking dumbfounded. Redman’s eyes had been as big as sand dollars, and Bea’s had been squinting and beady, as if she hadn’t heard things right. The walls had started closing in and then I ran, like I always do.

I wished it had been just Nate and me in the room so that I could remember what it felt like to be around at least one person who didn’t think I was poison. He seemed nice enough, and he didn’t ask me a bunch of stupid questions.

He smelled nothing like the other men I knew. His scent was clean and crisp, like fancy aftershave. I noticed there wasn’t a single dark hair out of place on his head, and the seawater green of his eyes filled up almost the entire iris. He was one of the most attractive people I had ever seen. While I had dried the dishes next to him, I had marveled at the untouchable smoothness of his skin, even along his severe jawline. He had a strong resemblance to Dale, with his classic good looks and light eyes that popped and caught the attention of everyone in a room.

 

After the Rain
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Maybe I let myself relax near him because of his warm smile or his cute playfulness or the way he squinted when he looked into my eyes, as if he were trying to see further inside of me, to my soul. Too bad he would never find it.

In the darkness, I wrapped myself in a blanket and curled up on my cabin porch swing. I swung my legs gently, letting the sound of the creaking wood lull me to sleep.

“Ava,” he whispered, his hand cupping my shoulder. I opened my eyes and saw Nate standing over me, silhouetted by the moonlight. “Ava, do you want me to help you inside? It’s getting cold out here.”

“No, I’m okay.” When I stood up a small bottle of whiskey slid from my lap and clinked onto the floor. Nate picked it up and calmly handed it back to me. “I just had a little bit.”

“I don’t judge you,” he said instantly.

I swallowed and then got up and slowly began moving past him toward the door.

“Wait. Why did you run out?” he asked.

“Because they were all mad at me.”

“Mad at you for what?”

I could see his puzzled expression in the dark.

“I don’t know,” I said quietly.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“You wouldn’t understand. I hardly understand it myself.”

“Try me, I’m a good listener.” He hugged his defined arms to his chest. I noticed he was only wearing a black T-shirt, jeans, and flip-flops.

“That’s definitely California footwear. Not proper for a Montana night, even in the summer.” I giggled.

“That’s a nice sound,” he said in a low voice.

“What?”

“Your laugh.”

“Oh, thank you,” I said as my nerves swirled in my stomach.

“Do you want me to come in? We could talk?” The invitation seemed genuine and innocent, but I was surprised by my own thoughts of curling myself into his long body or nestling my nose into his shirt and breathing that new smell in until I fell asleep. When I turned to face the cabin, I looked past him into the window. A vision of Jake’s slumped body flashed in my mind. I gasped.

“What is it?” he asked with concern, his warm hands clasping my arms. I tried to move past him to the door again; he blocked me. “Tell me, please.”

I shook my head, fearing that if I said the words the image would flash in my mind again.

After a few minutes of silence he spoke, his voice low, warm, and soothing. “Listen, Ava. I lost a patient recently. I’m a doctor. . . .” When he swallowed I could see the muscles in his jaw flex. “I lost a patient and it was my fault.” He held my hand, rubbing his thumb over my knuckles nervously. I pulled away. It was as though he was trying to comfort me with the story, yet I could hear his own pain in the admission.

I couldn’t be sure why he was telling me about his patient but his expression was so piteous that it made me feel a little sick. He had obviously heard about my story and maybe he thought we could mope around together or something.

“Was she your wife?”

“No, but . . .”

“I have to go in. I’m sorry about your patient.”

“Wait, Ava.”

I turned back. “Yes?”

“I just thought we could hang out a little while I’m here. I mean, since we’re kind of the same age.”

I instantly felt pity for him. He fumbled for words like no doctor I had ever known.

“Okay. Maybe we can take the horses out to the stream tomorrow?” I said. He nodded and smiled. “We can fish?” I suggested.

“That sounds great.”

“But no talking,” I warned.

“No talking,” he repeated and then stepped out of the way to let me pass.

Like many nights, before bed I went into the kitchen, found the large bottle of whiskey under the sink, and drank three large gulps, praying I wouldn’t dream. My new version of a bedtime prayer after Jake’s death, though it had nothing to do with faith in a higher power. I simply hoped the whiskey would numb my mind enough to allow me to fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

I packed lunches and saddled up Dancer and Tequila, an old Tennessee Walker we’d had on the ranch for many years. He was the most comfortable horse to ride and had the smoothest gait. I thought Nate would appreciate that—I assumed he hadn’t ridden a horse in some time since he was a fancy doctor in L.A. After waiting for a while with no sign of Nate, I wondered if maybe he had changed his mind about going for a ride. Maybe the thought of being alone with me on horseback terrified him.

I searched the shed for fishing tackle. Redman was a hoarder when it came to the shed and barn spaces, I think because Bea had such a strong arm about keeping a tidy house. It was Redman’s way of rebelling. There were about twelve tackle boxes full of mostly junk, but I managed to find the right lures and line for stream fishing.

Before I heard him, I felt a presence coming toward me from behind. I wasn’t used to being around people so I was very aware when someone was near. I just continued rummaging through the boxes until I found my favorite lure, a shiny golden one in the faint shape of a heart.

“Can I help you find something?” Nate asked.

“No, I’ve got it!” I held the lure up in triumph. “This baby gets ’em every time.”

“Good morning. I’m happy to see your competitive spirit is alive.”

My smile faded. Nothing about me is alive. We were standing inches apart, facing each other in the small, darkened shed. Between us, I held the lure. He took it and examined it. When I looked at the ground, I noticed he was wearing Converse sneakers. I let out a sigh, relieved he wasn’t in Jake’s boots. His black jeans looked to be designer, tight against his legs and slightly pegged at the bottom. He was also wearing a plain black T-shirt. His hair and clothes contrasted nicely against his smooth, sun-kissed skin and blazing green eyes.

 

After the Rain
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A tiny smirk played on his lips. “It’s not the shape of anything that exists in nature. Why would a fish want to eat this?”

I looked up, blinking. The thought hadn’t occurred to me. There were lures of all shapes and sizes.

“Well, it’s kind of the shape of a heart, and that exists in nature.”

“A real heart isn’t heart-shaped.” He shot me a cocksure grin. “It’s more cone-shaped, sort of.” His grin disappeared abruptly as he stared past me in thought for several moments, perhaps recalling a painful memory. It was a look I was familiar with.

“Shall we head out?” I asked.

He nodded and then followed me outside of the barn. I untied Tequila and walked him out a few feet. “This is Tequila. You’ll be riding him. You know how to ride, right?”

“Not very well.”

“That’s okay. Get up in there and I’ll adjust the stirrups.”

He lifted his foot with grace into the stirrup, hoisted himself into the saddle, and looked down at me. His chest was pumping and there was fear growing on his face.

“Go ahead and get down,” I said.

“Why?”

“Let’s do this right so you feel comfortable.”

When he got down, I handed him the reins. “Lead him around in a circle.” Nate followed my command. “Now let him smell you.” He let Tequila smell his hands.

I handed him a carrot to feed to the horse. I could see it was coming back to him. I knew he had spent time on the ranch as a kid but horses are large, intimidating animals if you haven’t been around them much. “His name is Tequila because he’s the only horse you can ride when you’re shit-faced drunk.”

Nate let out a huge sigh of relief and then chuckled. “Thank God. I’m not gonna lie, the name threw me.”

“He’s a Tennessee Walker. You’ll look really cute and fancy riding him,” I said, in a mocking tone.

“Oh, I see, this is all for your amusement, isn’t it?”

I giggled.

“There’s that sound again.” He smiled and hopped into the saddle.

I called for Dancer, who was grazing on a little patch of grass near the main house. Climbing into the saddle, the fishing rods in hand, I looked over to Nate. He looked comfortable; he relaxed back in his seat after a few minutes of acquainting himself with the horse.

“Why weren’t you at breakfast this morning?” he asked.

“I normally eat in my cabin. And remember our agreement?”

“What?”

“No talking.”

We walked slowly past the main house. Bea waved to us from the porch where she was knitting in her chair. Dancer picked up her pace a little as we rode toward the meadow above the stream. I could feel Nate and Tequila keeping pace behind us. I slowed Dancer and let Nate ride up beside me.

Nate was holding the reins high, which was normal on a horse like Tequila who trotted naturally with a high-necked posture, but I was pretty sure he was holding the reins that way out of fear. “It’s actually more comfortable to gallop that horse than to trot.”

“I’m comfortable,” he said.

“I don’t want you to exhaust him. Go ahead and let him out a bit so you can see. Give him a little squeeze.”

“I’m scared he won’t stop.”

“You’re riding the horse. You’re controlling him. You wouldn’t put a car in neutral on a hill and just see what happens, would you?”

He laughed. “No, I definitely wouldn’t do that, and the analogy is not helping me. This horse has a mind of its own.”

“Not if you don’t let him have his way. If you want him to stop, pull back on the reins and say, ‘Whoa, horsy.’ ”

“I have to say ‘horsy’?” He looked incredulous.

“I’m kidding.”

“Shit, I would be laughing right now but I’m terrified.” When he looked over at me I could see his eyes were wide.

“Listen, Nate, Tequila won’t pass me on Dancer. He was trained that way.”

“Okay,” he said, his voice shaky. “That’s what I want to hear.”

“Let’s just trot a bit and then we’ll canter. Give him a little kick with your heel a bit farther back than you normally would, just on your right side. That’s how he knows to canter. Stay upright and move your hips with the motion. It will be like a smooth jog, and then we’ll race after that.”

His eyes shot open even wider.

“Relax, we’ll gallop a little while we have this nice open space,” I said, giving him a reassuring smile.

I let Dancer pick up the pace. I could see in my peripheral vision that Nate had done the same. “This is fun!” he shouted to me. “I want to run.”

“Let the reins out but stay firm. Tap him with both heels.”

Tequila was actually just following me but it was good that Nate was learning to give the proper commands. There was a fleeting moment when I looked over at him and saw joy on his face. I wanted that feeling and thought maybe I could allow myself a little of it once in a while.

I found it uncomfortable and distracting for Dancer to run while I was holding the fishing rods, so I slowed and then headed toward a familiar embankment that led down to the stream. We stopped at the top of the bank. Nate looked like he was having so much fun. He pulled a pair of dark sunglasses from the saddlebag and put them on while still wearing a huge smile.