My feet are planted in the doorway of my old room. Everything seems so small. I’d think the most successful homebuilder in town would build himself a bigger house. I step inside to sit on my bed as guilt rushes to the surface and threatens to suffocate me worse than the tiny bedroom I grew up in.
My dad would never leave this place. It’s the first and only home he lived in with my mom. They built it after they got married, raised my brother and me in it, and my mom breathed her last breath just two doors down from where I’m sitting.
I drop back on the twin bed, bashing my head against the log wall. “Ow, son of a . . .” I rub my pounding skull and take in the white eyelet curtains and pink wicker furniture. “And suddenly I’m ten again.”
Boxes line one side of the room, mostly knock-off designer clothes that’ll do me no good up here. Just as the dust in this room clouds my vision, so, too, does exhaustion fog my mind as the reality of my situation presses down on me.
I’m a twenty-three-year-old woman living with her dad because I couldn’t do my job. No matter how many times I’ve checked my phone for the we-made-a-mistake-firing-you e-mail from the network, it never comes.
Shit, that reminds me. I should message Trevor and let him know I’m here. I dig into my back pocket and pull out my phone, hit the text icon, and groan.
“No service. Shocker.” I could call him from my dad’s landline, but I was hoping to avoid a lengthy conversation that would only serve to remind me how far I’d fallen.
I toss the high-tech, now-useless piece of crap to my bedside table, scrunch my pillow under my head, and pray for sleep to take me. Maybe when I wake I’ll realize this is all just some bad dream and I didn’t fuck up my entire future and land right back where I started.
With nothing.
“Shy.”
The booming voice pierces the thick solitude of sleep.
“Hmm.” I nuzzle deeper into my pillow.
“Hungry?” There’s a concern in his voice that I instantly recognize. “Food’s ready.”
My eyes snap open.
Ahh, yes. I’m home. Crap.
As my mind comes to, so does my belly. I roll to my back and stretch. “I’m up.”
“Come on, it’s getting cold.” The thump of his boots against the hardwood floor retreats down the hallway.
“So much for waking from this nightmare.” I yawn and stretch again, noticing the sun that was outside the window when I nodded off is now dipped below the tree line, turning the sky vibrant shades of pinks and purples.
I shuffle to the kitchen, where I’m hit with the mouthwatering scent of my dad grilling. If there’s one thing my dad does well, outside of building beautiful homes, it’s cooking meat over fire.
He plates a steak the size of my head next to a loaded baked potato with all the grace of a Neanderthal.
“Smells good.” I grab a glass and fill it with water from the sink, then sit at the table in the spot I’d occupied as a little girl. The seat at the end where my mother used to sit has a light coating of dust, whereas my seat along with my brother’s across from me seems to be used from time to time.
He drops the plate in front of me. “Eat up.”
I stare wide-eyed at the meal that’s big enough to feed a family and my stomach rumbles. “I’ll do my best.”
He sits in his seat with a plate and a cold beer in front of him, but his sterling-blue eyes are fixed on me. “You’re skinny.” His chin dips to my plate.
I roll my eyes and grab a fork. “You say skinny like it’s a bad thing.”
“Winter’ll eat you alive up here.” He shoves a bite of potato that’s dripping in cheddar cheese and bacon into his mouth.
“Not planning on sticking around till winter.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I wish I could suck them back in. I don’t want to fight with my dad, but he always manages to bring out my argumentative side.
His jaw ticks. “Either way, need to put some meat on your bones.” The words filter through a cheekful of food.
It’s pointless to explain that I’m an on-air personality and appearances mean everything. One, because my dad couldn’t give a shit. Two, because I’m no longer anything but a mountain man’s daughter who is currently eating steak that tastes a lot like crow.
We eat in silence and I shovel bites into my mouth, chew, and swallow all while scanning the cramped room in search of some semblance of life. Instead, everywhere I look I see death. Momma hunched over the dinner table in her wheelchair, her spine protruding beneath her thin nightgown while strings of drool soak her chest. My dad sitting exactly where he is now, his head in one hand and a mostly empty bottle of bourbon in the other while my momma sat, staring at nothing, and her mind understood everything.
I force myself to banish those memories in favor of good ones. My brother and I racing around my mom’s legs, hiding in her apron while she made fried bread and the best refried beans I’d ever tasted. Just as the scent of her Native American cooking hung in the air, so did the love she had for her family. She was the thread that held us together, and once she was gone, we all fell apart. My dad retreated into his work, my brother retreated into himself, and I couldn’t get away from it all fast enough.