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.

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.

“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. . . .”

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?”

“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.

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 . . .”

“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

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 716