1. Arabella

1

ARABELLA

M y father claimed Montana doesn’t care about the men or women who try to tame her. We’re on our own under the big sky. It was up to an individual to find the grit with which to survive. During a season of harsh midwinter months, February was the cruelest of all. Short days gave way to dark evenings so quickly that one often felt they were living through one endless night.

On just such a morning, I trudged outside and headed across the yard to collect logs for a fire. Cold air stung my cheeks. My fingers numbed despite my gloves. The temperatures had dipped into the teens while I slept, freezing the fallen snow so that it crunched under my boots. I hated early mornings. Collecting wood before I’d had my coffee seemed like an unfair punishment. Regardless, we needed a fire. The furnace was out. Again.

Our farmhouse stood at the end of a forgotten driveway, surrounded by rolling hills that stretched as far as the eye could see. Tire tracks from a recent vehicle had left dark, muddy ruts in the driveway, quickly freezing over as the temperature dropped further. The sky presented as a cool bluish hue. Shadows, long and delicate, stretched across the ground in soft, blurry lines that brought a quiet serenity, a stillness that made the world feel frozen in time. Or perhaps it was only me frozen here in time, living the life meant for someone else.

I sniffed the air, which smelled slightly of woodsmoke from a neighboring ranch. But it held the promise of a storm, too. That pregnant feeling of something pent up, wishing for release, permeated the atmosphere. The forecast had added a winter advisory, predicting a blizzard would roll in this afternoon. I had a feeling it would be earlier than they thought. Snow would fall in the next hour. I’d grown up here. I didn’t need a weather report or app to predict a blizzard.

This kind of weather inevitably made me think of my mother. I’d been three years old when she disappeared on a February morning, never to return. I’d been too young to remember that day, but it seemed as if I did. I could imagine the way her taillights looked in the dark as she barreled down the driveway, away from a chilly, run-down ranch house and the man she’d married. Had it been the frigid weather and the stark, lonely landscape that had driven her away? If so, who could blame her? Leaving during this unforgiving time of year and my cruel father might have been an act of survival.

If only she’d thought to take her three-year-old daughter with her. Instead, she’d left me in the care of a man with ice in his veins.

I let out a slow breath, watching as it mingled with the frigid air before disappearing into the stillness. There was a harsh, raw beauty to my family’s land. Yet, as a child, I’d been desperate to leave. I’d worked hard in school, graduated top of my class, and headed off to college with a scholarship that guaranteed my father couldn’t ruin my chances of the future I envisioned. Yet here I was, all these years later, pulled back to the place of my roots as if my plans hadn’t mattered at all.

My father was sick. Dementia had robbed him of his reasoning and added a violent unpredictability to his cruel nature. I was all he had left—his only child. Thus, I’d come home.

He’d been diagnosed with dementia during my last year at veterinary school. In combination with my debt from school and my father’s struggling ranch, there had been no choice for either of us except for me to move home and take care of him. Doing so would have been hard enough, but combining my home duties with starting a practice made it nearly impossible. All of which made me feel as old and grizzled as the man in my care.

I’ve often heard that making plans for one’s life led to God’s laughter. I’d always thought it was an odd and inaccurate saying, as the divine creator of my faith was not the type to mock those of us who tried our best to make the most of the lives we’re given here on earth. However, a case could be made that God didn’t want me to have dared to dream of a life outside of Bluefern and the cruel tongue of my dear old dad.

When I reached the shed, I pushed open the creaky door, hinges groaning in protest as the scents of old wood and earth filled my nose. Stacks of split logs lined the wall—enough to get us through another few months. We bought our wood these days, but when I was a kid, my father had cut and chopped trees from our land. It was not only his mind that had been robbed of strength. The toll of decades of physically hard labor had weakened his body. He was an old man now. Not the robust man of my youth.

I filled our wheelbarrow with wood and headed back outside, crossing the yard to the house where my father would soon want his breakfast. If I didn’t have a fire going by the time he got up, there would be trouble.

Regardless, for a moment, I hesitated in the stillness of the morning, taking in the familiar scene. Pine trees to the west stood tall and dark against the pale sky, their branches heavy with snow, while the distant mountains with sharp and brilliant white peaks gleamed dully in the overcast light. Pastures lay dormant under a white blanket, tufts of dead grass that managed to pierce through the surface brittle and brown. Here and there, the tops of hardy sagebrush poked through the snow, their green-gray leaves dusted with frost. The creek bed was now a ribbon of ice, snaking through the property with patches of snow-covered stones marking its path. Cottonwoods that grew along its banks were skeletal, with bare branches reaching out like bony fingers.

A gust of wind sent a flurry of snow dancing across the pasture toward the remnants of the old corral and barn, reminders of a heartier time in the history of my family’s ranch.

Fortunately, I’d been able to sell off what was left of my father’s cattle to a young rancher down the road. We no longer had horses or chickens, leaving only the rickety farmhouse to manage. Still, between starting a veterinary practice and taking care of my father, I felt walloped and defeated.

I turned back toward the house, pushing the wheelbarrow through the snow as best I could. Our farmhouse huddled against the bitter cold, its weathered exterior barely visible beneath a thin layer of snow that had settled overnight. Icicles clung to the rafters and gutters, catching what little light filtered through the clouds.

My father appeared on the back porch, wearing his flannel pajamas and shouting for me. “Pudge, get in here and make my breakfast.”

I sighed and headed his way.

Our kitchen wasn’t cold enough to see my breath, but it wasn’t far off. I’d woken to a frigid house, only to discover my furnace had gone out. I’d already put a call in to Dick, our heating and air guy in town, but no one had answered at his office. I’d left a message asking if he could come out as soon as possible. God only knew how much his bill would be. I just hoped he could repair it instead of telling me I needed a new one.

“Pudge, what is this?”

Pudge . My father’s nickname for me because I’d been overweight as a child. Children at school had been equally unkind, bullying me about my weight and coming up with other names. Fatso. Whale. Fatty. When I’d gone away to college on that well-earned scholarship, I’d vowed to return only when I’d shed the extra thirty or so pounds that had clung to my person since I was a child. I’d kept that promise to myself.

Strangely enough, losing the weight hadn’t fixed all my troubles as I’d thought it would. Ghosts from the past were not so easily dismissed. As it turns out, they continued to haunt me even when the mirror told me otherwise. If bullies knew how lasting their words were, would it make them more or less likely to continue lambasting their victims? I suspected knowing how much influence they’d had on my self-esteem would give them endless delight.

I looked up from frying a pan of potatoes to see my father sitting at the table with both hands clenched into fists.

“What’s wrong with it?” I’d made him a bowl of fruit, with slices of bananas, apples, and cantaloupe, hoping to get a few servings in him before I gave him his eggs and potatoes.

He pounded his fists against the tabletop, causing me to flinch. “I wouldn’t feed this to a hog. It’s rotten. Maybe full of worms for all I know.” His face scrunched into a scowl. “Or E. coli.”

I stifled a sigh and set aside my spatula. Dementia had made a mean old man meaner as well as paranoid. He often accused me of trying to poison him.

It was early in the morning, and I had a full day of rounds ahead of me. Time off for a small-town veterinarian in a ranching community didn’t come easily. Although it was not yet eight in the morning, I felt weary. The kind of tired that seemed to have permanently seeped into my bones. Fatigue that a woman in her early thirties should not feel. At school, I’d been vibrant and quick and full of plans for my future. That person seemed like someone else. Not me. And my tired bones.

I quickly put on a pot of coffee. My father liked his as thick and dark as oil, without cream or sugar. While it brewed, I turned on a burner, placed our cast-iron skillet on it to warm, and popped a piece of bread into the toaster.

“You need to build a fire,” Dad said. “It’s freezing in here.”

“The furnace is busted. I already called Ralph.” I’d already told him this once that morning.

“Who’s Ralph?”

Ralph was one of my father’s friend’s sons. He’d known him since he was a baby.

“You know Ralph. Billy’s son. He took over Billy’s air and heating business, remember?”

“Billy, sure. When did he have a kid? He was always running around with one woman or the other. Must’ve gotten one knocked up, huh?” Dad pulled on the straps of his denim overalls. I’d managed to get him to change out of his pajamas before he came into the kitchen for breakfast, but they weren’t much better. Those overalls had seen many winters and had patches in various places. I couldn’t convince him to get rid of them and let me buy him a new pair.

“Ralph’s my age. We were the same year in high school. He was our quarterback, remember?” Ralph, athletic and nice-looking, had been part of the popular crowd, which I was most certainly not. Dad used to enjoy the high school football games back in the day. I’d never cared much about them, preferring to stay at home and read on a Friday night rather than face the humiliation of yet another high school experience.

I cracked two eggs into the skillet. They immediately started to crackle and pop.

“Do you want me to get you a sweater?” Although Dad wore a flannel shirt under the overalls, I worried he’d grown chilled. Once the cold had seeped into one’s bones, it was hard to recover, especially in a house without a heater. With or without dementia, Dad seemed to have less tolerance for the cold.

“Nope. I’m fine. Takes more than a little winter chill to take me out. I ain’t like you, young folks. All of you marshmallows. Why’s my breakfast taking so long?”

In response, the eggs snapped and sizzled in the pan.

It was ridiculous to make such a big meal every morning, but that was something in my father’s routine that had not changed. He insisted on a big breakfast. Which meant I had to make it and clean up all the mess afterward. I’d have had a cup of coffee and a piece of toast if it were up to me.

For a moment, I thought longingly of my time in the city before I’d moved home. I’d worked at a veterinary clinic after graduation that had been next door to a coffee shop. My coworkers and I had enjoyed lattes and moist muffins most mornings. I’d wanted to stay at the practice—the owners had offered me an opportunity to join as a junior partner. I would have said yes in a second if my father’s health hadn’t deteriorated so quickly.

“What were you doing outside this morning?” Dad asked. “Meeting with someone? Planning my incarceration in the funny farm?”

“No, just getting wood.” I flipped his eggs with the old metal spatula we’d had since I could remember. He liked his fried eggs cooked with a soft yolk so that he could use his toast to soak it all up. For the life of me, I could never get them quite right. They were either too runny or too hard.

“What for?” Dad asked.

“For the woodstove. The heater’s out.” I stifled a sigh.

“You were talking to someone out there. I heard voices.”

My father had gotten paranoid of late. He’d always been prone to suspicion, but with the onset of dementia, it had only gotten more pronounced. Almost every morning, he asked me if I planned to send him to the insane asylum—his words.

I always explained to him, as patiently as I could, that he was in no danger of being locked away.

“I saw that Rafferty Moon sniffing around here,” Dad said. “Just the other day.”

“He’s your doctor. He comes out to check on you from time to time.”

“That idiot’s a doctor?”

I reached for a mug from the cupboard and poured him a cup of steaming coffee, then set it in front of him. “You know he’s a doctor. I’m a vet. We’re all grown now.”

“He’s a dirty dog. One of those Moon boys. Always thinking they were better than the rest of us.”

“That’s not true.”

“Don’t back-talk me.” He banged his fist against the table at the same time the toast popped up, making it feel as if they were related.

The corner of one of my eyes twitched. I pressed my finger into it, wishing I were anywhere but here.

“The Moon boys don’t think they’re better than anyone else,” I said, except maybe Rafferty. His brothers had all been sweet and laid-back. Not Rafferty. He was like me. Ambitious and driven. One had to be slightly arrogant to decide to try for medical school. We’d known the odds of kids from a place like Bluefern making it all the way through. But we’d set our sights on our goals and not given up. As much as the man rankled me, I admired his spirit and drive. Perhaps because they were so similar to mine.

Rafferty and I went head-to-head academically from the time we were in kindergarten. We’d always tried to beat the other in whatever class we were in. Sometimes I won. Other times, he won. We were mere points apart for the role of valedictorian of our class. I’d ended up slightly ahead because he’d gotten an A-minus in an elective, and I’d never dipped below a 4.0. He’d been bitter ever since. I’m ashamed to say it brought a smile to my lips, remembering the look in his eyes when it was announced that I’d won.

I set the plate in front of my father. He took one look at it and sent it flying across the room with a swift swipe of his hand. The plate shattered as it hit the floor. Runny yolk spilled out among the shards like blood from a stab wound.

“Why did you do that?” I asked, even though I knew there was no answer. Nothing that made logical sense that is. In his addled mind, he’d seen something wrong and taken it as a personal affront.

“You’re trying to poison me with those runny eggs. Is it too much to ask to get a cooked egg?”

“You like them like this. With a soft yolk. You have them this way every day.” At least, he had for all the years I’d known him. This was a first.

“I most certainly do not. Why do you lie to me all the time?” His mouth curved into a snarl. “Gaslighting. That’s what they call it, you know.” He’d not shaved for several days, and white hairs sprouted from his chin, giving him a grizzled appearance. If I’d seen him on the street, I might have thought he was homeless. He had that old man smell to him, too, refusing to shower when I asked him to, claiming he’d already done so. I knew better than to believe him. In his defense, he may have actually thought he had showered when, in fact, it had been days. Getting him into a bath or shower was nearly impossible.

“I’m not gaslighting you.” I was surprised he even knew the term. Most gaslighters of his generation didn’t know that’s what they were.

I knelt to retrieve the bits of broken plate and dumped them into the trash. At this rate, I’d have to get a new set of dishes. They’d been my grandmother’s. She’d brought them with her when she came to live with us. Before that, she’d lived in Bozeman with her sister. After my mother left, my dad had no choice but to invite her to live with us despite their contentious relationship. He’d had no idea what to do with a three-year-old.

My grandmother had died when I was eleven from a sudden heart attack. Only her dishes, the cast-iron skillet, and some of the ratty furniture in our house were left to remind us of the tough, mean woman who had come to Montana as a new bride. Marrying a rancher was not for the meek.

Some women couldn’t take it and left after a time, like my mother. She’d met my father in high school and had gotten pregnant. I’m assuming, although I don’t know much about her, she felt she had no other choice than to marry him. I had so many things I wish I could ask her. The biggest one—why had she left me with him instead of taking me with her. But I couldn’t. She’d flown the coop, as my father said, and not returned to her nest. Loving me hadn’t been enough to get her to stay. Or maybe she hadn’t loved me at all. I’d never know. She had disappeared without a trace.

On my hands and knees, I wiped the floor with a damp towel. The mess soiled the knees of my jeans, which meant I’d have to change before I headed out to one of the local ranchers’ properties to look at a sick cow. I’d promised to stop by on my way into town. My official office was just at the edge of town, but I reserved several mornings a week for the ranchers. Even though my bread and butter were folks’ cats and dogs, serving the ranching community was important to me.

Before I knew what was happening, Dad had risen from his chair, and yanked me up by the collar of my sweater, and hurled me against a wall. My head slammed into the hard surface, and for a moment, I felt like one of those bobbleheads people get at sports events.

“You shut your mouth, Sally. Just shut it.”

Sally? My mother. This was a first.

“It’s me, Dad. Arabella.”

“You need to learn respect.” He raised his hand and brought it down hard across one of my cheeks. I yelped in pain.

With as much strength as I could muster, I pushed against his chest and wriggled out of his grasp. He’d grown so thin over the last year, often refusing to eat, that I could overpower him if I tried.

There had been a few days in the recent past that he hadn’t known who I was and thought I was trying to poison him. I’d come to dread mealtimes.

No sooner had I freed myself than he seemed to return to reality. He blinked and then backed away as if he’d come out of a trance. Over the last few months, we’d had more and more of these incidents. They grew closer together and more frequent as the weeks rolled by. What would I do when they’d taken over his mind completely? I had no earthly idea.

Rubbing the back of my head, grateful there was no blood, I stumbled over to stand by the sink and glanced out the window. A truck was coming up the driveway. Rafferty’s red truck. Of course, it was red. He always chose a power color. To prove a point? Or compensate? Who knew? Granted, is anyone else driving a red truck? It would just be a red truck. But with Rafferty, it annoyed me.

What was he doing here? We didn’t have an appointment. At least not that I remembered.

I gently placed my fingers against my sore cheek, hoping it would not bruise. The last time my father had pushed me, I’d landed on the back of a kitchen chair, which had left bruises on the backs of my thighs. They were easy to hide. A bruise on the face would be much harder to keep to myself.

I’d like to have said it was only the dementia that made my father violent enough to strike me, but it wasn’t true. He’d knocked me around as a kid occasionally, especially after he’d been drinking. Nothing serious enough to break bones, but the times he’d shoved or slapped had left a mark on me just the same as had his cruel words. In that regard, not much had changed. I still could not predict when his rage would rise from wherever it resided and take possession of his soul.

I washed my hands and dried them on the towel next to the sink. Meanwhile, my dad had settled back at the table to drink his coffee and gobble down the untouched toast, which had been spared as if nothing had happened. In his mind, it might not have. The mysteriousness of his illness frustrated me, especially as a doctor, but there appeared to be nothing I could do as a scientist or a daughter.

I left Dad at the table and went out to greet Rafferty. He was climbing out of the driver’s seat of his truck as I reached the bottom step of our rickety front porch. Everything needed mending, and I had no time to do any of it.

“Hey, sorry to come out so early,” Rafferty said. “I’m on my way to take a look at the Morrises’ new baby, and Mama suggested I drop in for a visit on my way out there. How’s your dad this morning?”

“About the same.” Why had Stella sent him out here? Had it been that long since I’d been to church?

He drew closer, searching my face with inquisitive eyes. “What happened to your cheek? It’s red.”

I touched my fingertips to the spot on my face that still stung. My pop may have been old and confused, but he could still pack a punch. Or a slap in this case.

“Oh, nothing. It’s fine,” I said.

Rafferty nodded, but I could see he wasn’t buying it. “You want me to take a look at him?”

I shrugged. “Sure. Since you’re here, it’ll save me a trip to your office. He’s gotten more and more obstinate about our appointments.”

“Let me grab my bag from the truck. Go on in. It’s cold out here.”

He was right. Even in my wool sweater, I was starting to shiver. “I’ll pour you a cup of coffee.”

“Appreciate it.”

I glanced up at the sky. Dense, dark gray, low-hanging clouds made the atmosphere feel even heavier and closer than it had earlier. The air felt eerily still, with no wind at all. “The calm before the storm” was a saying for a reason. No sooner had I thought this than a snowflake landed on my nose. Seconds later, snow began to fall in earnest.

I hustled back into the kitchen, debating if I should go on my planned ranch visits. I’d hate to get caught in the weather and leave Dad alone for too long.

Dad remained at the table, eating his toast, as docile as a lamb.

“Who’s here?” Dad asked.

“Dr. Moon. He was on his way out to see the Morrises’ new baby and stopped by to check on you.”

“What for? Nothing wrong with me.”

I didn’t say anything. Rafferty rapped on the door and then came inside, stomping his boots on the mat. “Morning, Mr. Collins.”

My father merely grunted his greeting, watching Rafferty with a distrustful glare as if he’d never seen him before.

I poured Rafferty a cup of coffee and set it on the counter while he shrugged out of his heavy jacket. “Do you want cream or sugar?”

“No thanks. Black’s fine,” Rafferty said, taking the mug between two hands. “It’s a cold one out there this morning. You staying warm enough?”

“Sure we are,” Dad said. “Got enough wood in the shed to last me several months and a furnace when we need it.”

While that was true, my father failed to mention that the heat in this old house only came on when it felt like it.

Had Rafferty noticed how cold the house felt? Even with the woodstove going in the other room, it felt chilled in the kitchen.

“Our furnace has been acting up,” I said.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Rafferty said. “Seems they always go out right when you need them. You want me to take a look before I go? Pop taught me a few things about furnaces. No guarantee, but I can certainly try.”

“It’s better than waiting for Ralph. So yes, thank you.” I doubted he’d know how to fix my furnace, but it was worth a try. Rafferty’s father was well known in town for being a master at remodeling and flipping houses. “If you have time.”

“I can spare a few minutes.”

“They’re saying a bad storm is coming this afternoon, but I think it’ll be here earlier than that,” Rafferty said. “I’m going to head back to town after I visit the Morrises and walk to the office.” Rafferty rented a house a few blocks from his medical practice. “You might think about getting home early, too.”

Why was he being so nice? Usually, our interactions were strained, with mutual contempt just below the surface.

“I can show him where the furnace is,” Dad said, interrupting. “This is still my house, if you recall.”

“No, stay and finish your toast,” I said quickly. “I’ll take him down to the basement.”

For once, my father didn’t argue.