Chapter 1

For most girlsin her small town, their earliest memories are of princess dresses and tea parties with dolls and invisible friends—maybe putting on their mother's lipstick and parading in front of the mirror in her stilettos.

Sara remembers doves.

The echo of a shot ringing through the hills; the burst of feathers. She remembers the warmth of their bodies when she cradled them in her palms—the weight of her father's approval when she delivered the tiny corpses to his waiting, callus-lined hands. Her mother had scowled when she saw the blood streaking her skin and staining her sleeves, but had praised her for her help all the same. Dove had always been Mama's favorite. If she really tries, Sara can almost recall the smell of the meat roasting—garlic and rosemary—in the skillet.

Mostly, Sara remembers being happy; her family whole.

Her father sober.

Her mother there.

After, Sara would turn her mother's flea-market reading chair, its upholstery threadbare, till it faced the living room window. For hours, she would anxiously play with the strands of her hair and watch for her mother's red sedan on the long gravel drive. So naive and hopeful, that she could almost hear the crunch of gravel under the tires and smell the dust kicked up in its wake. She never came and her father, from the bottom of his bottle, would never hesitate to tell her why.

"She ain't coming back. Bitch got herself a new family." A swig, or perhaps the twist of another cap, and he would add, "Stop wasting your time waiting for her."

Eventually, Sara did. Seasons changed, and the driveway remained empty save her father's work truck and the occasional visit from his bar buddies. Sara learned to hate the color red with a passion born from resentment. Her Oma—her mother's mother—is the only blessing Mama left her with.

Every day after school, the bus would drop her off at her grandmother's house. Oma always had something baked—muffins, strudels, cookies—and Sara would run to the peeling, navy blue door, open it wide, and breathe deep. Beneath the scent of flour and sugar, cinnamon and vanilla, was something intangible but warm—the complete opposite to the smell of stale beer and mildew that assaulted her the moment she stepped into her father's house.

It took her a few years to figure it out, but she realized on her tenth birthday when Oma baked her a three-layered cake and her father didn"t show up for dinner. Sara blew out the candles, wishing he was there. When he finally arrived, it was well past dark. She overheard Oma chewing him out in the entryway for stinking of whiskey.

Sara slept over that night, and in the morning she ate chocolate chip pancakes with fatty, thick sliced bacon and homemade sausages. When her father (finally) came to pick her up that afternoon, she didn't want to leave. Her father didn't want to hear it.

On the ride home, cans rattling beneath her feet and a fresh twelve pack sitting in the seat between them, Sara understood. Oma's house felt like home. Not a shell of a house with nothing but cable tv and microwaved dinners eaten alone. Oma felt close; available and easy to love. Warm. Real.

Her father felt like a stranger at best.

A ghost, at worst.

Always there—a quiet, broad-shouldered figure lurking at the edges of her memory—but never there for her. If Oma was the ship keeping her afloat, her father was the figurehead. There for looks, but nothing else. But he tries, Sara knows he tries.

On the weekends, when it's in season, he takes her hunting. Grouse and pheasant, mostly. Never dove. She sees him then—those sober moments where he becomes more human than booze. Most of the time she even likes him, but there's always a chasm between them; an awkwardness she can never quite cross.

Even now, with the landscape unveiling its beauty in every sense—with every sense—she can't help but feel like she's toeing the edge of a cliff. Lean too far forward and she'll plummet; stand too far back and she'll never be close. She walks several paces behind her father's stocky frame, the weight of her camera strap on the back of her neck more comforting than the silence between them.

The sun"s warm rays, spilling into the valley, reach across her favorite hill. The tall grasses, dry from the summer heat, turn to gold while the lone oak tree in the distance softens from a hard silhouette and into something three dimensional. Her father"s spaniel tracks a scent, white and honey coat nearly disappearing in the high grasses. Sara stifles a laugh when the dog hops over a particularly thick patch of brush.

"You best not be laughing at my dog." Thick, graying eyebrows rise over hazel eyes—one of the few features she inherited from him. "Unless you want to take Miss Belle"s place and start flushing out my birds." The hands holding his shotgun gesture to the large expanse of field still needing to be covered.

"No thanks." Sara lifts her camera pointedly in response. "I"m just the photographer, remember?"

He grunts, eyes flicking to her most prized possession before quickly flitting away. Sara tries to tamp down the disappointment souring her stomach. Three years in, and her choice in major still tips him into the realm of firm disappointment.

She hurries to change the conversation. "Belle looks good out there," she says, nodding toward the rustling grass. "She's listening a lot better than last year."

Roy adjusts his cap before returning his grip to the firearm—ready to snap up and shoot at a moment's notice. A shrill whistle passes his lips, and Belle comes bounding through the brush. Roy gives his daughter a pointed look over his shoulder. "Yeah. Amazing what happens when a certain someone isn't here to spoil her."

Sara's lips pucker in a failing attempt to withhold a smile. Belle pads over to her, tongue lolling out of her mouth, and nudges her hand. She sneaks a scratch behind her ear. "You're just sore because I'm her favorite."

"Will you knock that off?" he scolds, more exasperated than angry. "How many times do I gotta tell you not to pet her while she's working."

"I'm giving her positive reinforcement."

Faintly, she hears a mumbled, "Millennials," pass his lips as he moves a few giant steps deeper into the field. Belle bounces enthusiastically at his side, pink tongue lolling out one side of her freckled mouth.

Sara's smile falters, but she sets her irritation aside for the sake of keeping the peace. "I heard that."

He sends a disapproving look over his shoulders. "You best not have, because then I'd know you didn't put those earplugs in like I told you to."

She flushes guiltily, fingers quickly find the two orange pieces of foam in her back pocket. Rolling them between her fingers, she puts one in each ear—feeling the foam puff and fill the canal snugly until her hearing becomes noticeably muffled. "Sorry."

"No, sorry would have been you going deaf at the age of thirty," he says flippantly, though his voice carries no sharp edge. It's a lecture that's as overused as telling her not to waste water on long showers. His eyes observe the dog's movements as she weaves circled trails through the grass.

Sara shrugs her freckled shoulders, despite knowing she isn't in his line of sight. There's a witty retort ready to be fired from her lips, but she bites her tongue. She's irritated by his tone, but she knows better than to pick a fight.

Body tense in anticipation, waiting for a bird to startle, Roy offers an olive branch. "What classes are you taking this semester?"

"British Literature, Calculus, and Art Appreciation."

Her father scoffs, casting her a bemused look. "British? What the hell's wrong with American?"

"Nothing other than it being booked full." Sometimes his disapproval is so predictable it's painful, but she's mostly just glad he didn't decide to comment on her art class. When he still looks skeptical, she adds, "It counts towards General Ed, so who cares? I'm sure I'll hate it just as much."

Roy hesitates, seeming torn between offering (false) words of support and grudging acknowledgement. Sara hates English. Getting her through Catcher in the Rye in her junior year had been like trying to force a cat to swim—she kept her head above the water, but she came out soaked and thoroughly pissed off. Her unfortunate teacher at the time had struggled to hide her annoyance at Sara's lack of enthusiasm. The parent-teacher meetings she had called her father into were one of the only times he had stepped foot onto her campus.

"And that boy of yours?"

Sara stiffens, sucking in a bracing breath. Talking to her father about David is like walking across a minefield. She's learned from a young age to avoid the topic of love and marriage like it was the plague (probably because that's exactly how her father treated it). "David is starting his internship in October."

She makes a point of saying her boyfriend's name as much as her father does to avoid it.

Roy makes a sound in the back of his throat; acknowledgement but not approval. Sara has had plenty of practice deciphering the difference, and she's glad she insisted on coming up to visit with her father alone. He's hated all of her boyfriends, but the disdain he holds for David has always gone deeper. Sara blames it on the seriousness of their relationship more than anything else. She had intended to break the news to him about the apartment she and David signed for, but the longer she visits the more excuses she finds to hold off. Sara wonders how many it takes before it qualifies as a justification.

Her father may have written off love as a fool's errand, but she's never let him convince her. In Oma's bedroom is a wedding photo framed in tarnished brass; a candid moment between the bride and groom smiling and happy with a simple buttercream cake between them. When Sara was little, she caught Oma talking to the picture and pressing her lips to the glass in a goodnight kiss. Even as a child, she could sense the ritualistic nature of it. Sara has no doubts that her grandmother wished her departed husband goodnight, and good morning, every day.

The years have taught her that Oma and Dad are a study in opposites: love found and love failed, life lived and life tolerated. One leads to a house full of warmth and memories, the other a telltale chorus of glass and tin in the recycle can. Sara knows who she would rather take after.

A retort sits, hot on her tongue, but she swallows it down—feels it settle in her stomach like coal. No amount of arguing will change his mind (or hers) and she's learned better than to waste her time.

"Sara!"

She looks over her shoulder, surprised to hear her name rolling over the soft, rustling grasses. In the distance, beside her father's black F250, is a beat up Ford pickup with rust eating through the faded blue paint; its driver side door swung open. Sara recognizes it more easily than the man yelling in front of it.

Roy's irritation is written in the heavy, controlled sigh through his nose and the flexing muscle of his jaw. "Damn it all. Gonna scare off my birds." He shoos her off, already marching deeper into the fields, away from the racket her old classmate is causing. "Go on and see what he wants, then. I'll see you back home."

Sara can't say she blames him. Austin's a hunter himself—he should know better. Still, there's an edge to his voice that makes her anxious, and she moves just a little faster. When she makes it within a yard from the parked trucks, she can easily make out his pallid face under the shadow of his baseball cap.

His brown eyes are blown wide, lip trembling and pale. Sara frowns, glancing at the cab of his truck and finding the passenger seat empty.

Her stomach drops.

Austin shouldn't be alone. He's supposed to be with David.

"The phones weren't working," he blurts, a bead of sweat running down his stubbled jaw. "I didn't know what else to do, and—"

She cuts him off, eyes still pinned to the empty passenger seat. "Austin, where's David?"

His chest heaves, anxiety pinching his face. "He's—he's at the hospital. There was an accident and—Sara, I'm so sorry. I told him it was a bad idea, I swear. You gotta believe me."

Behind her, Sara hears the shotgun go off—her father's short whoop—and envisions a hollow-boned body falling to the ground.

Sara thinks of doves.