Page 104 of Love Wells Kept

Kate and I follow behind the guys, silently and hurriedly slipping into big rubber boots and grabbing coats from a row of metal hooks by the front door. I wait, holding the door open, as her trembling fingers struggle with the zipper.

“She knows not to go outside without telling anyone,” Kate says under her breath.

“Kids make silly mistakes all the time,” I reply. “She’s okay, Kate. Promise.”

“It’s just…” She aggressively rubs a fist over her sternum, and I watch her try to breathe through it. “I’m trying not to panic, but this feels so much like that day.”

“This isn’t like that.” I pull her in for a brief hug and a firm kiss planted on top of her head. “Let’s go find our girl.”

I head out toward the barn.

It’s quiet. Too quiet. No off-key singing to her barn cats, no sound of disturbed animals. The door creaks when I slide it open, and light streams in from behind me to illuminate the dusty alley. I look around for a moment to find the light switch, and the overhead barn lights slowly hum to life, flooding the space with a warm glow. A horse blinks over at me. Somewhere farther down, another scuffs its hooves across the concrete floor. But otherwise, silence.

Fuck.

While I assumed she wouldn’t be here, it would’ve been a damn good surprise to find her casually sitting on a hay bale, playing with a kitten. All the worry in the kitchen would be for nothing, and we could carry on with our day.

I check a wood shed next, then an old tractor shed, and the chicken coop. Her name echoes through the valley, carried by the spring breeze across the tall grasses. Various tones and volumes from the dozen or more voices yelling out for her.

I lean against a wooden fence post, scrubbing my hand over my face, as the silence presses in, collapsing around my rib cage like a vise. It’s not panic yet, but it’s close. Because if she was anywhere on this ranch, she’d be easy to spot. Singing to the animals, lying stomach-down in a mud puddle playing with a toad, armpit deep in the garden soil, laughing hysterically as she splashes through water pooled in drainage ditches.

I’ve wanted to connect with my kids, and remember the kind of dad I was, since the day Kate showed me photo after photo of them in the hospital. Today there’s utter desperation ransacking my entire body. I can’t help but think Old Jackson would know exactly where to find Odessa.

Kate yells my name, grabbing my attention, and a shallow, hopeful breath inflates my lungs, only for her words to knock it out of me. “She’s not by the cattle guard,” she shouts.

Turning on her heel, she says something about going to check the river. I should follow. I should do something. But my feet feel heavy, rooted to the ground by the pressure building behind my ribs.

Kate’s voice cuts through the air as she disappears around the side of our house, fraying more every time she calls Odessa’s name. The early morning sun crests the hill, tossing a warm blanket of dense fog over the ranch the way one throws a blanket over a horse’s back. That’s what my brain feels like, too—airy thoughts swirling in my head, dissipating between my fingers anytime I reach for them.

I crane my neck to feel the heat of the sun on my face, and a memory floats in like dust glimmering in a sunbeam. I remember the sound of Odessa’s small boots stomping through the quiet barn. She was mad, though I don’t remember why, and I don’t think she knew then that I was standing there.

No ladder. No fear. She’d climbed up into the rafters with ease.

And I remember craning my neck to look up there. Finding her dirt-smudged legs dangling down from one of the wooden beams, tear tracks down her cheeks, cat held close to her chest.

Without hesitation, I start walking.

I know my daughter.

The barn door rollers grate, the harsh sound of metal on metal, when I yank it open. My heart pounds, ricocheting everywhere inside, quickening with each step through the dimly lit barn. It’s humid from the rainy night and, though there are no signs of her, I can’t ignore the feeling deep in my bones. The protective fire in my veins where there’s meant to be blood.

She’s here.

“Odessa,” I say softly, careful not to spook her.

It’s silent, and that doesn’t slow me down for even a second. I stride the length of the barn, to the stall where Kate said I got hurt. I don’t know what happened that day, but being here makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Odessa was here then. She was here, saw everything, and that fucking guts me.

Stepping into the confined space, I tilt my head and squint up at the ceiling.

And there she is.

Perched on one of the thick crossbeams exactly like in my memory. One knee’s hugged to her chest, the other leg dangling off the edge, pink cowboy boot swishing through the still air. Banana, that damn cat, is curled beside her like it’s a regular Saturday morning.

Something wells up from the depths of my lungs.

“We’ve been looking all over for you,” I say softly.

Her raspy, tear-filled voice topples down from the high ceiling. “I didn’t think you’d look here.”