“What happens now?” Cayden asks.

“What do you mean?”

My tears have finally dried. I don’t have any left. I’m numb and lost.

His eyes are filled with fear. “Will we have to move? Do we get to see Daddy again?”

“No, honey, we won’t have to move. I have to make arrangements, and we’ll have a service for your dad.” I don’t know how to answer him about seeing his father. “I’m not sure if you’ll see him again, baby.”

“Oh.” He looks away despondently. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

“Sorry? What could you be sorry for, sweetheart?”

Cayden’s green eyes close as a tear falls. “I should’ve gone upstairs. I could’ve—”

“No, baby. This isn’t anything you could’ve stopped.”

Logan sniffles. “I sat here playing video games, too. Dad needed us.”

“Boys.” I get up, turning to face them. “I need you to listen to me.” I wait for them to acknowledge me before I continue. “You did nothing wrong. You couldn’t have saved him. Do you understand me?”

Neither says a word—they just cry. And the tears I thought dried, become rivers down my cheeks. Why, Todd? Why?

“I’ M SO SORRY FOR YOUR loss,” says a nameless face who is standing in front of me after the burial. Everyone is nice, all sympathetic, but I don’t care. I’m sure they’re sorry. They all wish me and the boys the best. But I see the pity in their eyes.

Maybe it’s my paranoia, but I hear their whispers to each other on why it was a closed casket when it was a heart attack. I feel their gazes as they watch me stand motionless over the gravesite, unable to place my rose there.

If they only knew. They didn’t have to take the call from the funeral home saying they couldn’t cover the bruises or ligature marks. They don’t understand the way my heart clenches each time someone asks how he passed. The bitter lie I utter. They’re all praying for us, and I’m praying they leave us alone. I shake their hands and allow their hugs, but I’m empty.

More people leave, but all I focus on is the body lying in the casket.

“How could you do this?” I grasp the flower in my hand. “How could you think this was the answer?” The thorn pricks at my skin. “We had a life. We had a family.” A tear falls. I look around and see Angie by her car and my mother standing by hers. Cayden and Logan sit in the car with my daddy. He’s been the only person they want to be around. Cayden still won’t speak much, but Logan won’t stop. They’re coping—barely.

Everyone gives me some time alone as I bid farewell to my husband.

“You’re really gone.” I brush my hand across the smooth wood casket, rubbing my fingers back and forth. “I feel so many things right now. I guess this is goodbye.” My voice cracks. “I guess this is where I leave you and the life we had in the ground.” I catch my breath. I lift the rose and place it down. The single rose stands apart from the rest, which sit in a pile. “Goodbye, Todd.”

Tears fall, and my knees give out. My hand rests against the wood as I sob.

Minutes pass, and my tears dry, but I can’t move. When I leave this place, it’ll be the end of us. He’s been gone for a week, but this will really be it.

“You ready, sugar?” Mama asks. She squats before taking my hand in hers.

“No,” I say, staring at the hole in the ground where my husband’s body will rest.

“You’re going to be okay, Presley.” She leans back and reassures me, “I know it’s hard, but you’re a strong woman.”

I look at my mother, begging with my eyes for her to give me something to help with the pain. “Mama?”

Her lips purse as she rubs the side of my face. “I can’t take this away from you. Lord, how I wish I could.” Her eyes fill with moisture as her hand drops, gripping each of mine. “You’re strong, though. You always were the strongest of all of us. Not many have the guts to chase something they want. Look at what you did. Moving on, going to school, makin’ something of your life.”

“Look where that got me.”

“Hey, now.” Her stern, Southern voice leaves no room for debate. “You got those boys. You have a home, a business, and you’ve done well for yourself. Things that you might not have if you’d stayed on the ranch. You couldn’t wait to get out of Bell Buckle, and while it wasn’t the way you planned, it led you to Todd. That man loved you all more than anything. He didn’t leave this world or you willingly.”

I can’t stop the hysterical laugh that escapes me. My chest constricts as I feel the first twinge of anger. I stand quickly while balling my fists at my side. “Mama, if that were the truth I—” I stop, realizing that I almost told her that it wasn’t a heart attack. “Let’s just go.”

“What aren’t you telling me?” She stands slowly with her eyes never leaving mine.

“Nothing, Mama.”

“Don’t lie to me, Presley Mae. I know when you’re hiding something.”

Her eyes study me. She’s one of those women who sees too much. She was always able to tell if my brother, Cooper, and I were lying. That is, until I started dating. Then it was a whole new world. I perfected telling half-truths and leaving out details she didn’t need to know. “There’s nothing worth repeating.” I release her hand and walk to the car. This isn’t the end of it, but I’m not ready to tell anyone yet.

Thankfully, my father doesn’t say a word as I climb in. Our relationship suffered when I left the ranch. He hoped that Cooper and I would run it together. His was not a dream I shared. There was a lot of anger when I decided to go to college out of state. Daddy refused to help contribute anything for school, and when I said I wasn’t coming back . . . he was livid. Bell Buckle was like living in a vacuum cleaner. It sucked the life out of me. I wanted more. I wanted it all.

“Mom?” Cayden’s small hand rests on my arm.

“Yes, buddy?”

“Why did God take my dad?”

My shoulders rise and fall as my head shakes. I answer him with as much honesty as I can—as though he’d asked why his father killed himself. “I don’t know. I really don’t. Sometimes things just don’t make sense. Sometimes we never have answers to these questions.”

I hear Logan sniff and then say, “I miss him.”

“I miss him too, baby. You have no idea how much.”

Cayden leans his head against my arm and I kiss his hair. This one event will shape so much of who they are. For all my father’s shortcomings, he loved me so deeply. His determination to fight for what he believed in is what I learned from him. But Daddy always told me and Cooper that anything worth fighting for is worth everything you have. He wished I didn’t want to run as fast as I could out of Tennessee. I’m sure he still hasn’t forgiven me.

“Sometimes, boys.” My father’s deep voice cuts through the silence as he continues, “There’s no comprehending why things happen. People leave you before you’re ready for them to go, but you have to keep livin’.” I can’t help but think he’s also talking about me. His green eyes stare at me through the refection in the rearview mirror. “That doesn’t mean you won’t miss them though.”