Dusk had fully settled by the time I pulled onto the gravel driveway of Nadine’s ranch. The porch lights glowed like warm amber against the deep desert night. Nadine was waiting on the steps, a half-empty glass of wine in her hand. She didn’t ask why my eyes were red. She just pulled me into a fierce, smelling-of-smoke embrace.
“You made it, Reenie,” she whispered.
I nodded, the exhaustion suddenly hitting my bones like lead. I walked into the cabin, dropped my bag, and collapsed into a worn leather armchair. Out of sheer habit, I reached into my purse, pulled out my powered-down phone, and held the side button. The screen flared to life, illuminating the dark room. It immediately vibrated with the force of an angry hornet. INCOMING CALL: LOGAN. I stared at the green button, my thumb hovering over it, realizing the silence was officially over.
Chapter 4: The Communion of Dust and Cider
I let it ring three full times. I let the sound bounce off the log walls of the cabin, feeling the familiar spike of anxiety fight against the newly formed steel in my spine. On the fourth ring, I swiped the screen and pressed the phone to my ear.
“Where are you?” Logan’s voice barked through the speaker. He was entirely bypassing a greeting, his tone already halfway to fury.
I took a slow, deep breath, looking out the window at the endless expanse of the desert sky. “Not at home. And not with you.”
There was a sharp silence on the line, the sound of a man miscalculating his leverage. “Mom, what is going on? We drove by the house to drop off the folding chairs and your car is gone. Emily is freaking out.”
“I know about your plan, Logan,” I said, my voice dropping into a register I hadn’t used since he was a teenager breaking curfew. “I was standing in your mudroom hallway yesterday. I heard every single word you and Emily said about dumping the kids on me so you could party.”
I heard a sharp intake of breath. He started to stammer, a frantic scrambling of defenses and backpedaling excuses. “Mom, you took that entirely out of context—”
“You didn’t ask me,” I cut him off, the words slicing through the digital static. “You didn’t include me in your holiday. You assigned me a role, like I was a piece of rented furniture. You planned your perfect Christmas, and you only remembered I existed when you realized you needed someone to fund the food and corral the toddlers.”
