Harper

I was twenty-eight years old when I became an orphan. I supposed that word didn’t necessarily fit someone who had already graduated college and had a life away from home, but the emptiness I felt made me feel small once more. No longer was I the woman who had managed the maddest and meanest horses rodeo shows had to offer. Oh no, I was back to the young Harper Callahan who could barely tie her shoes, let alone live without her parents. I was all alone in the world without a clue what to do. It was a tough pill to swallow, and my throat was closing up.

It was the day of my pa’s funeral, and gray clouds filled the sky. It was as if even the heavens were in mourning for the loss of such a beautiful soul. I felt so empty and vulnerable with him gone, but I couldn’t let the world see that part of me. There were a lot of people present for my pa’s funeral. There were so many mourning and even more offering their support. With so many people watching, I did my best to avoid breaking down. Throughout the entire ceremony, my puffy eyes remained dry and my head was held high. Everyone was waiting for me to break; I could feel them watching. I couldn’t grant them the visual. Instead, I focused on the minister's words and watched the sun set behind the hills surrounding my small town. Somehow, my thoughts traveled toward the hills in the distance. I took my mind far away from where I was and tried to imagine a world where everything occurring was nothing more than a nightmare.

If only it could have been that easy.

Once the ceremony was over, many of the attendees departed. I was left alone in front of my pa’s freshly covered grave, which was right next to my mother’s. As an only child of two only-child parents, I had no one to turn to now that my older-than-average parents had died. Of course, there were family friends, but none of them could understand on a level of kin. My mother had taken ill out of the blue when I’d been eighteen. She’d fought for a decade before finally passing away in her sleep early one morning. After that, my pa hadn’t been the same. He had sunk into a depression even I hadn’t been able to drag him out of, and his broken heart had killed him just three months after my mother’s passing. His death affected me far more than my mother’s had, especially because I hadn’t seen it coming. I was a daddy’s girl through and through, so losing him was like losing a huge piece of myself.

It was as if the clear blue skies of Wyoming had darkened on the day my pa had died, as if a storm had been closing in and I’d been too slow to make it out. Everyone promised that time would ease the pain, but I knew nothing was ever going to be the same again. After nearly half an hour and at the gentle coaxing of family friends, I was escorted out of the graveyard and into a three-decade-old car. I kept my gaze on the hills, hoping and praying that my pa’s voice would break me out of the hell I was stuck in. However, that didn’t happen. Instead, I was driven home.

“What are you gonna do with all this land, Harper?” Jonathan, my father’s childhood friend, asked me as we approached the wooden gates guarding the long dirt road to my family’s ranch.

“I haven’t thought too far into that,” I admitted in a hoarse voice that sounded completely unlike my own.

After my father’s death, I had inherited the family business. It was a large farm, started by my great-grandparents, that my parents had turned into a bed and breakfast. There was a large house that rested on forty acres of land with animals to take care of and crops to nurture. In the beginning, it had been a successful business. Middle- and upper-class visitors booked rooms to the point where we even had a waiting list. However, after a few years, the charm had worn off. It had been a good month if we’d gotten booked three times. Once things had slowed down, it had been hard to take care of the bills and all the animals, so we’d had to sell our goats and cows. Eventually, we’d had to fire the staff that had helped us take care of everything. My parents had continued selling away things until they just couldn’t sell anymore. All we had been left with had been three horses, our chickens, and the house.

My parents had been ashamed. The Callahan Family Ranch had once been featured in magazines as one of America’s “Must Visit” places, and now it was sheer luck if we were mentioned at all. We had once been the most prominent family in our little town, so it had been a huge fall when we’d lost it all. We had struggled to even put food on the table sometimes. I’d had to work two jobs in high school to help pay the bills, and, once I had been in college full time, I had still worked to send money home to help pay for everything. It pained my heart to go back to the place my parents had devoted so much time to and still see that it wasn’t as it had once been.

We arrived in front of my childhood home and inherited estate. I looked over the two-story wood house. The front porch had a swing and a few seats that faced out toward the field where the horses roamed free during the day. The front door was emerald green with white letters that read “Callahan Family.” I thought back to when I’d been a young girl watching my mother write those letters with pride. A twinge of pain jolted through my chest, and I had to bite my lip hard to keep from tearing up. It was like I was being forced to face reality whether I wanted to or not.

“Do you need any help inside, sweetheart?” Beth, Jonathan’s wife, asked me.

Her voice snapped me out of my thoughts. The car was in park and the couple was staring at me with sympathy written all over their aged faces. I wasn’t sure how long I had been just staring at the house, but I didn’t want them to baby me through it all. I simply shook my head, thanked them, and made my way up the stairs. It felt like I had lead feet, and it took everything within me to keep going. Once inside, I kicked off my black three-inch heels and made my way to the kitchen for something to help my dry mouth.

In the kitchen, the kindness of the community welcomed me. There was an abundance of casseroles, desserts, and even a few cases of beer. I was so thankful that I didn’t have to cook, even though my appetite had died along with my parents. I grabbed a few beers and made my way past the stairs and toward my childhood bedroom. Each step felt heavier as I got closer to my room down the narrow hallway. Yet, at the same time, the distance seemed to double as I made my way along the hall I had traveled so often as a child. The house was far bigger than I had remembered, and the presence of my loneliness grew.

It hit me then and there, in the middle of the hallway with wooden floors and walls showcasing happy family pictures. I was alone. I had no one else in my life. I felt so pathetic as I wailed and screamed against the cold wooden floors that had once felt so warm. In a collapsed puddle of self-pity and mourning, I let out everything I hadn’t been able to let out in front of everyone at the funeral. With warm tears streaming down my face and a throat growing hoarse as I continued to yell, I imploded onto myself and caved into the emotion eating me from the inside out.

I was alone. I was all alone. My mom had spent so much of her time telling me that she wanted to see me get married before she died. My father had wanted to walk me down the aisle. I’d wanted to show them that I was capable of carrying on the family legacy and bloodline. But due to my own unwillingness to let anyone in, I hadn’t been able to show them before it was too late. Growing up, I had been in awe of the love my parents had shared, how my mom would look at Pa, and how Pa would shower her with love and affection in turn. I had questioned my pa often with mixed envy and admiration, and his only response was ever: “One day you’ll find the other half to your heart.” At the time, I had been barely entering puberty and had believed that to be impossible. However, years later, a boy really did feel like the other half of my heart.

Some things just weren’t meant to be.

Unsure of how much time had passed, I calmed down just a bit. I uncurled my body from the fetal position and stared up at the large family picture smiling down at me. With my parents’ large grins looming over me, I reminded myself that there was no time for weakness. I brought myself back to reality and picked myself up. My family was gone, and I was alone. Those two statements were facts. There was nothing I could do to change them, and I had to remind myself that time still went on no matter how badly I wanted to turn it back. There were more important matters that I needed to tend to in order to make sure I didn’t lose everything my family had built along with losing them.

The acres of land and the large family farm built atop it were some one of the things I had inherited. However, along with the blessing, I’d inherited a burden. Not only was my family farm not as successful as it had once been, it was also on the brink of foreclosure. While worrying about my mother, her health, and her medical bills, my father had put the remaining bills on the back burner. The Callahan Family Ranch was months behind on the mortgage, and the family lawyer had to practically beg the bank not to take anymore. It was my job to fix the issues my parents hadn’t been able to.

I was going to make sure I did just that, even if it took everything out of me.

Lethargically, I gathered the beer cans I had dropped and continued walking. I got closer to my room, but I needed to feel the comfort of my parents once more. I passed by my door and made my way to my parents’ room. The room hadn’t been entered since the night my father had passed, and I just wanted to make sure everything was in place. Everything had to be as it was supposed to be, just in case some cosmic joke was being played on me and he walked through the door any day now. As I walked into the room, I was welcomed by the warm scent of his familiar musk and favorite cigars. It took everything within me not to break down once more as I walked farther in.

The room, like the rest of the house, had wooden floors and walls. There were three large windows on the exterior wall that looked out onto the dying garden my mom had adored so much. The black and white cowhide curtains were still hanging around them, and the tacky, mismatched brown cowhide carpet and black bedding was untouched. I walked right over to the large bed on the other side of the room and collapsed on top of it. I was too weak to try much else. I just wanted to wallow in the scent of the room and savor the comfort of the bed.

Not long after, I drifted off to sleep. My thoughts roamed to everything from how badly I missed my parents to what I was going to do about the ranch. While the loneliness hugged me tightly as I drifted off to sleep, I continued to remind myself that I had far more important things to worry about.