Surprise! We’re broke.

Charlotte

“What the hell was that?” my mom asks. We are sitting on the wrong side of a fallen tree in the worst rainstorm I’ve ever witnessed in Montana. I’m soaking wet, my boots are covered in mud and my heart is pounding in my chest but not from the rain.

Arrogant, stuck up, rich as sin Beau Hill just jump started my libido with one unsolicited, unnecessary, unsexy, run of the mill everyday touch on my jean clad waist. He lifted me out of six inches of mud and plopped me into my mother’s truck like a two year old and turned my insides into lava. Indeed mother, what the hell was that?

“Um, I don’t know. He was being nice?”

“You’ve been gone too long Charlotte. Hill men are not nice, not one of them. He has an agenda, I’m sure of it.”

I buckle my seat belt and put the truck in reverse. “An agenda? Like what?”

“I don’t know but I’m going to find out. You stay away from him ya hear?”

“Yes Mama, I hear. You’re yelling at me in a confined area how could I not?”

She snorts and crosses her arms over her jean jacket clad chest. “You’ve gotten sassy since you went away.”

“Oh Mama, I’ve always been sassy, you can’t blame that on the school I go to.”

She doesn’t respond and guilt washes over me when I glance over and see her holding back tears while she stares out her window.

I reach out and touch her arm, “I’m sorry, I know this is an awful time. I don’t want to cause you any more stress, but honestly, I have no idea why he helped me. I’ve never spoken to that man in my life. Maybe he feels bad because of what happened.”

I’ve never spoken to him because I was forbidden to and because he acted like he was too good for anybody at Lincoln High School. He was gorgeous, wavy blonde hair kissed by hours in the sun working on his family’s ranch, navy blue eyes that made your legs wobble when he turned them on you, which wasn’t often. He was tall, lean and cut, every girls dream but no one could have him.

He drove his fancy truck to school, got a 4.O GPA and never talked to anyone. He was a loner who didn’t have any friends that I knew of. And then he graduated with honors, became the valedictorian and went to some fancy college out east. I haven’t seen him since my sophomore year of high school and I really didn’t see much of him today. The rain made it impossible to see, but when he got close to me I felt like he was the north end of a magnet and I was the south. We snapped together and electricity flowed between us, or through me at least. I’ve never felt anything like it.

Maybe that’s what animal magnetism is? I always thought it was just an expression, but maybe it’s a real thing? I’ll have to look it up when I get back to school, if I get back to school. No, I can’t think that way. No matter what happened to the ranch I’m still going to be a veterinarian, I only have two months of school left until I graduate.

I need to see the damage for myself and I would have if that damn tree weren’t blocking the road. It was on Hill’s side of the road, I hope he has it cleared tomorrow so I can help mom and dad with the insurance papers and get back to school.

For all intents and purposes my family is homeless. They are staying in a hotel in Redwater. It’s not the nicest place, but it’s a roof over their heads until the insurance money comes through and they can rebuild. I hope that’s soon because I think the four of them might kill each other soon. They’ve been stuffed into one hotel room with two queen beds for two days. My mom was even happy to go out in a terrible storm, just to get away from them.

Stella is my older sister, she’s thirty and single, and I can’t understand why because she’s beautiful and smart. Jake Jr., my brother, he’s two years older than me, same as Beau Hill, except not nearly as smart and incredibly obnoxious.

We pull into the parking lot of the hotel and run with our coats pulled up over our heads, to room number eight and bang on the door, like the FBI demanding entry into a criminal’s home.

“God damn women, why don’t you use your key?”

Mom pushes my dad aside and we rush in. I slam the door.

“It’s pouring Dad, I wouldn’t have been able to see the hole to put the key into.”

“You shouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vein Jack and it’s not like you’re busy doing anything important,” mom says pointing at the television. He’s been watching The Price is Right again. Between that and The Wheel of Fortune my dad should be able to kick ass as a game show contestant pretty soon.

“What else am I supposed to do? There’s no land to take care of, no animals to feed, no house to make repairs on. Everything’s gone Sarah, everything.”

I think my dad’s going to cry right here in front of all of us. I’ve never, in my twenty-two years of life, seen my dad so much as well up with tears. This is bad, very, very bad.

I’ve been lying to myself about the seriousness of the situation. That’s why I insisted on going to the ranch today, to see for myself that what they have told me was true. I can’t believe it’s all gone, it can’t be. They have to be exaggerating.

But they aren’t.

Mom rushes across the dingy hotel carpet and they embrace. A public display of affection… another rare occurrence in my family. It’s not that we don’t love each other, it’s just that we don’t show it with hugs and kisses like some people do.

Stella, Jake Jr. and I stand awkwardly around the two beds looking at each other unsure of what to do..

There’s no place for us to go so that we can give them some privacy. We can only afford one room and a thunderstorm from hell is going on outside.

So we wait.

Jake Jr.’s eyes wander back to The Price is Right and Stella and I look around the room avoiding my parent’s awkward embrace. When they separate my dad’s eyes are rimmed in red, but dry, and my mom is crying.

I reach out and pat my dad on the arm. “Dad, it’ll be all right, we will get the insurance papers all figured out tomorrow, and I have some money saved up you can use to keep paying for this room.”

I work part time at a vet hospital for the experience, and extra cash, it’s not much but it helps with the day-to-day expenses of college.

“I don’t want your money, that’s yours, you earned it.”

.“Okay, we will find a way though. Don’t worry, I’ll be home from school permanently soon and we will get that ranch built up bigger and better than before.”

My handsome father looks away from me, stuffing his hands into his jean pockets. Something’s off, he’s keeping something from us, something important.

“Dad?”

He fidgets, but he won’t look at me and there is no place for him to go.

“Dad, what’s wrong? I mean aside from the obvious.”

“There is no insurance policy. I couldn’t afford the payments. I had to cancel it a few months back. I had to pay the ranch hands and Millie and Butch, there wasn’t enough.”

“Oh my God, Jake. Why didn’t you tell me? I could have asked my sister to borrow the money.”

“We’ve been behind for a long time. Your sister wouldn’t have been able to afford to help us enough to make a difference.”

“How bad was it?”

“Bad. If the tornado hadn’t sucked everything up we would have had to shut it down in six months anyway.”

Holy shit, the ranch is not only gone - but gone forever. We can never rebuild without the insurance money and ranching is the only thing my family knows. My chest tightens and the walls of our tiny hotel room feel like they’re closing in.

What’s next when there is no next?