Page 3 of Clashing Moon

I set the plate in front of my father. He took one look at it and sent it flying across the room with a swift swipe of his hand. The plate shattered as it hit the floor. Runny yolk spilled out among the shards like blood from a stab wound.

“Why did you do that?” I asked, even though I knew there was no answer. Nothing that made logical sense that is. In his addled mind, he’d seen something wrong and taken it as a personal affront.

“You’re trying to poison me with those runny eggs. Is it too much to ask to get a cooked egg?”

“You like them like this. With a soft yolk. You have them this way every day.” At least, he had for all the years I’d known him. This was a first.

“I most certainly do not. Why do you lie to me all the time?” His mouth curved into a snarl. “Gaslighting. That’s what theycall it, you know.” He’d not shaved for several days, and white hairs sprouted from his chin, giving him a grizzled appearance. If I’d seen him on the street, I might have thought he was homeless. He had that old man smell to him, too, refusing to shower when I asked him to, claiming he’d already done so. I knew better than to believe him. In his defense, he may have actually thought he had showered when, in fact, it had been days. Getting him into a bath or shower was nearly impossible.

“I’m not gaslighting you.” I was surprised he even knew the term. Most gaslighters of his generation didn’t know that’s what they were.

I knelt to retrieve the bits of broken plate and dumped them into the trash. At this rate, I’d have to get a new set of dishes. They’d been my grandmother’s. She’d brought them with her when she came to live with us. Before that, she’d lived in Bozeman with her sister. After my mother left, my dad had no choice but to invite her to live with us despite their contentious relationship. He’d had no idea what to do with a three-year-old.

My grandmother had died when I was eleven from a sudden heart attack. Only her dishes, the cast-iron skillet, and some of the ratty furniture in our house were left to remind us of the tough, mean woman who had come to Montana as a new bride. Marrying a rancher was not for the meek.

Some women couldn’t take it and left after a time, like my mother. She’d met my father in high school and had gotten pregnant. I’m assuming, although I don’t know much about her, she felt she had no other choice than to marry him. I had so many things I wish I could ask her. The biggest one—why had she left me with him instead of taking me with her. But I couldn’t. She’d flown the coop, as my father said, and not returned to her nest. Loving me hadn’t been enough to get her to stay. Or maybe she hadn’t loved me at all. I’d never know. She had disappeared without a trace.

On my hands and knees, I wiped the floor with a damp towel. The mess soiled the knees of my jeans, which meant I’d have to change before I headed out to one of the local ranchers’ properties to look at a sick cow. I’d promised to stop by on my way into town. My official office was just at the edge of town, but I reserved several mornings a week for the ranchers. Even though my bread and butter were folks’ cats and dogs, serving the ranching community was important to me.

Before I knew what was happening, Dad had risen from his chair, and yanked me up by the collar of my sweater, and hurled me against a wall. My head slammed into the hard surface, and for a moment, I felt like one of those bobbleheads people get at sports events.

“You shut your mouth, Sally. Just shut it.”

Sally? My mother. This was a first.

“It’s me, Dad. Arabella.”

“You need to learn respect.” He raised his hand and brought it down hard across one of my cheeks. I yelped in pain.

With as much strength as I could muster, I pushed against his chest and wriggled out of his grasp. He’d grown so thin over the last year, often refusing to eat, that I could overpower him if I tried.

There had been a few days in the recent past that he hadn’t known who I was and thought I was trying to poison him. I’d come to dread mealtimes.

No sooner had I freed myself than he seemed to return to reality. He blinked and then backed away as if he’d come out of a trance. Over the last few months, we’d had more and more of these incidents. They grew closer together and more frequent as the weeks rolled by. What would I do when they’d taken over his mind completely? I had no earthly idea.

Rubbing the back of my head, grateful there was no blood, I stumbled over to stand by the sink and glanced out the window.A truck was coming up the driveway. Rafferty’s red truck. Of course, it was red. He always chose a power color. To prove a point? Or compensate? Who knew? Granted, is anyone else driving a red truck? It would just be a red truck. But with Rafferty, it annoyed me.

What was he doing here? We didn’t have an appointment. At least not that I remembered.

I gently placed my fingers against my sore cheek, hoping it would not bruise. The last time my father had pushed me, I’d landed on the back of a kitchen chair, which had left bruises on the backs of my thighs. They were easy to hide. A bruise on the face would be much harder to keep to myself.

I’d like to have said it was only the dementia that made my father violent enough to strike me, but it wasn’t true. He’d knocked me around as a kid occasionally, especially after he’d been drinking. Nothing serious enough to break bones, but the times he’d shoved or slapped had left a mark on me just the same as had his cruel words. In that regard, not much had changed. I still could not predict when his rage would rise from wherever it resided and take possession of his soul.

I washed my hands and dried them on the towel next to the sink. Meanwhile, my dad had settled back at the table to drink his coffee and gobble down the untouched toast, which had been spared as if nothing had happened. In his mind, it might not have. The mysteriousness of his illness frustrated me, especially as a doctor, but there appeared to be nothing I could do as a scientist or a daughter.

I left Dad at the table and went out to greet Rafferty. He was climbing out of the driver’s seat of his truck as I reached the bottom step of our rickety front porch. Everything needed mending, and I had no time to do any of it.

“Hey, sorry to come out so early,” Rafferty said. “I’m on my way to take a look at the Morrises’ new baby, and Mamasuggested I drop in for a visit on my way out there. How’s your dad this morning?”

“About the same.” Why had Stella sent him out here? Had it been that long since I’d been to church?

He drew closer, searching my face with inquisitive eyes. “What happened to your cheek? It’s red.”

I touched my fingertips to the spot on my face that still stung. My pop may have been old and confused, but he could still pack a punch. Or a slap in this case.

“Oh, nothing. It’s fine,” I said.

Rafferty nodded, but I could see he wasn’t buying it. “You want me to take a look at him?”

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