Savior Complex: A Small Town Love Triangle Romance

That evening, I join my family in the living room while the basketball game is on. Hazel is sprawled out with Cherokee in front of the fireplace, which is burning even though today’s temps reached a high of seventy-five. Once October hits, my sister insists on building a fire no matter how warm it is. It’s something she’s wanted since she was young, and the rest of us sweat it out in favor of her. Like my mom, who’s wearing a tank top and fanning herself periodically as she works on the cross-stitch in her lap. Or my dad, who’s in a t-shirt and shorts in his favorite recliner.

“Brrr, it’s chilly in here,” I joke as I remove my sweatshirt and join my mom on the couch. She pats my leg, and I smirk at the thin layer of sweat on her brow.

Hazel ignores me, though, her nose in a book as she uses Cherokee as a pillow.

For a moment, I’m brought back a decade earlier, when there were five of us. Cherokee was only a puppy back then, but she remained still when two strawberry blond heads made him their pillow. Sometimes he’d lick their golden curls, making the two of them squeal before burying their faces into the dog’s downy fur. I wonder if Cherokee thought the twins were his puppies. Whatever he thought, he’d do anything to protect them.

And it kills me that I didn’t.

I look at Hazel now, wondering if she thinks of her sister. We don’t talk about Amber much anymore. In the beginning, she was all we could talk about. But it was like a knife to the gut. Eventually, her name was mentioned less and less, until it was never mentioned at all. Old photos were slowly replaced by new, a family of five disappearing in favor of our changed family of four. Smiles were wan in the beginning, but with the passing of time, they’ve brightened a little more.

I look at the wall that holds Hazel’s senior photo from this year, ones my mother took out in the field behind our home. The lighting is perfect, her hair like a golden halo in the early evening glow. Her smile is wide, as if she’s never experienced loss. But of all of us, I know her loss runs the deepest, and while we don’t mention her twin, none of us forgets. Especially not her.

And not me, either, because I failed both of them the day I didn’t save her.

“How was the new girl?” my dad asks, his eyes still glued to the television. To anyone who doesn’t know my father, it would seem like he’s just asking a question. But my dad is never casual about anything to do with the farm.

“She’s good,” I say. “She’s Jordy’s cousin, who referred her to me.” I mean, she did. But this sounds like I never knew Nina at all, which I know is better for this conversation. “She has experience in hospitality, and she used to ride horses here on the ranch a few years back.”

“I still don’t understand why Jordy can’t do the job,” my dad grunts.

We’ve had this conversation so many times, I’ve lost track. He can’t understand why we haven’t set a date for the wedding, and forgets that Jordy is in school for something entirely different. Or he’s just in denial. In his vision, Jordy would give up school and all her aspirations to join the family business. I’ve tried to talk sense into him, reminding him that Jordy has her own vision for her life. I’ve even touched on the possibility of Jordy’s dreams taking me away from the ranch. He won’t hear it. Won’t even acknowledge it, even though he made me promise to marry the girl.

He has no idea that he’s the one who sealed all our fates when he made me make that promise.

“Nina will work out fine, Pete,” my mom cuts in. “Even though she doesn’t start till tomorrow, I have a sense she’s perfect for the job. I didn’t feel that with any of the other candidates.”

“Yeah, and you know mom’s intuition,” Hazel adds. Her book is resting on her chest now, and she gives me a raised eyebrow. My sister can see right through my dad’s stubbornness, and she knows more than anyone how much I struggle with him. Even though there are thirteen years between us, she probably knows me better than anyone in this room. I probably share too much with her, but Hazel is wiser than seventeen, and has always had a good sense of direction. She’s had to. Ten years ago she lost her childhood to the sea.

My dad is back to his game, probably sensing he’s starting a fight that will end in three against one. I think that’s the end of it, so I watch the game in silence until my mom goes to bed. Hazel left a while ago, the fire a glowing ember in the fireplace. The room stays silent, even as the game goes into overtime before our team finally pulls ahead and wins. I turn the TV off then stand.

“Ready?” I ask my dad. I step toward his wheelchair in the corner, but my dad makes a noise in his throat.

“Sit down, Son.”

It doesn’t matter that I’m thirty years old and running the family business. When my dad gets a tone like that, I feel like I’m eight years old, ready to make excuses for whatever I did wrong this time.

“What’s up?” I ask. It can only be one of three things: the ranch, my future, or the latest thing I’m fucking up. I move to the seat near his recliner so we can see eye to eye, noting the tired look on my dad’s face. It’s late, which is partly to blame. But my dad has aged tremendously since the accident.

“So Jordy’s all moved in across town?” he asks, his hand fumbling with the blanket slipping from his legs. I lean forward to help him, but he swats me away. “I got it,” he growls, yanking the blanket back toward him.

“She is,” I say, sitting back and folding my hands in my lap. When my dad gets like this, it’s rarely surface level. I know it kills him that he can’t do as much as he used to. I just have to remember that it has more to do with his limitations than with me and try not to take it personal. “The guys and I helped move her in yesterday. She’s living with Nina, that girl we just hired.”

“Her cousin,” my dad says. His mouth rests in a firm line, his eyes laser sharp as he regards me.

“That’s correct.”

“Did you even ask Jordy if she’d work here?”

“Fuck, Dad—”

“Watch your language,” he corrects me, and I stand, finished with the conversation. But he’s not. “Sit back down.”

“Why? Are you going to listen to me, or talk at me? Because I’ve told you over and over again that Jordy is not interested in working on the farm. This is your dream, and now mine, but it’s not hers.”

“She’s joining this family. It’s about to be hers.”

“No Dad, her dream is helping people improve their living spaces. It’s what she’s going to school for. Soon she’ll be interning, and eventually working on her own. That’s her dream, not working in a kitchen or making beds, or anything that has to do with running this ranch.”