“Where did it all go wrong? How did we go from happy little girls whose only concern was getting an oversized kite to fly and then come to this place?”
Sunny blew out a deep breath. “I don’t know. I just know that I needed something more than what I felt I was getting. From the time I became a teenager on I had a restlessness in me that I cannot explain. Maybe I should have been on medication or gotten therapy. I don’t know. The pain was so intense sometimes. I felt like the odd man out.”
“But why? Mom and Dad adored you. I felt so jealous sometimes of the way they favored you. You were so accomplished. You did everything perfectly.”
Sunny laughed. “I swear you’re talking about another sister.”
“Sometimes I think I am,” Kathy said with a smile. “You seem like two different people.”
Sunny thought back to her childhood. “It was all about being in control and having that edge over everyone else. I felt safe there. When I was performing well, it was like no one could touch me. I wanted to be a take-charge kind of girl. I guess high school was the worst. I saw my friends falling in love and making plans for a future in Slocum or Hays. I even listened to you make those plans.”
“What was wrong with making plans?” Kathy seemed genuinely confused.
“There was nothing wrong with making plans,” Sunny replied. “It was making them for this place. I hated Slocum. I hated the farm. I’m still not that crazy about it. The only reason I even came back was for you and Mom and Dad. I’m not a farm girl. I love the city, the energy there. I wanted to get away from here, while you seemed to want to carve your initials into it and make a permanent place for yourself. I couldn’t relate to that and I feel like it drove a wedge between us.”
“You could have talked to me about it.”
“I tried. Don’t you remember all the times we’d talk about the future? Especially as you headed off to college. You wanted to help Dad have this super farm. You and he talked about raising horses and breeding them along with having the crops. I wanted to scream. I hated the smell of the farm—I hated this house.”
“Why the house?” Kathy’s confusion only seemed to grow.
“It’s old and worn out. You’ve never known anything but this house, so maybe I can understand why you find comfort here, but it felt like a tomb to me.”
“I find comfort here because it reminds me of good times—some bad too, but mostly good. It reminds me of Mom and Dad. Even our grandparents. I think of all the family events we had here when we were younger and it makes me feel good.”
“When I think of this house, I think of the mice running in the walls. I think of the uneven flooring upstairs. I think of the desperation I had to paint those kitchen cupboards white, just to have a change in this house. I didn’t paint them for Mom, I did it for myself.”
“I didn’t know.” Kathy shook her head. “It’s hard to believe that we could have such diverse opinions of the same thing.”
“I know. I used to think you were crazy, but then I came to realize that there was nothing wrong with you.”
“Gee, thanks.” Kathy laughed, but it sounded stilted.
Sunny didn’t want things to head down the wrong road, so she thought maybe it best to let things drop. “Oh, look, here’s a picture of you and Sylvia when you were in high school.”
Kathy took the picture but gave it only a cursory glance. “Sunny, don’t change the subject. This is the best talk we’ve had since you arrived.”
“I’m afraid that I’ll say the wrong thing, like a minute ago.”
“You didn’t say the wrong thing. I’m glad to know what you thought. I’m really trying to let go of my anger.”
Sunny smiled. “Thank you. I’m more grateful than you’ll ever know. I’ve got so much to deal with. It would really comfort me and help to know I had resolved something in my past.”
“Go on with what you were talking about. Thinking me crazy and all.”
Sunny looked past Kathy to the clock on the kitchen wall. It was the same clock that had been up there for the last twenty years. “Nothing ever changed here. I felt like I was dying here. We would talk in class about other places. Do you remember that World Cultures class we had in high school?”
“Sure. The one taught by Ms. Daniels.”
“Ms. Daniels. Remember, she was a women’s libber.” Sunny chuckled. “How she ended up stuck here was something I always wondered about. Anyway, she had traveled quite a bit, remember?”
Kathy nodded. “She was the one who got me thinking about traveling to Europe. I told Kyle that I wanted more than anything to go to London. We even made plans to do just that. He’s been there the last few weeks. He thought he’d just have to go for two, but I got a postcard the other day saying he might have to be there for as many as four.”
“Ms. Daniels made me think about a life outside of Slocum. It was like she awoke something sleeping in me. Something that had always been there, but just lying dormant. I listened to her talk about big cities, and the excitement she had for them gave me an excitement as well. I wanted to see them all—especially Los Angeles. But I didn’t just want to visit—I wanted to live there. I wanted to let it engulf my entire world. After that, the restlessness I knew continued to grow. I felt everything here was stupid—my name, my life, my boyfriend. When Todd told me he wanted to stay here and farm forever, I knew I couldn’t go on. I really cared about him. He was probably my first true love, but I knew that I could never be happy with his love so long as it meant living in my mother’s shoes.”
“I’m sorry, Sunny. I really never understood.”
“No one did. I tried to talk to Mom about it once. She was all offended because she thought I was insulting her and the choices she’d made. She never did understand that it wasn’t her I had a problem with. It was me. I was just so unhappy.”
“And did all the travel change things?”
Sunny shook her head and sorted through several pictures. “You know, it didn’t. I needed God, not LA. I needed to know the reality of Jesus, not the facades of Beverly Hills.”
“You talked yesterday about Lana’s relationship with God. I’ve thought about that ever since. I realize that some people are happy just to know the truth and to go to church and to read their Bibles on occasion. They are content just to be saved from the fires of hell. Then there are others who want something more.”
“And not only want it,” Sunny interjected. “They demand it out of desperation.”
“Exactly. Mom and Dad were content here. Their world wasn’t filled with a whole lot that rocked their boat.”
“Until my escapades,” Sunny said sadly. She hated that she had somehow burst the bubble that was her parents’ perfect world.
“It did shock them. Shocked us all,” Kathy admitted. “It made us feel vulnerable. It showed us that the world we’d created for ourselves wasn’t as stable as we thought it was.”
“Nothing ever is.” Sunny picked up a picture of her mother. She looked young and pretty, holding Kathy, who couldn’t have been more than three. Sunny immediately thought of Lucy. How the small child felt in her arms. The scent of her hair after a bath. The feel of those tiny arms wrapped tightly around her neck.
The pain was so fierce it nearly stole her breath, but still Sunny refused to push aside the memories. Maybe she’d run enough. Maybe it was time to realize that this would always hurt. The loss of her daughter and husband would always tear another little piece out of her heart with every memory—every reflection.
“I’d forgotten about these pictures,” Kathy said, handing a stack over to Sunny. “They were taken a few months before Mom died. We were trying so hard to live as if nothing was wrong. It’s kind of like living with a dead mouse in the room. You know you ought to take it out before it starts to smell, but you don’t want to have to deal with it.”
“Boy, do I ever know how that is.” Sunny took the photos and gasped. Mom was a mere skeleton of her former self. Her skin hung sallow and
loose on her tiny frame. Her eyes were sunken with huge dark circles that made her almost seem like she had been punched in each eye.
“She looked so bad,” Sunny murmured.
“She was. Her heart wasn’t functioning enough to keep the blood circulating properly. Her liver and kidneys deteriorated so rapidly. She couldn’t breathe well because of the increase of fluids around her heart. It was pretty awful.”
Sunny shook her head as she thumbed through the pictures. There was one of her mother and Kathy that caused her to pause. Kathy too looked more dead than alive. Her face was pinched, as if she were in pain. “Where was this taken?”
Kathy leaned over. “University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City. The doctor had told us that day that Mom was too far gone for a transplant. We now understood it was just a matter of time—that all our hard work had been for nothing. All the counting of sodium and the special meals, all the medicines and routines were for nothing. Mom’s body simply couldn’t do what it needed to do to keep her alive.”
“How awful.”
“It was. A part of all of us died that day.”
“How you must have hated me then.”
Kathy looked up and shook her head. “No. Not exactly. That came later. Right then I think I envied you more than anything. I was screaming inside for the courage to run as far and fast as I could. To leave the death and dying behind me.” She paused and met Sunny’s expression. “I didn’t hate you in that moment. I wanted to be you.”
Just then the telephone rang. Kathy got to her feet and glanced at her watch. “Wonder who’s calling.” She picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“Kathy, it’s Marion.”
Kathy covered the receiver and turned to Sunny. “It’s the Realtor.”
“Kathy, I’ve got great news. I’ve sold the farm.”
“What? But no one’s even been out to look at the property. What kind of price did you have to take?”
“That’s the funny part. I got our original asking price. I told the agent we’d dropped the price, but he said the woman he was working for said to purchase it for the original price. And here’s the real kicker. She’s paying cash. We can close immediately on the property.”
“Cash? Nobody has that kind of money. Do they?” Kathy felt as though she might actually faint. She rubbed her forehead. “I just can’t believe this.”
“Neither can I. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. Look, I’ll get all the papers together and we can meet in Hays for the signing. I’ll let you know what day.”
“Thanks, Marion.” Kathy hung up the phone. “Someone bought the farm. Sight unseen—for the original asking price.”
“That’s great,” Sunny said, smiling. “God answered your prayers.”
Kathy nodded. “I can’t believe it. All my worries are gone.” She looked up and met Sunny’s joyful expression. “I guess my faith just isn’t what it should be.”
“Why do you say that?” Sunny asked.
“If it had been, I wouldn’t be so shocked by all of this. If I’d had the faith of a mustard seed, I would have expected this instead.”
Sunny sobered. “We’re always so capable of accepting bad things—as though we deserve nothing more. Why is it so hard to take the blessings God offers, much less learn to expect them?”
TWENTY-FOUR
THE DAY OF THE AUCTION arrived with pleasant weather and surprisingly cool temperatures for Kansas in July. The sisters ate breakfast off of paper plates using plastic knives and spoons they’d bought in Hays a couple of days earlier and joked about living out of suitcases. It hadn’t dawned on either one until the auction drew near that most of the household things they took for granted would be sold.
After a breakfast of bagels, yogurt, and bananas, Kathy and Sunny went outside to find the workers had already arrived. They worked furiously to set up tables for displaying the goods. Kathy and Sunny had brought most of the boxes and furniture to the front rooms of the house so they would be fairly easy to retrieve. They watched in silence as fifty-odd years of memories and sentiment went out the door.
The entire farm was abuzz with activity. Two women set up the area where people would pay, while several young men assembled a small stage. A couple of other men were bringing up the farm equipment from the barn.
Kathy startled as an older man drove the tractor. He looked so much like Dad that she had to do a double take. The man smiled and waved and Kathy could almost imagine it was Dad on his way out to the fields. He loved that tractor. Kathy had to fight the feeling that selling the machine was akin to selling her father’s memory.
“They sure have a way of getting things done,” Sunny said.
“Yeah. It’s not going to be easy to watch it all go out the door—off the farm.”
Sunny reached out to take hold of Kathy’s arm. “I know, but I’ll be here for you. It’s not much, but you don’t have to bear this alone.”
“Thanks, Sunny. It’s worth more than you could imagine.”
By nine-thirty everything was in place. There were probably over a hundred people present by the time the auctioneer started the proceedings. With each piece sold, Kathy thought of her parents. Would they be pleased at the outcome? Did the monetary value match the sentimental value her folks had once placed on the various items?
Sets of the Depression glass were sold for such outlandishly high prices that Kathy was afraid some mistake must have been made. The woman who bought almost every piece was representing a wealthy collector from back East. How she found out about the sale was beyond Kathy.
Some other pieces also sold for far more than Kathy had predicted. The shotguns turned out to be antiques and quite collectible, as did the old cameras. Her mother’s collection of china was also a remarkable find for one woman. She declared it some of the best early twentieth-century Doulton available. One little double-handled cup, called a loving cup, brought nearly three hundred dollars by itself, as two different antique dealers went head-to-head to purchase the piece. The entire eight-place setting fetched several thousand dollars, leaving Kathy speechless. Where had her mother gotten hold of such valuable china?
“You looked as if you’d seen a ghost,” Jason Bridger, one of the men from the auction house, told her while the auctioneer was selling the farm machinery.
“I think I’m in shock. I had no idea that china was so valuable.”
He laughed. “I figured someone had told you it was an exceptional set. I hope it was a pleasant shock.”
“Yes, but . . . well . . . I have no idea how my mother ended up with such expensive dishes.”
“You’d be surprised at the valuables we uncover in rural Kansas. In the old days people thought, ‘Oh, it’s nothing more than an old farm sale. Can’t be worth much.’ Then antique stores started realizing that some of those old farmers were sitting on a lot of antiques passed down from mother to daughter, grandmother to granddaughter, father to son, and so on. We’ve uncovered antiques from the colonial period here, as well as a few pieces that go back even further.”
“I had no idea.” Kathy watched as the auctioneer brought the gavel down and called the final numbers for the sale of the combine. It was a very good price. At this rate there would be more than enough money from the sale of the auction and farm to pay off all the debts and have a nice little inheritance for herself.
Kathy had lost track of Sunny. Her sister had been fairly close to her side through the early hours of the sale, but as the day wore on, Sunny had disappeared. Kathy was pleased with the discussions they’d been having. Last night they had gone to Hays for a steak dinner, and Kathy had really enjoyed her sister’s company. It was a start of a new relationship, she told herself. Something new to build the future on.
“How are you holding up?” Sylvia asked as she came to join Kathy by the large walnut tree in the Halberts’ front yard.
“I’m not doing too bad. It’s hard to see it go,” she said with a sigh. “It’s like losing a piece of Mom and Dad.”<
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Sylvia gazed out across the yard. “I can understand that. I hope you kept the things that were most important to you.”
“I did. Sunny too.” Kathy shook her head. “Did you see the price Mom’s old china brought?”
“I was stunned, I have to tell you. Makes me want to go through my cupboards and see what’s what. I may have thousands of dollars worth of dishes and not even realize it. I’ll probably cringe every time the kids break something and wonder how much it was worth.”
“I can see it now,” Kathy teased. “Everyone will be eating on paper plates.”
Sylvia laughed. “I was also surprised by the value of the old canning jars.”
“I guess sometimes things that don’t look like much can be the most priceless. Some of Dad’s tools turned out to be old enough to have belonged to his grandfather and great-grandfather. Little bitty things that I had no use for and probably would have tossed brought hundreds of dollars. It seems crazy to me. Sunny thought so too, and she’s been living in California, where expensive pieces are the norm.”
“She’s probably never shopped for antique tools,” Sylvia said with a grin. “But since you mentioned Sunny, how’s it going with her?”
Kathy stopped and turned to face Sylvia. “Really well. I thought a lot about what you said—about whether it was enough to just agree to forgive. I thought about how I would want to be treated, and I thought about how God would treat me if the shoe was on the other foot.”
“And what conclusion did you come to?”
A laugh escaped as Kathy replied. “I concluded that I was very glad God didn’t act like me.”
Sylvia laughed as well. “I’ve thought that about myself on several occasions.”
“Sunny and I have had some great talks. I realize that she’s suffered so much in life. I don’t know why this place was so hard for her to endure, but I really tried to put myself in her place and see things from her perspective.”
“She seems a lot more at peace,” Sylvia said. “You must have done something right.”
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