by Candis Terry
“Yeah. Quite a welcome home.” Her sister peered at her through a pair of last season Coach sunglasses. With her ivory blond hair caught up in a haphazard ponytail, she looked more like a frivolous teen than a fierce prosecutor. “It’s funny. You move away from the Wild Wild West, buy your beef in Styrofoam packages, and forget where that hamburger comes from.”
“Kel, nobody eats Holsteins. They’re milk cows.”
“I know. I’m just saying.”
Whatever she was saying, she wasn’t actually saying. It wasn’t the first time Kate had to guess what was going on in her big sister’s beautiful head. Being a prosecutor had taught Kelly to be tight-lipped and guarded. Though they were only two years apart in age, a world of difference existed in their personalities and style. Kelly had always been on the quiet side. She’d always had her nose stuck in a book, was always the type to smooth her hand over a wrinkled cushion just to make it right. Always the type to get straight A’s and still worry she hadn’t studied enough.
Kate took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
It was hard to compete with perfection like that.
“I still can’t believe it’s been ten years since you’ve been home,” Kelly said.
Kate frowned as they passed the McGruber farm where someone had planted yellow mums in an old toilet placed on the front lawn. “And now I get the pleasure of remembering why I left in the first place.”
“I don’t know.” Kelly leaned forward and peered through the pitted windshield. “It’s really spectacular in an unrefined kind of way. The fall colors are on parade and snow is frosting the mountain peaks. Chicago might be beautiful, but it doesn’t compare to this.” Lines of concern scrunched between Kelly’s eyes ruined the perfection of her face. “I know how hard this is for you, Kate. But I’m glad you came.”
The muscles between Kate’s shoulders tightened. Right now, she didn’t want to think about what might be difficult for her. Others were far more important. “I’m here for Dad,” she said.
“You know, I was thinking the other day . . . we all haven’t been together since we met up at the Super Bowl last year.” Kelly shook her head and smiled. “God. No matter that our brother was playing, I thought you and Mom were going to root for opposing teams just so you’d have one more thing to disagree about.”
“I did not purposely spill my beer on her.”
Kelly laughed. “Yes, you did.”
The memory came back in full color and Kate wanted to laugh too.
“That’s why Dad will be really glad to see you, Kate. You’ve always made him smile. You know you were always his favorite.”
At least she’d been somebody’s favorite. “I’ve missed him.” Kate fidgeted with the string attached to her hoodie. “I didn’t mean to . . .”
“I know.” Kelly wrapped her fingers around the steering wheel. “He knew too.”
The reminder of her actions stuck in Kate’s throat. If she could do it all over, she’d handle it much differently. At the time she’d been only twenty, anxious to live her dreams and get away from the mother who disapproved of everything she did.
The interior of the car fell silent, except for the wind squealing through the disintegrating window seals and the low rumble of the gas-guzzling engine. Kate knew she and her sister were delaying the obvious discussion. There was no easy way to go about it. The subject of their mother was like walking on cracked ice. No matter how lightly you tiptoed, you were bound to plunge into turbulent waters. Their mother had given birth to three children who had all moved away to different parts of the country. Each one had a completely different view of her parental skills.
Her death would bring them all together.
“After all the times we offered to buy her a new car I can’t believe Mom still drove this old boat,” Kate said.
“I can’t believe it made it to the airport and back.” Kelly tucked a stray blond lock behind her ear and let out a sigh. “Mom was funny about stuff, you know. She was the biggest ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ person I ever knew.”
Was.
Knew.
As in past tense.
Kate glanced out the passenger window.
Her mother was gone.
No more worrying about what to send for Mother’s Day or Christmas or her birthday. No more chatter about the temperamental oven in their family bakery, or the dysfunctional quartet that made up the Founder’s Day parade committee, or the latest gnome she’d discovered to stick in her vegetable garden.
No more . . . anything.
Almost a year had passed since she’d been with her mother. But even that hadn’t been the longest she’d gone without seeing her. Kate had spent tons of time with Dean and Kelly. She’d snuck in a fishing trip or two with her dad. But an entire five years had gone by before Kate had finally agreed to meet up with her mother in Chicago to celebrate Kelly’s promotion with the prosecutor’s office. The reunion had been awkward. And as much as Kate had wanted to hear “I’m sorry” come from her mother’s lips, she’d gone back to Los Angeles disappointed.
Over the years Kate had meant to come home. She’d meant to apologize. She’d meant to do a whole lot of stuff that just didn’t matter anymore. Good intentions weren’t going to change a thing. A knife of pain stabbed between her eyes. The time for could have, should have, would have, was history. Making amends was a two-way street and her mother hadn’t made an effort either.
She shifted to a more comfortable position and her gaze landed on the cluttered chaos in the backseat—an array of pastry cookbooks, a box of quilting fabric, and a knitting tote where super-sized needles poked from the top of a ball of red yarn. Vanilla—her mother’s occupational perfume—lingered throughout the car.
Kate inhaled. The scent settled into her soul and jarred loose a long-lost memory. “Do you remember the time we all got chicken pox?” she asked.
“Oh, my God, yes.” Kelly smiled. “We were playing tag. Mom broke up the game and stuck us all in one bedroom.”
“I’d broken out with blisters first,” Kate remembered, scratching her arm at the reminder. “Mom said if one of us got the pox, we’d all get the pox. And we might as well get it done and over with all at once.”
“So you were the culprit,” Kelly said.
“I don’t even know where I got them.” Kate shook her head. “All I know is I was miserable. The fever and itching were bad enough. But then you and Dean tortured me to see how far you could push before I cried.”
“If I remember, it didn’t take long.”
“And if I remember,” Kate said, “it didn’t take long before you were both whining like babies.”
“Karma,” Kelly admitted. “And just when we were at our worst, Mom came in and placed a warm sugar cookie in each of our hands.”
Kate nodded, remembering how the scent of vanilla lingered long after her mother had left the room. “Yeah.”
The car rambled past Balloons and Blooms, the florist shop Darla Davenport had set up in her century-old barn.
“Dad ordered white roses for her casket.” Kelly’s voice wobbled. “He was concerned they wouldn’t be trucked in on time and, of course, the price. I told him not to worry—that we kids would take care of the cost. I told him to order any damn thing he wanted.”
Kate leaned forward and peered through her sister’s sunglasses. “Are you okay?”
“Are you?” Kelly asked.
Instead of answering, Kate twisted off the cap of her Starbuck’s Frappuccino and slugged down the remains. The drink gave her time to compose herself, if that were even possible. She thought of her dad. Simple. Hard-working. He’d taught her how to tie the fly that had helped her land the derby-winning trout the year she turned eleven. He couldn’t have been more different from her mother if he’d tried. And he hadn’t deserved to be abandoned by his youngest child.
“How’s Dad doing?” Kate asked, as the iced drink settled in her stomach next to the wad of guilt.
“He’s devastated.” Kelly flipped on the fan. Her abrupt action seemed less about recirculating the air and more about releasing a little distress. “How would you be if the love of your life died in your arms while you were tying on her apron?”
“I can’t answer that,” Kate said, trying not to think about the panic that must have torn through him.
“Yeah.” Kelly sighed. “Me either.”
Kate tried to swallow but her throat muscles wouldn’t work. She turned in her seat and looked at her sister. “What’s he going to do now, Kel? Who will take care of him? He’s never been alone. Ever,” she said, her voice an octave higher than normal. “Who’s going to help him at the Shack? Cook for him? Who’s he going to talk to at night?”
“I don’t know. But we definitely have to do something.” Kelly nodded as though a lightbulb in her head suddenly hit a thousand watts. “Maybe Dean will have some ideas.”
“Dean?” Kate leaned back in her seat. “Our brother? The king of non-relationship relationships?”
“Not that either of us has any room to talk.”
“Seriously.” Kate looked out the window, twisting the rings on her fingers. The urge to cry for her father welled in her throat. Her parents had been a great example of true love. They cared for each other, had each other’s backs, thought of each other first. Even with her problematic relationship with her mother, Kate couldn’t deny that the woman had been an extraordinary wife to the man who worshipped her. The chances of finding a love like the one her parents had shared were one in a million. Kate figured that left her odds stretching out to about one in a hundred gazillion.
“What’s wrong with us, Kel?” she asked. “We were raised by parents the entire town puts on a pedestal, yet we all left them behind for something bigger and better. Not a single one of us has gotten married or even come close. As far as I know, Dean has no permanent designs on his current bimbo of the moment. You spend all your nights with a stack of law books. I spend too much time flying coast-to-coast to even meet up with someone for a dinner that doesn’t scream fast food.”
“Oh, poor you. New York to L.A. First Class. Champagne. And all those gorgeous movie stars and rock stars you’re surrounded by. You’re breaking my heart.”
Kate snorted. “Yeah, I live such a glamorous life.”
A perfectly arched brow lifted on Kelly’s perfect face. “You don’t?”
While Kate enjoyed what she did for a living, every day her career hung by a sequin while the next up-and-coming celebrity stylist waited impatiently in the wings for her to fall from Hollywood’s fickle graces. She’d chosen a career that tossed her in the spotlight, but she had no one to share it with. And often that spotlight felt icy cold. “Yeah, sure. I just get too busy sometimes, you know?”
“Unfortunately, I do.” Kelly gripped the wheel tighter. “You know . . . you could have stuck around and married Matt Ryan.”
“Geez.” Kate’s heart did a tilt-a-whirl spin. “I haven’t heard that name in forever.”
“When you left, you broke his heart.”
“How do you know?”
“Mom said.”
“Hey, I gave him my virginity. I call that a fair trade.”
“Seriously?” Kelly’s brows lifted in surprise. “I had no idea.”
“It wasn’t something I felt like advertising at the time.”
“He was pretty cute from what I remember.”
“Don’t go there, Kel. There’s an ocean under that bridge. So mind your own business.”
Matt Ryan. Wow. Talk about yanking up old memories. Not unpleasant ones either. From what Kate remembered, Matt had been very good at a lot of things. Mostly ones that involved hands and lips. But Matt had been that boy from the proverbial wrong side of the tracks and she’d had bigger plans for her life.
Her mother had only mentioned him once or twice after Kate had skipped town. Supposedly he’d eagerly moved on to all the other girls wrangling for his attention. Good for him. He’d probably gotten some poor girl pregnant and moved next door to his mother. No doubt he’d been saddled with screaming kids and a complaining wife. Kate imagined he’d still be working for his Uncle Bob fixing broken axles and leaky transmissions. Probably even had a beer gut by now. Maybe even balding. Poor guy.
Kelly guided their mother’s boat around the last curve in the road that would lead them home. Quaking aspens glittered gold in the sunlight and tall pines dotted the landscape. Craftsman style log homes circled the area like ornaments on a Christmas wreath.
“Mom was proud of you, you know,” Kelly blurted.
“What?” Kate’s heart constricted. She didn’t need for her sister to lie about their mother’s mind-set. Kate knew the truth. She’d accepted it long ago. “No way. Mom did everything she could to pull the idea of being a celebrity stylist right out of my stubborn head.”
“You’re such a dork.” Kelly shifted in her seat and gripped the steering wheel with both hands. “Of course she was proud. She was forever showing off the magazine articles you were in. She even kept a scrapbook.”
“She did not.”
“She totally did.”
“Go figure. The night before I boarded that bus for L.A., she swore I’d never make a living hemming skirts and teasing hair.”
“No, what she said was, making a living hemming skirts and teasing hair wasn’t for you,” Kelly said.
“That’s not the way I remember it.”
“Of course not. You were so deeply immersed in parental rebellion she could have said the sky was blue and you’d have argued that it was aqua.”
“We did argue a lot.”
Kelly shook her head. “Yeah, kind of like you were both cut from the same scrap of denim. I think that’s what ticked you off the most and you just didn’t want to admit it.”
No way. “That I was like Mom?”
“You could have been identical twins. Same red hair. Same hot temper.”
“I never thought I was anything like her. I still don’t.”
“How’s that river of denial working for you?”
“How’s that rewriting history working for you?”
Kelly tightened her fingers on the steering wheel. “Someday you’ll get it, little sister. And when you do, you’re going to be shocked that you didn’t see it earlier.”
The remnants of the old argument curdled in Kate’s stomach. “She didn’t believe in me, Kel.”
“Then she was wrong.”
For some reason the acknowledgment from her big sister didn’t make it any better.
“She was also wrong about you and your financial worth,” Kelly added. “You make three times as much as I do.”
“But not as much as Dean.”
“God doesn’t make as much as Dean,” Kelly said.
Their big brother had always been destined for greatness. If you didn’t believe it, all you had to do was ask him. Being an NFL star quarterback did have its perks. Modesty wasn’t one of them.
“Almost there,” Kelly announced.
The green highway sign revealed only two more miles to go. Kate gripped the door handle to steady the nervous tension tap-dancing on her sanity.
Ahead, she noticed the swirling lights atop a sheriff’s SUV parked on the shoulder of the highway. The vehicle stopped in front of the cop had to be the biggest monster truck Kate had ever seen. In L.A., which oozed with hybrids and luxury cruisers, one could only view a farmboy-vehicle-hopped-up-on-steroids in box office bombs like the Dukes of Hazzard.
The swirling lights dredged up a not-so-fond memory of Sheriff Washburn, who most likely sat behind the wheel of that Chevy Tahoe writing up the fattest citation he could invent. A decade ago, the man and his Santa belly had come hunting for her. When she hadn’t shown up at home at o’dark thirty like her mother had expected, the SOS call had gone out. Up on Lookout Point the sheriff had almost discovered her and Matt sans clothes, bathed in moonlight and lust.
As it was, Matt had been quick to act and she’
d managed to sneak back through her bedroom window before she ruined her shaky reputation for all time. Turned out it wouldn’t have mattered. A few days later she boarded a bus leaving that boy and the town gossips behind to commiserate with her mother about what an ungrateful child she’d been.
As they approached the patrol vehicle, a deputy stepped out and, hand on gun, strolled toward the monster truck.
Mirrored shades. Midnight hair. Wide shoulders. Trim waist. Long, long legs. And . . . Oh. My. God. Not even the regulation pair of khaki uniform pants could hide his very fine behind. Nope. Definitely not Sheriff Washburn.
A double take was definitely in order.
“Wow,” Kate said.
“They didn’t make ‘em like that when we lived here,” Kelly noted.
“Seriously.” Kate shifted back around in her seat. And frowned. What the hell was wrong with her? Her mother had been dead for two days and she was checking out guys?
“Well, ready or not, here we are.”
At her sister’s announcement Kate looked up at the overhead sign crossing the two-lane road.
Welcome to Deer Lick, Montana. Population 6,000.
For Kate it might as well have read Welcome to Hell.
Late the following afternoon, Kate stood amid the mourners gathered at the gravesite for Leticia Jane Silverthorne’s burial. Most were dressed in a variety of appropriate blacks and dark blues. The exception being Ms. Virginia Peat, who’d decided the bright hues of the local Red Hat Society were more appropriate for a deceased woman with a green thumb and a knack for planting mischief wherever she went.
No doubt her mother had a talent for inserting just the right amount of monkey business into things to keep the town blabbing for days, even weeks, if the gossips were hungry enough. Better for business, she’d say. The buzz would catch on and the biddies of Deer Lick would flock to the Sugar Shack for tea and a sweet treat just to grab another tasty morsel of the brewing scandal.
Today, the Sugar Shack was closed. Her mother’s cakes and pies remained unbaked. And the lively gossip had turned to sorrowful memories.