And we have a new Grandpa.
Smiles! Of course she included a picture of my dad in his orchard, dressed in overalls atop his tractor, smiling. I loved her even more for taking it. But when in the world had she taken all these photos? To me, her camera had just been one more gadget, and she loved gadgets almost as much as she loved her horses.
Maybe I’d been wrong about how Peyton spent her time.
He doesn’t have the best horses, but they’re sweet, and he has an orchard. He’s the coolest thing about Dad marrying my stepmom. I have an Aunt now, too. You would like Aunt Marta. She’s my stepmom’s twin, she’s funny, and she paints my nails in The Southern Pair shop for free.
I smiled thinking of Peyton’s new love of manicures.
Next, a photo of Peyton’s nails painted blue with tiny sunflowers, the way Marta had painted them just a few days ago.
So, what about you, Mom? Are you okay? Where are you? Where have you been?
Yes, Violet, where have you been?
Are you really coming home?
I gulped.
Here, Peyton inserted a stunning close up of a brilliant purple garden violet. I recognized it from the violets bursting from their terra cotta pot on Dad’s front porch. I didn’t have one reason to like Violet, but if she actually saw this blog post and didn’t call her daughter again, she was worse than I thought. But did I want her calling Peyton again? Of course, I didn’t, and yet—
I glanced at Keith, his jaw locked once again in concentration, and wondered what would be best. I chewed my lip, worrying about it before exhaling in frustration. It didn’t matter what I thought. She would either call, or she wouldn’t. I had no control.
No matter what, you’re still my mom. I still want to see you.
Please come home.
Love always,
Peyton
Lordy, what is it with Mothers not being there for their children?
I wished I’d been there when Violet – or someone pretending to be her – had called. I would’ve taken that phone no matter how angry it made Peyton, and I would’ve demanded to know what in the world she was thinking, calling after all these years?
Chapter Seven
The look on Peyton’s face when we walked through the door made me want to cry. I’d never seen a smile like that, all full of hope and happiness, in all the time I’d known her. Still dressed in her jammies, she threw herself into Keith’s arms.
“Mom called!!”
Keith gave her a squeeze, but couldn’t seem to think of what to say. I shot my dad a helpless look.
“Let’s all sit,” he said.
His face was tired, tiny wrinkles etched into the corners of his eyes, as he motioned for us all to join him at the oversized kitchen table. Even Marta, who’d been conked out on the couch, wandered through the doorway in her bathrobe and sat down. Only Stevie was asleep up in the room he called his at Grandpa Marshall’s house.
I studied Keith’s face, but couldn’t isolate just one emotion there.
“Isn’t that great, Daddy? Mom! She called.”
Dad poured coffee for the adults, pausing in front of Peyton and then, despite a chiding look from both Marta and I, poured her some, too. He then poured a heaping plop of creamer into her mug. She sipped at it like she’d been drinking it all night. I looked at Dad. She had.
“What?” he asked, the picture of innocence.
“What’d your mom say, cowgirl?” Keith reached for Peyton’s hand, but she was too excited to hold his.
“Lots of stuff.” Peyton drummed her fingers on the table, rattling the spoon she’d laid beside her cup. “But she didn’t say where she was calling from. It said private caller or something like that.”
I glanced at Marta to see what she knew, but she just shrugged.
“Are you sure it was your mom?” Keith asked.
“Of course, Dad. Don’t you think I’d know my own mom? And you want to know the best part?” She smiled and didn’t wait for him to guess. “She’s coming here!” She giggled loudly, a sure sign she’d had too much coffee and had been awake way too long.
Keith caught my eye, and I didn’t miss how his pupils flashed.
“When?” I asked.
“She didn’t say, but—”
“Then how can you be sure?”
“Because, A-man-da.” She sounded my name out, each syllable dripping with sarcasm. “She said she was. Why would she lie?”
Right. Why would she do that?
“And, why,” Peyton continued, “would she go to the trouble of calling if she wasn’t really coming?”
Now that one, none of us had an answer for. My mind went to Peyton’s blog and I wondered if this phone call might be related to that. How many posts had she written about Violet? It could be some cyber-stalker calling her. I’d heard of that sort of thing. In fact, I never had liked the freedom of the Internet. Who was to say that all of Peyton’s blog followers were legitimate?
“You made it sound like she was coming tonight,” Keith chided.
Peyton stood, ready to argue with her dad, who had just driven all the way from Pillar Bluff. We all knew how this was going down. Someone needed to stop her. I stood, but then Marta touched my arm and I sat.
“Maybe she is,” Peyton said. “What does it matter? My mom called!”
“I misunderstood,” he said. “I thought she was coming tonight.”
“I never said that.” Peyton countered.
“Okay, so we have time,” he said.
“Exactly!” Peyton exclaimed. “I need to get my room organized. Maybe Mom will want to sleep in it on her purple couch.”
I was proud of myself for not moving a muscle or saying a word when Peyton mentioned this.
“Peyton,” Keith said, once she’d calmed down some. “I’m supposed to ride tomorrow.” He looked too tired to make the long drive back tonight, but I was pretty sure he wouldn’t listen to me. “I’ve got to get back to Pillar Bluff. We’ll figure all this out later.”
He stood, grabbed his keys.
“You’re leaving right now?” Marta.
“Keith. Right now?” Me.
“You’re leaving?” Peyton ran around the table and threw her hands around his waist, no longer angry at him.
She tried her happy smile, but I saw how it wobbled in the corners now that her dad was leaving her to process this huge event on her own. But even though I didn’t like it, I did understand. He had to make a living.
“My mom called, Dad. If you leave now, you might miss her.”
What a tragedy that would be!
Keith paused and wrapped his arm around Peyton.
“I love you forever and ever amen, girl.”
My heart melted. I loved that cowboy so much. He stood with Peyton like that a long time while Marta and I plucked napkins from the red hen napkin holder in the center of the table. Like so many things in that kitchen, it was our momma’s. Using it made me feel like she was near, but of course, she wasn’t.
My dad, always calm in difficult situations, sipped his coffee, only his glistening eyes betraying his feelings.
“Listen, cowgirl.” She looked up at her dad, arms still wrapped around his waist. “We can’t even be sure it was her. It might have been someone playing a trick or something.”
Tears spilled down her rosy cheeks. “Who would do that, Dad?”
He smoothed her tussled hair away from her forehead, making her look more like a ten-year-old than a teenage girl.
“I don’t know, honey.”
“Nobody,” she said with conviction. “She’s coming. Soon. I know it.” She pressed her cheek into her dad’s chest.
Keith cast me a look full of confusion and worry. We all knew Violet wouldn’t come, better not come. Someone would have to explain the truth to Peyton, since she didn’t seem to be listening to her dad.
Grandpa Marshall stood at the ready as Keith jingled his keys. Keith held Peyton at arm’s length, bent at the waist, looked at her
with those eyes that I remembered in my dad’s own face when he told us our mother had left us.
“Peyton. I don’t know who called, but I promise I’m going to get to the bottom of it when I get back.”
“It was my mom.” She tried to shrug away, but didn’t struggle when he gently pulled her back in front of him.
Marta and I were about to finish off the napkins.
“Now listen to me. Don’t cry.” Keith caught one of Peyton’s tears with the tip of his finger. “Remember? I told you before. Your mom had to go, cowgirl. She said she wouldn’t be coming back.”
“But she just called me, Dad.”
“I don’t know what this is, but even if she comes, we can’t just let her show up after all these years, cowgirl. She has to go through the authorities to make that happen.”
“No.” Peyton was shaking her head. “Aren’t you the authority in our family? You can let her come if you want to!”
I heard it in her voice, that conviction that enters a person when they refuse to accept the truth. It’s what keeps people going in the hard times, during wars, during tragedies. This, for Peyton, was her great tragedy. My eyes burned and I fought an almost overwhelming desire to let out a sob, both for Peyton and for me, for Marta, because our mothers had left us all behind.
“She knew what she was doing when she left, Peyton. She left instructions with a lawyer releasing parental rights. I haven’t wanted to force the issue with you because I knew it would make you sad, but I see now that it was the wrong thing for me to let you go on believing this—this fantasy. I shouldn’t have let you keep the phone. Now—”
“No.” Peyton jerked away. “You aren’t taking my phone. And no. No. It’s not a fantasy. You’re lying about the stupid papers.” She stormed upstairs, her bare feet pounding the hardwood so hard I worried the balls of her feet would be bruised in the morning. Marta followed. Right on cue, Stevie came out of his room, rubbing his eyes with one hand and dragging his stuffed horse in the other.
“Dad? Mommy?”
My heart melted and I couldn’t stop that sob anymore. Stevie had been calling me versions of Mom, Mommy Mandy, and just plain Mommy for a while now and I loved it, but right now, it was also a reminder that Peyton probably could never think of me that way. Who could blame her? For Peyton, mom was the woman who had abandoned her. It’s not right. And it’s not fair. I know better than to think any mom is perfect, but one thing I do know is that moms aren’t supposed to leave you, at least not by choice.
“I love you forever and ever amen, Dad.” Stevie lay his head on his pillow. It’d taken a while to get him back in bed, and all the while we could all hear Peyton crying down the hall, even after Keith and I stepped outside and stood together, leaning against his truck.
“I want to stay here with the kids,” I said. “I know I’m not going to be Peyton’s favorite person right now, but she needs a parent here.”
Keith pulled me into his arms. “Thank you.”
“Don’t leave.” But I didn’t mean it.
“You know I have to.”
And I did know. Rodeo was our livelihood for the time being. We stood like that for a while, me not knowing how I should feel. A part of me wanted to tell him that Peyton needed her Daddy more than she needed me, but wild horses waited, and he couldn’t not show up. It was a paycheck. It was his reputation.
“Be careful,” I said, careful not to let any of the comments flying through my head escape my lips.
“I always am.”
“Hon?”
“Hmmm?” He was rubbing my back, his breath warm against my neck, his heart pounding from the excitement of the evening against my shoulder.
“Do you think it was her?”
“I don’t know. I can’t imagine who’d pull a joke like that on a kid.”
“Me, neither.”
“I don’t think Violet’s going to show up here tomorrow, but I’m going to call the sheriff, just in case some weirdo – or Violet – tries to cause any problems.”
“What would she want after all this time?” I asked.
“The kids.”
My breath caught at hearing Keith saying it out loud. “How dare she?” Even I was surprised at the conviction in my voice.
I squeezed Keith tighter, my wife and mama instincts flooding my heart. I wanted to say something to relieve the tension I felt in my husband’s spine, but all I could do was squeeze Keith tighter, as if in doing so, I might squeeze her out of our lives, out of the kids’ lives, where she belonged. Where she had chosen to be.
Chapter Eight
Keith had to stay in Pillar Bluff for another week. I should have questioned it at the time, but since almost a week had gone by with no more calls from Violet, the fear that she would show up had subsided to worry. Maybe it was like Keith thought – just some kind of prank. I was anxious to get back to the home I now shared with my husband, so after a couple of days at my dad’s, I decided to take the kids back to the ranch. Stevie adjusted wherever he was just like the Transformer toys he liked to play with, but Keith and I had agreed over the phone that getting them back to their routines would be the best thing for Peyton.
“Why can’t we stay with Grandpa?” She was sitting at the table while I busied myself making breakfast. It felt good to be back in my home, our home, even if Peyton didn’t want to be there without her dad.
“He’s a mere five miles away,” I reminded her. “You can see him every day if you want, but we need to be home.”
“Why?” she demanded.
“Because this is our home,” I said.
“Doesn’t feel like home,” she said, staring at the table’s surface as if it held some answer as to why. I didn’t believe her, but I decided not to comment further. The supposed call from Violet had disrupted her world, opening a Pandora’s Box of troubles that were better off locked away.
“Have some oatmeal,” I said, placing an antique purple bowl filled with oatmeal and raisins in front of her. I’d found the bowl in the shop and hoped it would calm her, because after all, just because your mother isn’t there for you doesn’t mean you can – or even want to – stop remembering. Even I didn’t want her to forget her mother, only the idea that she was coming back.
“It’s your favorite—cinnamon raisin oatmeal,” I said, tapping the table with my index finger, next to the bowl.
Peyton shifted her attention to her glass of orange juice.
“That’s Stephen’s favorite, not mine. My mom would’ve known that. See?” She took a long drink, and smacked her lips. “You don’t even know me.”
I sighed, truly wanting to know her. Why wouldn’t I? Even if it seemed like she might never warm up to me, I wasn’t ever giving up.
“Sorry,” I said as kindly as I could. “Please eat it anyway.”
One thing was for sure—at least Peyton’s teenager attitude was back to normal.
“When’s my dad coming home?” She sounded frustrated, and I was right there with her. I couldn’t have been happier when Peyton’s best friend, Pia, knocked on the door and right behind her stood Marta.
“Marta gave me a ride,” Pia said as she entered all giggly and happy. She offered me a kiss on the cheek before she grabbed Peyton and they ran up the stairs to Peyton’s room.
“I love that girl,” I said. “She’s so good for Peyton.”
“Me, too,” Marta said. “It’s too bad she has a momma who’s as stiff as the flagpole downtown.”
“I know,” I said. “Being loyal to Violet to the point of ignoring me is ridiculous. We should be classier than that for the girls.”
“Some people aren’t classy,” Marta said, pouring herself a glass of sweet iced tea, even though it wasn’t even nine-o-clock in the morning yet. I offered her Peyton’s bowl of untouched oatmeal. Marta wrinkled her nose, but grabbed the spoon.
“Guess what,” I said, happy for an excuse to lighten the conversation. “I found you a cowboy.” I told her about Cowboy Quentin.
/> Marta squealed. “When do we meet?”
“Soon,” I said. “Don’t you want to know what he’s like?”
“Is he a cowboy? Friend of Keith’s?”
“He lives in Pillar Bluff, but he and Keith work together on ranch things a lot. He even works here sometimes.”
“Then why haven’t I seen him?”
“I don’t know. He’d be hard to miss in this little town. He’s exceptionally handsome.”
“What does he look like?”
I laughed. “What are we, writing a romance novel?”
“That’s a great idea,” she said. “If he were my cowboy romance hero, how would you describe him?”
I thought for a moment. “Okay, I’m no writer, so this will sound corny, but I would describe him as a very tall, broad-shouldered, exceptionally fit man in his thirties with shaved ebony hair and skin the color of umber. His eyes are kind.”
“Now aren’t you the novelist!” she exclaimed. “Umber, huh? Like toffee brown?” Marta and I often thought in shades of nail polish.
“I’m not sure a novelist would say that, but yes. And he wears Levi’s, crisp, button-down shirts, favors black boots and black cowboy hats, but I’ve also seen him in t-shirts and it looks like they just don’t make them big enough to fit across his broad chest.”
“Yummy.”
We burst into laughter. “And since I know you’re not looking for a fling, you should know that he’s probably one of the nicest men I’ve met on the rodeo circuit. Keith says Quentin avoids the party life and that he hasn’t dated in a long while.”
“Poor thing,” she said. “I wonder why?”
“Because he’s waiting for a girl like you,” I said. Keith hadn’t shared why Quentin hadn’t dated and I hadn’t pried anymore. Guys have the bro code, you know.
“Well, if he’s interested in a loud, white girl and doesn’t mind that she looks just like his friend’s wife, then I want to meet him.”
The Real Thing Page 9