Maggie reached for my right arm and gently guided it down to my side. She took my hand and held it and we just laid there, side by side, until my crying stopped. “I’m sorry, too.”
The front door let in the sound of teenage voices again. The smell of sunshine and the million weeds and grasses I hadn’t learned to distinguish yet flowed in on a breath of hot air with them.
“Mom?” Sam called. “Are you ready to go on the walk?”
I muttered, “Mierda.”
Maggie laughed.
“Ready,” I called. I sat up and the bed bounced.
Maggie sat up, too.
“Sort of.” I walked down the hallway toward the kids. “Does everybody have on good shoes, like boots? In case of snakes.” I had left mine by the back door. When I got to the door, I slipped my feet into them.
“Do we have any water bottles?” Sam asked.
I laughed. “Do you realize who you’re talking to?”
Annabelle went into the kitchen. “She always has water bottles.” She rummaged around, found some, and started filling them.
Sam pointed to Rachael’s feet. Flip-flops. “Don’t you think she’ll be okay?”
“I’m used to snakes, Mrs. Hanson. There’re rattlers in El Paso.”
“Okay,” I said. “But I have some boots you can borrow. It’s up to you.”
She shook her head.
The sun had started to sink on the horizon by the time we left on our walk. Maggie had come so we made five, sans dogs, since Maggie didn’t want to get the goldens matted and filthy. There was still plenty of daylight left, but the heat had started to lessen and the shadows were growing longer.
I pointed through the backyard. “So, when I Google Mapped the property, it looked like you could walk to the fence line through the trees back there.”
“I want to show Rachael our place and the Quacker.”
“Then let’s start”—I pointed to my left—“over there at the road. We can find the fence and follow it around and swing out to our place when we come to the junction.”
“Sweet,” Sam said.
Annabelle had swept her long, curly hair into a ponytail. She fanned her neck with her hand. “It’s really hot.”
I set off. “Buck up, Buttercup. It’ll get cooler in the trees.”
“Maybe.” Her eyes rolled just a little.
We found the fence quickly and headed along it single file. The pasture was treeless, but there was a line of trees hugging the fence that made it hard to see very far. As we stepped under the protection of the branches, it grew shadier.
Annabelle sighed. “It’s not any cooler.”
Sam led the way, his long legs eating up big stretches of ground with every stride. The smell grew loamier, damper, almost musty, and even sweet. We came up on a break in the tree line and a small tank and meadow I’d glimpsed from the aerial view on Google Earth. Green-and-purple dragonflies buzzed over the water. In the clearing, a firework display of Texas-native flowers exploded. Pink Texas stars, black-eyed Susans, yellow-and-brown Mexican hats, delicate daisy-like flowers, tiny yellow-and-orange lantana flowers that reminded me of bouquets, towering lavender horsemint, and thistles with purple pompoms and white cotton fluffs. Bees and yellow butterflies darted every which way. It was heavenly.
“Do you think there’re fish in it?” Rachael asked. “I love to fish.”
“Me, too,” Sam agreed, although I’d rarely known him to fish before. “We can try tomorrow.”
Maggie’s mouth formed an O, and her eyes twinkled. Not too much farther along, I recognized the stretch of fence we’d crossed the few times we’d walked, and on one occasion, run, between the Quacker and Gidget’s place.
“This way.” I pointed to the right, but Sam had already ducked under the fence.
“Come on,” he said to Rachael, and bounded ahead.
She trotted after him.
“I don’t have the keys,” I hollered, but they ignored me.
We took a few minutes stomping around the Quacker. I was surprised how much the grass and weeds had grown up in just a couple of days, but they were smashed flat where Rashidi had been parking his car. For a moment, I felt his absence. It added to the loneliness I carried with me all the time from Adrian being gone, which reminded me of Rashidi’s find. I went behind the Quacker into the trees where he’d told me he found it. I pressed one hand over the A+M inside the heart carved into the oak, and one over my toasty warm butterfly.
“Your husband?” Maggie’s soft voice startled me.
“Yes.” I soaked it in for another moment then slipped my arm through the elbow Maggie offered.
We found the kids and headed back toward the fence, pushing through cedar, yaupon, an elm, and some hackberries. Maggie caught her hair in a vine, and it pulled her bump out. She pushed her hair out of her face and stuck the bump in her pocket. She and I were bringing up the rear, because Annabelle had forgotten how hot she was and was keeping up with Sam and Rachael.
“Look what I found!” Sam shouted. He was standing by an old water trough. It was upside down with a rusted-out bottom.
“That’s very cool.” Maggie knelt by it. “It would make a good planter. I’d sell it for about forty dollars once it was cleaned up.”
“If I brought you stuff like this would you buy it?”
“Maybe.” She grinned at him. “For the right price.”
“Sweet!”
We came to a junction in the fence where we left my property and moved on to Gidget’s. The kids continued to call out their finds for Maggie to inspect. There was an old plow, some oil cans, and even a claw-foot tub. Sam made plans to haul it all out to take to Maggie’s shop. Better him than me. After about fifteen minutes of walking through thick trees that forced us to stay on the fence line, I spotted the sides of a structure. It felt eerie finding a building where I hadn’t realized one existed. I moved forward cautiously.
“A shed!” Sam cried.
“Cool.” I remembered the shiny red thing I’d seen on Google Earth. This little building was roughly in the same spot I’d seen it, but it was massive and rusty compared to the patch that had showed through the canopy of trees.
The sides were the same tin as the roof, although they still retained their patina and the roof had rusted. On one side was a wooden door, wired onto the tin in a cutout. It hung askew but mostly closed.
“Can I open it?” Sam asked me.
“Be careful,” I said.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. He pulled the door. Immediately an angry buzzing noise flew at us. Sam let go, but the lone wasp was already out. After a few screams and mad dashes around the building, we calmed down. The wasp was gone. Sam opened the door again, more respectfully this time. No buzzing. Rays of light filtered through the trees and in the doorway, catching dust as it escaped in the other direction.
Sam stepped gingerly onto the dirt flooring of the old building.
None of the rest of us moved.
“Tell me if you see spiders the size of your hand or bigger.” Maggie called after him.
“What?” Sam shouted.
“Nothing,” she said sweetly.
The rest of us laughed.
Then Annabelle shivered. “Are there really spiders that big out here?”
Maggie tapped Annabelle’s arm softly with her knuckles. “Not really that big, but there are some big spiders in the forest, mostly harmless, though.”
“Mostly.” Annabelle shivered.
“I’m more scared of the snakes.”
Before Annabelle could get worked up, I said, “But we’ve got you covered on that,” and pointed to her cowboy boots.
“Guys, you’ve gotta see this.” Sam stuck his head back out the doorway. “It’s so cool!”
“What’s so cool?” I grabbed the edge of the floppy door with my hand.
“It’s an old car.”
My heart leapt. I bound inside. There were just enough chinks in the joints between the walls and the roof th
at, added to the light through the door, I could tell it was a very old car. I turned on the flashlight on my phone.
“I know you’re excited, but watch where you’re putting your feet,” Maggie advised, her voice dry.
I shined the light around the ground, illuminating my path. There were winding tracks through the dirt floor, but nothing currently making them. I shined the light on the car. It was dusty, but low, black, sleek, and beautiful with close-fitting helmet wings and a little rumble seat visible under a tarp that was askew. And it was missing a hood ornament.
“Hallelujah.” My voice was reverent.
“What is it?” Sam asked.
He was holding Rachael’s arm as she made her way cautiously in her flip-flops.
“It’s a 1932 SS 1. The antique car that Gidget left in her will to her daughter.”
“The daughter you can’t find, right?” Annabelle asked.
“Not yet.”
Rachael came to stand beside me. “And that’s what my grandfather’s working on, too?”
“It is. He’s going to be so excited.” I moved into the best light and activated the flash on my phone’s camera. I took several shots then flipped through them and picked the best one. I edited it to make it even lighter. Around me I could hear the conversation of the others, but they had ceased to exist for me. I’d found Gidget’s car.
I texted the photo to Ralph. “Look what we found!”
And then, riding on a wave of excited accomplishment, I blogged the photo as well. “The Day of the Jaguar.”
As I turned my attention back to the inside of the shed and the others, a figure appeared in the doorway and blocked out all the light. Everyone quit talking at once, and a tense silence hung over us. Goose bumps rose all over me. I whirled to face the figure. It was an enormous man, but that was all I could tell because the sun behind him left his face in shadow.
“Eek” came out of my mouth. The Itzpa in me had long given over to the Tlazol, and there was no knife-winged warrior goddess to be found in me.
“Mrs. Hanson.” It was a familiar voice. The hulk stepped in the room and light hit his face with its protruding eyes. His thumbs were tucked into the straps of his overalls.
“Jimmy Urban. What are you doing here?”
“Didn’t mean to scare you. I come out here sometimes. To think a spell.”
“But it’s not your place.” My voice was shaking and I was being rude, but he’d terrified me.
“The car”—he pointed at it—“reminds me of . . . I check on the car.”
I stared at him, or what I could see of him, anyway. Gidget had been his fiancée. I knew how much the car had meant to her and Lucy. Why shouldn’t it be important to Jimmy, too? “But you said you didn’t know where it was. When I asked you.”
“I said it hadn’t been around the house. You never asked me if I knew where it was.”
Hadn’t I? My forehead puckered. Maybe he was right. “But you knew what I meant.”
“I knew you’d find it soon enough.”
And in the meantime, he’d have a little longer that it was just his. Something to remember a past love by.
“I’ll leave you to it.” He turned to go.
“Jimmy, wait.” I followed him out. “Today, at the courthouse—”
“I’m sorry.” He kicked at an old stump low to the ground.
“No—thank you. You helped.”
He lifted his big shoulders and they fell. “I don’t know ’bout that.”
At first I couldn’t figure out what he meant. Then I wondered if he knew what had happened in the judge’s chambers. “Is there something I don’t know?” He took a step away and I snatched his arm. “Tell me. Did something happen in chambers?”
“I can’t tell you nothing.” He shrugged my hand off. “’Cept that I told nothing but the truth.”
I nodded. “Okay, then.”
He lumbered away, and I watched him until he disappeared into the trees. When I got back to the shed, the others were coming out.
Maggie wiped her forehead, and dirt from her hand streaked it. “A couple of long-handled tools and some empty old metal containers is about all that’s in there besides the car and a back seat full of critters. But the car was a great find.”
“Phenomenal.”
The kids fell in behind us, and almost immediately we pulled aside to let them pass.
We continued along the fence line and when the younger people were out of earshot, Maggie pounced. “What the heck was that about with Jimmy?”
I chewed the inside of my lip. “He feels closer to her there.”
When we got to the edge of the fence closest to Lumpy’s place, dusk had fallen and everyone was ready to get home. We broke the tree line and cut left into the field in front of Gidget’s house. The laughter of the kids echoed as they widened the gap between them and us. They reached the house and threw the gate open. The golden retrievers came bounding out toward Maggie. Gertrude stayed with the kids, soaking up Rachael’s attention. The girl seemed to be enthralled with the funny little dog. Gertrude was quite taken with her as well. We caught up to the kids.
“What are your plans?” I asked Sam and Annabelle.
“Rachael’s grandpa said he’d let us build a bonfire and cook hot dogs and s’mores. Can we go over there?”
Annabelle didn’t look completely sold on the idea.
“What about you, Belle?”
“I guess, but Jay texted me, and, well, he’s on his way here.”
“He is?” I tried to dial back my reaction as my eyes widened.
“Yes. He said he wants to talk, or whatever. He knows it wasn’t my fault.”
World’s shortest breakup. “Good,” I said. “Have you forgiven him?”
She smirked. “I have, but I haven’t told him yet.”
Maggie laughed. “Give ’em hell, girl.” I wasn’t sure that Maggie was the female influence I wanted for Annabelle, but she did have spunk.
“Maybe go with Rachael and Sam and send Jay directions.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that.”
“Cool.” I held up my knuckles.
Sam and Annabelle dapped them and turned back toward the house.
“Does anyone care what I’m doing tonight?” I called after them.
They looked at each other, then Sam shook his head. “No, not really, Mom.”
Annabelle and I laughed. They disappeared into the house.
“I guess I’ll be taking off, too.” Maggie brushed her hands off on her overalls. “Unless you want to grab some dinner with me.”
My loneliness must have shown on my face. “I don’t have any other plans. But what about your non-boyfriend?”
We entered the house just as the kids were blowing out the other direction calling, “Bye, Mom! Bye, Maggie! Bye, Michele!”
We waved to them. As they drove off I said, “Well?”
“You mean you really want me to answer the question about my not-really boyfriend?” She arched an eyebrow high.
“I was kind of hoping you would.” I changed out of my boots and grabbed my handbag while she talked.
“He travels,” she said. “I see him when he’s home.” She winked. “If he’s lucky.”
“Does he live around here?” I slid my feet into flip-flops.
“He’s got a ranch in Round Top.” She had wandered over to the box from my trunk. It wasn’t a big box. She picked it up. “Wanna look through these while we’re eating?”
“Sounds good. Why don’t you throw Gidget’s yearbook in with it?” I put my laptop on the kitchen counter. “Let me just pull up the adoption boards real quick. I want to check for my brother and Gidget’s daughter.”
She loaded the yearbook and box in her truck while I browsed the site. It yielded nothing, but I felt better for trying. Someday I would get lucky. I switched off all the lights and locked up. When I joined her outside, Maggie was replenishing the dogs’ food and water.
I stopped beside her. “Do you min
d if I bring Gertrude? She hasn’t had much attention.”
“No problem. But I’m going to leave these guys here. They’re happier lying under the shade trees.”
We loaded up, the goldens looking settled and content as they sniffed the evening air. As we drove, we discussed options for food. Maggie suggested we try Giddings Steakhouse for their Thursday night special. We parked, and she ran ahead with the box of documents to secure permission for Gertrude to sit under the table. She was back in ninety seconds, smiling and giving us the okay sign.
The restaurant was a unique and cavernous space. The interior was original eighteen-hundreds brick with visible seams from combining buildings into the current configuration. We picked a table in the back near the salad bar and coaxed Gertrude into semi-hiding.
A leggy teenage girl in blue jeans with a green thigh-length apron showed up, pencil and order pad at the ready.
“We’re about out of the special and most of the desserts is running low.” She leaned in like she was telling us a big secret. Her brown eyes twinkled. “Most folks eatin’ here are a good bit older than the two of you.”
“We’ll take two of the special then,” Maggie said.
“And iced tea,” I added. Gertrude licked my ankle and fluffed her locks.
Maggie held up a finger. “Me, too.”
“Great. Help y’allselves to the salad bar.” She disappeared into the back area, her high-tops squeaking on the linoleum as she walked.
We were digging into our salads when the waitress set our iced teas on the table. Mine to the left, Maggie’s to the right, which made me smile. She hadn’t been trained on formal serving protocols, but she was quick and sincere.
“Sweetener’s in the caddy. Sugar’s in the jar. Y’all local?”
“I am.” Maggie poured sugar in her tea and stirred. I would have to talk to her later about the evils of the white poison, on behalf of Adrian.
I raised my hand. “I’m here for the summer.”
“At Gidget Becker’s place,” Maggie interjected.
She fumbled to put two straws beside our tall plastic tumblers. “Are you the writer?”
“She is.”
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