That Cowboy's Kids

by Debra Salonen

  A fist squeezed her heart; she scooted back, trying to catch her breath. “It’s not about me, Tom. When you remarry, you’ll want more kids. I’ve seen how you are with babies. You love babies.”

  He frowned. “I have two great kids. If you and I had a baby I’d be tickled pink because it was part of you and me together, but that’s the least of my worries. I love you, woman, not your tubes.”

  She smiled, it was impossible to resist his heartfelt pledge. She caressed his jaw, rubbing her palm against the sandpaper bristles. She would treasure this moment forever. “You’re the most incredible man I’ve ever met.”

  “But?” he said, his blue eyes darkening.

  “You say it doesn’t matter, but I think it will. Someday. I don’t want you to settle for less than you deserve.”

  He opened his mouth, but whatever he intended to say was lost when a very faint cry interrupted the morning’s quiet. “Daddy?”

  Tom gave her a long, serious look. “This isn’t over, Abby. We can work this out.”

  Abby wanted to believe him, but she knew in her heart she didn’t deserve the life he was offering. He’d come to realize it, too, in time.

  TOM AND ED STOOD companionably, elbow-to-elbow, at the gate of the new corral. Tom had unloaded the mares and their offspring in their new quarters earlier that morning. The final heat wave of summer had broken finally, giving a much-needed respite. Animals and humans alike seemed to mellow when the temperature stayed in the eighties. Fall wasn’t far off, Tom could sense it. His daughters were halfway through their first week of school. So far, so good. Ed and Janey had returned from Janey’s checkup, along with Peter and Maureen. This was the first chance Tom and Ed had managed to find a moment to talk. He sensed something changed in the older man’s attitude. Tom was pretty sure he knew what it was.

  “Ed, let’s cut the pussyfooting. We’re ranchers not lawyers. You want Pete back here.”

  The older man let out a sigh. “Janey wants him home. He’s my son. But you know I’ve come to think of you as a son, too, Tom.”

  Tom smiled. “My mama might not have objected to that, but I think my daddy would have had some concerns.” At Ed’s chuckle, he went on. “You know how I feel about you and Janey. We don’t have to get into that. I don’t want you thinking my feelings are gonna be hurt if you bring Pete into the business. In fact, it’s a great idea. Without Miguel around, I practically have to piss on the run. Gets kinda messy.”

  Ed spit into the dust. “Maybe we need to hire another hand. Peter’s an advertising executive, not a rancher. He turned his back on this a long time ago.”

  “He was a boy. Now he’s a man. A smart man. He knows about computers, right?”

  Ed nodded slowly.

  “Well, I got one in my office that isn’t even out of the box yet. Maybe you can get him out here and start him doing some of that on-line stuff you were talking about. Why not let Pete handle all the paperwork end of things?”

  “And you and me’d handle the real work?”

  “You don’t think I’d abandon you to a greenhorn, do you?”

  Ed’s relief showed in his smile. “That’s the best news I’ve had since Janey’s doctor told me we don’t have to come back for six months.”

  “She’s looking good.”

  “She’s feeling good. The tests look clear and she’s started on a drug that they’re studying to see if it can prevent the cancer from spreading or coming back. She feels good to be involved in that. Helping other women.”

  Tom sighed. “I’m glad to hear it. Makes what I gotta tell you a little easier.”

  Ed’s big, freckled hands gripped the barbless wire. “Oh, Lord.”

  “This is gonna look darned ungrateful after you just got done putting a pile of money into that addition, but the girls ’n me are moving out.”

  Ed’s jaw dropped open. “What?”

  “My house is sitting empty. An empty house is an easy target. Yesterday, I found some beer bottles out behind the barn. Kids partying. Vandalism comes next. Plus, my mares need someone looking after them.”

  “Couldn’t you rent it out again?”

  “I could, but I figure Pete and Maureen are gonna need a place to live when they move back. That new addition would make a real fine master bedroom.”

  Ed’s eyes lit up. “And Pete can keep an eye on things when you’re not here.”

  “And he’ll be nice and close to that darned computer you’ve been trying to cram down my throat.”

  Ed clapped a hand to Tom’s back. “We’re gonna get you outta the saddle and belly up to a computer one of these days, son, mark my words.”

  “I guess so,” Tom’s voice was less than enthusiastic. Val had given his old computer to the girls. So far, Tom had managed to avoid hooking it up, but once they moved into the three-bedroom house, that might change. In fact, he planned to use the computer to get back into their good graces.

  ABBY STARED at a gangly Joshua tree a few feet beyond the low stucco fence separating her parents’ Palm Desert home from the desert. How anyone could consider that greenish-gray, bristly, misshapen thing a tree was beyond her.

  “Juice, dear?”

  Abby spun around. She hadn’t heard her mother rise. Grace liked to awaken at her own pace. She called it her reward after so many years of marching to other people’s drums. She still worked in the design studio of a local furniture store, but her employers accepted Grace Davis’s hours as her own.

  “Sure. Thanks. I was going to make coffee, but I got sidetracked.”

  Grace glided gracefully to the whitewashed cupboards in the compact, artfully spare kitchen—no fussy decorator’s clutter for her. A huge ceramic bowl filled with bananas, oranges and apples provided the only color accents.

  The house was one of a thousand replicas—pseudo-adobe with red tile roofs and minicourtyards. Two bedrooms, two-car garages. Emergency panic buttons in each of the two bathrooms made Abby think the builders believed those were the only places old people ever got sick.

  “Just as well,” Grace was saying. “Your father only drinks decaf. I drink hot molasses water in the morning. You should try it. Much better for you than coffee. But I bought these individual coffee bags right after you called.” She plopped a square bag on a string into a soup bowl–size mug and added boiling water. “Black, right?”

  “Yes, please.” While her mother fussed around the kitchen, Abby dunked her coffee bag. The mindless motion gave her time to reflect on the odd turn of events that had propelled her to the desert.

  Daniel had shown up at her office door the Monday after her long, emotionally charged weekend with Tom and the girls. She’d spent the better part of Sunday playing board games with Heather and Angel, and even joined the family for a brief horseback ride around the property, but in the end, she left with nothing settled between her and Tom.

  Daniel’s sudden proclamation shocked her. “Abby, you’re outta here.”

  At first, Abby thought he was firing her, but then he explained an audit of VOCAP’s accrued vacation-time records showed Abby was ninety-seven hours over the limit. “Take it or lose it, Abby. New policy.”

  Since she didn’t have a choice in the matter, she’d called her parents to see if they were between cruises. “Come tonight,” her mother told her. “No, on second thought, that’s a long drive. Start fresh tomorrow. Your father will be ecstatic.”

  “Is fruit and toast all right? We only have eggs once a week in omelets,” Grace said pleasantly, bringing her back to the present.

  “Toast is fine. Thank you.”

  Grace’s hand stopped in midair above the toaster. The smile on her lips seemed wistful. “Your grandmother taught you such fine manners.”

  Abby let the observation pass. At the same instant she realized Grace was only setting two places at the table. “Where’s Dad?”

  “Golfing. You have to get out early. This is a desert, you know.”

  Their first evening together after her eight-hour
drive was fairly brief. They shared a light meal, took a stroll around the neighborhood—bringing Abby up to speed on all the gossip—then went to bed. Abby was asleep the minute her head hit the pillow.

  “It’s Wednesday, Mom. How come you’re not getting ready for work?”

  “I told them my daughter was coming for a visit, and I wouldn’t be in this week or next.”

  Abby was surprised, and touched. “Really? You didn’t need to do that.”

  “Yes, I did.” Grace looked across the distance separating them. “Abby, do you realize this is the first time you’ve come to us for solace?”

  Abby hadn’t realized her mother read the reason for her trip so clearly. All Abby had said on the phone was that she had an unexpected vacation.

  Grace went on. “Even after what happened with Billy, you chose to stay in Welton instead of coming home.”

  “I had school.” A lame excuse considering the depth of her anguish.

  Grace carried a plate with four slices of toast on it to the table. She went back for a bowl of pink-grapefruit slices, chunks of banana and juicy-looking slivers of mango. “Let’s eat. More water for your coffee?”

  Abby refilled her cup from the spotless stainless-steel teakettle. “How did you know I…that I might need…?”

  Grace pursed her lips. Without lipstick, they were less youthful. Tiny lines made them look withered. For the first time, Abby had a sense of her mother’s age. A peculiar pang knotted in her chest. “Abby, dear, you’re my daughter. We haven’t been close, but I still feel as connected to you as I did the moment you were born.”

  The words surprised Abby as much as they moved her.

  Grace took a sip of black liquid that looked just like coffee. She selected a triangle of toast and set it on her plate but didn’t take a bite. She looked reflective when she said, “I don’t want this to sound ungrateful. Your grandmother was a wonderful woman who did an absolutely fabulous job of raising you, but she also had an uncanny way of making it an either-or proposition for me. We never really spoke about it out loud, but I knew if I turned you over to her to care for, I was—in a way—giving you up.”

  She shook her head and hurried into an explanation to cut off Abby’s question. “Maybe it was my own sense of guilt. You have to remember, Abby, back then women had very well-defined roles. Some women were working and raising families, but that was usually because of death or divorce. I was blessed with an understanding husband who wanted me to be happy and fulfilled.”

  Abby chewed a bite of toast. It tasted like sawdust. She examined it more closely—crusty, dense and fibrous, perhaps it was made of sawdust.

  “When I found out I was pregnant for the third time, I wasn’t terribly pleased. I truly regret feeling that way, but it’s the truth. Then your grandfather died, and although I loved Quincy dearly, I saw his death as a way of being able to have my cake and eat it, too. Agnes needed help, I needed help. We’d help each other.”

  Abby shrugged. “I have no complaints.”

  Grace looked at her seriously. “Perhaps not, but I do. Agnes was from a different generation, and, as much as she loved you, she resented me for not doing my God-given duty.

  “I looked at it as a win-win situation. Agnes had meaningful employment. I kept the job I loved. You were cared for in your own home.” Her eyes looked sad, and she frowned. “I just didn’t figure it would cost me my daughter’s love.”

  Abby started to protest. “Mother—”

  “Think about it, dear. You were Grandma’s girl. When you were sick, she cared for you. When you fell down and skinned your knee, you ran to her. When she died, you grieved so much I was worried sick, but in the back of my mind—God forgive me—I thought, now we’ll have a chance to be close. But it was too late.”

  Abby’s heart squeezed painfully against her rib cage. She hadn’t guessed any of this.

  An image came to her. She was sixteen. Her first date. “I remember one time when you came in my room and starting talking to me—girl talk, you called it. I thought you were going to try to tell me about the birds and the bees. In a way I wanted to hear it—that wasn’t something Grammy would have talked about, but I didn’t want to be disloyal to her.”

  Grace nodded. “I know. At least, I figured as much. I was prepared to be patient. I always figured there’d be time, but then you fell in love with Billy.”

  Chagrined, Abby said, “I really put you guys through hell, didn’t I?”

  “We were worried about you. I was afraid Billy might turn violent. His father was like that.”

  “He was?”

  Grace nodded. “Don’t you remember me telling you the reason Billy’s mother divorced his father was because he beat her? You didn’t believe me.”

  “His mother was abused?” Abby asked, shocked. “I don’t remember that.”

  Grace related the story as she knew it. Abby had heard a thousand like it over the years. A pattern of abuse that became generational. “Such a sad, sad time,” Grace said. “We were so happy when you met Landon. I thought he was just the ticket, but your dad said Landon was too ‘insubstantial’ for your tastes.”

  Abby smiled.

  “What about Tom?” Grace asked, causing Abby’s bite of toast to lodge sideways in her throat. “He seemed pretty substantial to me that afternoon I helped the girls with the wallpaper. I was quite impressed that a man who’d just received the brush-off could be that cordial when he drove me to your house.”

  “He told you?” Abby croaked.

  “Of course not. Angel said you ‘dissed him.’ I put my own interpretation on that. Was I right?”

  Abby swallowed a mouthful of lukewarm coffee. The bitterness made her shudder. Suddenly, to her surprise, Abby blurted out, “I love him, Mom. He wants to marry me.”

  Grace’s smile slowly segued to a frown of concern. “I hear a big but dangling.”

  Abby smiled. Her mother’s silly aphorisms were legendary.

  “Are you afraid to tell him about Billy?”

  “I told him everything,” Abby said with a sigh. “He said it didn’t matter. Even my tubes—none of it mattered to him. The only part he didn’t understand was how I could be so forgiving toward everybody else and not forgive myself.”

  Grace rose suddenly. “I know the answer to that one. Come with me.”

  Curious, Abby followed her to the master bedroom. The spacious suite with ivory walls and cathedral ceiling could have graced the cover of House Beautiful. Abby took a seat on the bed, sinking into several inches of down. Her heart began beating erratically the second her mother withdrew an old jewelry box from the closet. “Is that Grammy’s…?”

  “Hopeless chest,” Grace finished.

  “I’d forgotten all about it.” As a child, Abby had been permitted to carefully examine each of the cherished, often whimsical, mementos her grandmother had saved over the years. A single glittery earring. A campaign ribbon supporting Woodrow Wilson. A silver bracelet adorned with tiny charms, including one from Saint Louis.

  “Do you remember this?” Grace asked, passing her a small, store-bought valentine card, brittle with age.

  Abby studied the precious card. It looked in almost-perfect condition except that it had been ripped in two and was held together with invisible tape—the kind used in modern times, not when it was first given. She traced the slightly raised heart in the middle where a boy and girl sat holding hands. She knew the trite verse by heart, and she knew what she’d see when she opened it up. The elegant inscription read: “To my Aggie. With love and admiration, Quincy E. Davis. Your husband.”

  She turned it over. The scar looked ugly and mean. “I don’t remember it being ripped,” she said, puzzled.

  “You did it.”

  The card fluttered to the carpet. “Me?”

  Grace picked it up. “The day after Grandma died. It happened so fast. Agnes went into the hospital for exploratory surgery. They removed a tumor in her stomach. They didn’t know if it had spread, but they t
old us she’d probably live another few years, maybe longer. But Agnes went to sleep that night and didn’t wake up.”

  “She gave up. She didn’t even try,” Abby said in a small voice.

  “You always were hardest on the ones you loved the most. You were so mad at Agnes you tore the card in half. You couldn’t forgive her for dying.”

  Abby walked to the window and looked at the distant mountain peaks without really seeing. “I hated her for a while. She left me all alone.” Cringing, she realized too late how that must have sounded to her mother.

  “I think she was being noble,” Grace said, her voice gentle. “Agnes lived through the hell of watching her husband die. She kept him at home for as long as possible then spent every single day with him in the hospital, watching him waste away. Besides the emotional toll, it cost her every penny of Quincy’s insurance and all their savings.”

  Grace shook her head sadly. “She once told me she wouldn’t dream of putting us through that. ‘I’ll go when I’m called,’ she said. ‘I won’t fight it the way Quincy did.”’

  Abby blinked back tears that clustered in her eyes. She had no trouble picturing her grandmother saying that. Looking over her shoulder, she told her mother, “I’m glad she didn’t suffer. She would have hated the indignity.”

  Grace put the valentine card away and closed the lid of the box. “This is yours, you know. She wanted you to have it.”

  “How come you never brought it out before?”

  She shrugged. “I guess I was waiting for a sign from above.”

  Abby, who’d attended parochial school at her grandmother’s behest, didn’t consider her mother a terribly religious person. “I beg your pardon?”

  Grinning impishly, Grace said, “A little angel called me and said you were sad. She was afraid you might need a little help finding your way home. And since guidance was more your grandmother’s specialty than mine, I thought this might be the right time to bring out the hopeless chest.”