by Mark Gimenez
"Just so happens I've got fifty acres of the prettiest vines you'll ever see. And they don't need much water—grapes like it hot and dry in the summer."
"So what, you're a wine expert now?"
"Nope. But Hector is. Me and him, we partnered up. He makes the wine, I do everything else."
J.B. sniffed the air. The faint scent of smoke rode the westerly breeze.
"Brush fire out west."
Beck gestured toward the fence line. "Is that a llama?"
J.B. nodded. "Named Sue. Got eyes like a woman. Not that we're having any kind of a relationship."
"Llama, peacocks, turkeys, antelope—place looks like Noah getting ready for the flood."
"Flood would be a nice change of pace after seven years of drought."
The main room of the house had a high cedar-beamed ceiling and a longleaf pine floor. At one end was the kitchen; at the other end a leather recliner and couch fronted a flat-screen TV.
"Had a sale over at the Wal-Mart," J.B. said. "Figured the kids might enjoy that."
Beck had grown up without a television; his father hadn't believed in wasting time watching TV when there was work to be done—and there had always been work to be done. Luke plopped down on the couch and pointed the remote at the TV. The screen flashed on, and Meggie said, "Can we watch SpongeBob?"
"The hell's a sponge bob?" J.B. said.
"You've got cable?" Beck said.
"Yep."
"For The Beverly Hillbillies?"
"And the cooking shows. Hell of an invention, the crock pot."
"You've got a crock pot?"
"Yep."
"J.B., you never cooked an egg in your life. After Mom died, I did all the cooking."
"You left."
Luke found a baseball game, and Meggie started a tour of the house with the doll. Beck went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator; everything inside was organic, just like their refrigerator back in Chicago.
"Annie?"
J.B. nodded. "Made a run into Austin day before yesterday. Whole Foods. Never seen so many women with tattoos that don't shave their legs."
"How'd you know we'd come?"
"Annie said you would."
"How'd you know when?"
"Annie said this summer, after school let out and you …"
"Failed at raising the kids alone?"
"Figured out you needed help. Which ain't a sign of weakness, Beck. Anyway, I knew you'd have to sell the house, so I checked the listing online. When it said the sale had closed, I figured a few days to get packed, few more to get here."
"You always were a figuring man."
Beck walked out of the kitchen and through the doorway leading to the screened-in back porch that allowed the breeze in but kept the mosquitoes out. The same wood rockers still sat there, where J.B. and Peggy Hardin had ended every day of their lives, watching the sun set over the hills and planning their next day of hard work. After she died, J.B. had sat alone out here and his son had sat alone down by the river or in his room.
Where Beck now stood.
His trophies still sat on the shelf, free of dust, and his clothes still hung in the closet, as if he had only left for an out-of-town game. Beck put on his black Gallopin' Goats letter jacket; it still fit. He replaced the jacket and picked up his old black cowboy boots. He had left them when he had left home—he didn't figure on wearing cowboy boots at Notre Dame and he wasn't coming back. The boots had been freshly polished. They still fit, too. He pulled the boots off and went over to the window he had climbed through so many nights to go skinny-dipping in the river by moonlight with Mary Jo Meier. She had been his high school sweetheart, blonde and blue-eyed, slim and strong, a goat rancher's daughter. He had asked her to go with him to Notre Dame, but she said she would never leave home. He told her he wasn't coming back, but she had said, "You'll be back. You might leave me, Beck Hardin, but you'll never leave this land."
He wondered if Mary Jo Meier had ever left home.
Beck walked out of his past and into the new addition. One bedroom had an attached bathroom, a king-sized bed, and a nightstand with a framed photo of Annie. It was his favorite one of her, taken on a Hawaiian beach before they had the kids; the setting sun caught her reddened face and made her glow. She was young, she was beautiful, and she was alive. She had written across the bottom: I'll love you forever from the hereafter.
Beck stared at the image of his dead wife.
Two other bedrooms were joined by a bathroom. Luke's bedroom had wood floors and a bed with a Chicago Cubs bedspread. Meggie's had thick carpet and walls painted a sky blue. J.B. had re-created home for the children.
"I still do good work."
J.B. was standing next to him.
"You still walk like an Indian."
J.B.'s boots were off and the legs of his jeans rolled up a turn, revealing white socks. Peggy Hardin's rules were few but absolute: don't pick wildflowers and don't wear dirty boots inside her clean house, and it had always been clean.
"Figured you'd want to be near the kids."
"You built all this just because Annie said we'd come home?"
J.B. nodded. "Said she had seen the future. Said she was gone and y'all were here."
"And that was good enough for you?"
"It was."
Beck glanced at his father and saw that his jaws were clamped tight. He turned away. After a moment, his father spoke softly.
"I never met her face to face, Beck, but I loved her like my own daughter."
"Is this our room?"
Meggie was now standing between them with the doll.
"Yes, darlin'," J.B. said. "It is."
Meggie held the doll up and said, "Look, Mommy, it's just like home."
"I'm home, Mama."
The sun was setting and Beck was sitting on the bench inside the white picket fence under the big oak tree in a little clearing overlooking the river. The three white gravestones gave off an orange tint as they caught the last rays of the sun: Henry Hardin … Louise Hardin … Peggy Hardin. Fresh flowers sat at the base of each stone.
He stared at his mother's marker, and he thought of looking up from the junior high school football field and seeing her in the stands with her hands folded and pressed against her face as if she were praying—and she had been: while everyone else had been cheering her son on to victory, she had been praying that her son not get hurt. A mother's prayer.
He thought how much he had missed her and still did. And how much he needed her now. He wasn't man enough or father enough or mother enough to raise his children alone. He had been a full-time lawyer and a part-time father. A weekend dad. He had two great kids because they had had a great mother.
He felt a presence and knew it was J.B. His father stepped past him, bent over, and brushed invisible dust from his mother's gravestone. Satisfied, he sat beside Beck.
"Luke doesn't say much, does he?"
"Not since Annie. Where are the roses?"
J.B. had planted rosebushes inside the picket fence after they had buried Beck's mother here, but the roses were gone.
"Roses are like pretty girls," J.B. said. "They need constant attention. Yanked 'em up, seeded this whole clearing with bluebonnets. Figured your mom would like those more."
"How'd you live without her, J.B.?"
"Not so good. I needed her and you needed me. But damned if I knew how to help you, son. Hell, I couldn't help myself."
"I hated you."
"I know."
"Why'd you get so hard?"
"I didn't get hard. I got scared."
"Of what?"
"Of not knowing how to raise you alone."
Beck stared at his mother's marker and thought of his wife. The women in his life always died.
"I'm afraid, too, J.B. I can't do this alone."
"You don't have to, Beck. I'm gonna help you."
They were almost to the house when J.B said, "Come down to the winery tomorrow. I'll introduce you to Hector. We coul
d use another hand."
"Me? No, J.B., I'm a lawyer. That's all I know."
"I was a goat rancher, now I'm a winemaker. Man's never too old to learn something new."
Beck had not thought out his career plan when he had decided to leave Chicago; his only thoughts were of the children. The law had been his life for the last twenty years; now his two children were his life. He had figured on leaving the law behind him, but he had to make a living.
He had almost $1 million in his retirement account, all in stock. The sale of the house had netted $100,000 and his equity in the firm $200,000, which would be paid out over ten years. He had a $1 million life insurance policy on himself, but he had had no insurance on Annie's life. He never thought she'd die first.
Country life would be less expensive than their life in Chicago, but even so, his cash wouldn't last long. So he needed to work. Maybe he could open a small law office in town.
"Hell, Beck, the ten lawyers in town trip over each other every time an ambulance runs down Main Street. Ain't no work for a big-city trial lawyer here. Small town, you sue someone, no one'll ever do business with you again."
"Well, I could've gone back to goat ranching if you hadn't sold off the goats."
"Hell, less money in goats here than in the law."
They walked on in silence, the evening breeze off the river already cooling down the night air.
"You know," J.B. said, "Bruno Stutz up and retired last month, a year left on his term. Heart condition. Which came as a pretty big surprise to most people around here 'cause no one ever figured the son of a bitch had a heart."
"Stutz was still on the bench? He was the judge when I was here."
"You know, Beck, you could win."
"Win what?"
"The election."
"What election?"
"To be the new judge. Special election, September fifteenth, to serve out Stutz's term."
"J.B., I've been gone twenty-four years. No one here is going to vote for me."
"Might be surprised. Folks around here, they haven't forgotten Beck Hardin."
They found the children in front of the TV.
"You kids ready?" J.B. asked.
"For what?" Meggie said.
"Fireworks."
J.B. opened the refrigerator and held out a beer to Beck. He shook his father off. J.B. said, "Sorry," then grabbed two root beers instead. He handed them to Beck and grabbed two more. They all went outside and climbed into J.B.'s pickup. It was a Ford F-350 King Ranch Edition with a diesel engine and a double cab with a bench seat in the back; there was a booster for Meggie just like the one in the Navigator.
Annie.
J.B. drove out onto Ranch Road 16 and headed north; he turned into the Lady Bird Johnson Municipal Park. They weren't alone. Hundreds of other cars had already staked out their positions. But J.B. drove deep into the park and then across the creek that cut through the muny golf course like he had done it before.
"Are we by the driving range?" Beck asked.
"Yep. My regular spot."
"You still come out for the fireworks?"
"I like fireworks. Your mother did, too."
J.B. backed in and cut the engine. Everyone bailed out. J.B. lowered the tailgate and spread old blankets on the grass. Luke and Meggie and the doll sat on the blankets; J.B. handed the root beers down to them. Beck and his father sat on the tailgate and drank theirs.
Nearby, parents were barbecuing in the last light of the day. Kids were eating ice cream. Boys were throwing footballs and Frisbees and flirting with giggling girls. Music was drifting over from the Pioneer Pavilion. The heat had broken, and the evening air was almost cool. There was a soft breeze. This too was just as Beck had remembered. But all the good memories of this place had been blurred by his mother's death.
The sun soon set, the clear blue sky turned black, and Spanish voices could be heard in the darkness, but their owners were invisible. Meggie pointed up.
"Are those the fireworks? All those sparkly things?"
J.B. laughed. "Why, petunia, those are stars."
"We've never seen so many stars before."
"They're up there all right, you just can't see them in the city 'cause of the ground light."
"Can we stay for all the fireworks this time?"
"You bet you can," J.B. said. "I always stay till the end."
"We couldn't last year. Mommy wanted to, but Daddy said—"
"I had a trial. I didn't know it would be her last … She loved fireworks, too."
Just then, explosions went off and the sky overhead turned bright with red, white, and blue fireworks. The light faded, and the sparkles drifted downward, as if they would fall down on top of them. Meggie held the doll up.
"Look, Mommy, we're right under the fireworks!"
"You got the catbird seat, little gal."
More explosions followed, one after another. About halfway through the fireworks show, Beck thought he saw Luke smiling.
"We liked the fireworks."
Beck was tucking Meggie and the doll into bed.
"I'm glad, honey."
"We like grandpa, too."
"Good."
"We never knew we had a grandpa."
"Well, you do."
"He calls us 'gal' and 'darlin' ' and 'petunia.' We like that. And we like our new home."
Beck leaned over and kissed Meggie on her forehead. She smelled like strawberry shampoo.
"Kiss Mommy, too."
She held the doll up, and he kissed it. She then snuggled it close.
"Let's say our prayers, sweetie."
She folded her hands, and together they recited: "Dear God in heaven, we bow our heads, here beside our little bed. In your loving care we're blessed, while we sleep safe at rest."
"Sleep tight, baby."
"What if we have an accident?"
Beck had forgotten the plastic sheet. He had kept one on Meggie's bed at home, for her nightly accidents.
"I'll go find the plastic sheet."
"It's already on."
Beck reached down; she was right. A plastic sheet covered the mattress.
"If you have an accident, come to me like at home."
"Okay, we will."
She closed her eyes. Beck stood and turned off the overhead light; the room was still dimly lit by a night light. He walked down to Luke's room. His son was lying in bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. Beck went over and sat on the edge of the bed. The boy had been crying again. He brushed Luke's hair from his face.
"We'll make a new life here, son. It'll be a good life."
"If it's so good here, why'd you leave and never come back?"
"Because when my mother died, Luke, I got mad, and I held onto it. I didn't let it go."
Tears came into Luke's eyes.
"Did you say your prayers?"
Luke turned his face to the wall.
"I don't say prayers anymore."
Beck sighed and patted his son's shoulder. He loved this boy, but he didn't know how to help him. Just as J.B. Hardin didn't know how to help his son twenty-nine years before.
Beck found J.B. on the back porch in his rocking chair reading the local newspaper in the light of a gooseneck lamp. The white lab named Butch lay on the floor. Beck sat in Peggy's rocker that still sat next to J.B.'s.
"Got a seventeen-foot Bass Tracker boat for sale in here," his father said. "Forty-horsepower Mercury oil-injected motor and a fish finder."
"J.B., that's a lake boat. The river's not deep enough to float a lake boat."
"Well, now, that is a drawback."
"You still religious about reading the classifieds?"
"Never know when you might find something you don't need."
"Like a lake boat when you live on a river?"
"Exactly."
The night was quiet, and the breeze through the screen brought the scent of the river up to the house.
"You do much hunting these days?"
J.B. shook his h
ead. "Not since …"
"I left?"
"It never was about the hunting."
No, it never was.
"I tell you," J.B. said, "crime around here's getting out of hand. Says right here, six Porta-Potties were knocked over last week, four the week before. That's a damn mess, too. Hope no one was in 'em at the time."
"A Porta-Potty crime spree?"
"Says here Crime Stoppers will pay $1,000 cash for information leading to the arrest of the perpetrators."
"A Crime Stoppers reward for a Porta-Potty drive-by? In Chicago, unless there was blood, it wasn't even considered a crime."
J.B. tapped the newspaper with his finger. "Nine divorces last week. That's what happens when people get cable."
"You've got cable."
"But I don't got a wife." J.B. looked up from the paper. "Beck, I'm gonna put Luke to work in the winery, if that's okay."
"That's a good idea. How'd you know about the plastic sheets on Meggie's bed?"
"Annie."
"She didn't start wetting the bed until after Annie died."
"She figured it might happen. Smart woman."
"Yeah. I've got to get smarter at this, J.B., soon. This town got a bookstore yet?"
"Yep. Couple of gals run it, that and the art gallery upstairs. South side of Main Street, just past the brew pub."
"I saw that, a microbrewery. The town has really changed."
J.B. smiled, and Beck thought it was a good smile. He couldn't remember his father ever smiling after his mother died.
"You ain't seen nothin' yet," J.B. said. "Wait'll you meet those two gals. They're new in town, only been here ten years."
"Lot of new people in town."
"Yep. When Clinton killed the mohair program, he killed all the businesses on Main catering to goat ranchers. So newcomers started all those businesses catering to tourists. Town went from living off Uncle Sam to living off tourists."
"I'm gone twenty-four years and the place turns into Disneyland."
"Santa Fe."
They drifted off into silence. Twenty-four years since Beck had sat on this porch, but it felt like yesterday. Home it had been and home it was again. But his mother was gone and his father was different.
"You've changed, too, J.B."
"Man spends enough time alone, he'll change."
"Being alone does it?"
"Being alone gives a man time to work through every mistake he's ever made in his life. I've sat right here and done exactly that the last twenty-four years. I don't aim to make the same mistakes again … if you'll forgive me for back then."