by Ann McMan
Maddie was curious about what led Roma Jean to be so confident in her supposition. “What makes you think Syd was involved?”
“Well, I know that Mrs. Pitzer couldn’t do it, and nobody else in Jericho cares that much about the library.”
“Those things are true, but they don’t necessarily add up to Syd’s being your benefactor,” Maddie pointed out.
“No,” Roma Jean agreed. “But Nicorette was at the café the day of the food fight, and she found some papers on the floor when she was helping her mama clean up the mess.”
Maddie had a bad feeling about this. “Papers?”
Roma Jean nodded. “It was Miss Murphy’s prenup. But don’t worry. She gave it to Sheriff Martin.”
“After she read it?” Maddie asked.
Roma Jean shrugged.
Maddie sighed and held up a palm. “I will neither confirm nor deny any knowledge of these events.”
“It’s okay. If she doesn’t want people to know, I won’t say anything.” She looked at Maddie. “Even though I want to tell her how grateful I am.”
“I think she already knows that.”
“I’m grateful to you, too, Dr. Stevenson.”
“Me?” Maddie was surprised. “Why?”
“Because you never judged me—even when I was a kid with a stupid crush on you. You always made me feel smart and special—like I could do anything . . . be anything. Now—because of you and Miss Murphy—I have a chance to try.”
Maddie didn’t know what to say.
Roma Jean didn’t wait for a response. “Why don’t we clean all of this up before Miss Murphy and Henry get back? It looks like another tornado rolled through here.”
Maddie smiled at her. “You don’t have to help me. I’m pretty good at cleaning up after myself.”
“I know, but the other day you said we were friends. Did you mean that?”
“Of course I did.”
“Then this is what friends do, isn’t it? They help each other out when things get hard.”
Maddie couldn’t disagree with that, so she didn’t try.
“It won’t be forever,” Roma Jean said.
Maddie looked at her.
“He’ll be back. Even if it’s not to live here—he’ll be back, and you’ll still have him in your life. He loves you both, and he’ll always want that. I know it.”
“Maybe . . . but it won’t be the same.”
“You’re right. But nothing ever stays the same, does it? I mean . . . two months ago, I was dating those freak show Lear twins. Now?” She thought about it. “Now I’m going out with a girl. Yesterday, I was planning to go to community college part time because that’s all my family could afford. Today, it looks like I might be going to Radford.”
She climbed to her feet and extended a hand to Maddie. “Let’s get started.”
Maddie sat staring up at her for a moment, then reached out and took hold of her hand.
Epilogue
IT RAINED ALL day on Tuesday—a steady, soaking rain that swelled streams and pushed ponds up over their spillways.
Maddie was hoping to take the entire afternoon off, but an emergency called her back into the office after lunch. She ended up having to see two additional walk-in patients while she was there, and it was nearly four-thirty before she could head out for home.
Tuesday night was taco night—Henry’s favorite. And David and Michael were coming over to join them for their last meal at home as a family.
Maddie didn’t mind that one bit. James was coming to get Henry tomorrow morning, and she was grateful for any distraction that would help them lighten the pall that had settled over their lives. As much as humanly possible, Maddie and Syd worked to conceal their escalating sadness from the little boy who had filled their lives with so much hope and happiness.
But Maddie resolved never again to hide her emotions from Syd—or herself.
That had been the biggest revelation of all for her . . . the discovery that baring her pain and insecurity to someone she loved and trusted didn’t make her more vulnerable, it made her more human. It restored her sense of balance and equilibrium. It put the pieces of her fractured center back together and gave her the strength and courage she needed to keep moving forward. More than anything, it taught her that, together, they could weather any kind of storm.
She turned off Route 58 and started the long climb up the county road that led to the turnoff for their farm. She couldn’t even count the number of times she’d made this same trip, and she knew every dip and sag in the worn blacktop. But today, everything looked foreign. And it wasn’t just because the rain clouds had settled down over the rolling hills and pastures like a misty shroud.
She rounded the curve where the Cox barn had been, before the tornado carried it off into history. Grass had grown up and nearly covered the remaining few stones of its foundation. In the next pasture, a few fat cows huddled together beneath a cluster of Big Tooth Aspen trees. Someone in a bright yellow rain slicker was out walking among them.
Maddie slowed down and did a double take. It was Syd.
What on earth was Syd doing out in the middle of Joe Baxter’s pasture during a rainstorm?
She stopped the car and climbed out.
She tried calling out her name, but the wind just carried the sound right back to her. So she pulled up her hood and made her way across the same deep ditch where she’d taken refuge with Henry while the tornado passed over them. She ducked under the split rail fence and entered the soggy pasture.
It was raining harder now. It took her a few minutes to catch up with Syd, who was leading one of the cows along by a rope. Just when Maddie got close enough to touch her on the back of the arm, she realized the cow was Henry’s beloved Before.
Syd jumped and nearly slipped on the wet grass when she realized someone was behind her, but she quickly recovered when she saw it was Maddie.
“Great,” she said. “You can help me with her.”
“What in the hell are you doing out here?” Maddie asked. Rain pelted her in the face and ran down the inside of her jacket. Her shoes and socks were soaked and covered with mud.
“I’m taking Before home.” Syd cinched up her hold on the rope that was tied around the heifer’s neck.
Maddie was confused, but just assumed that Before had broken out again and shown up at their place.
“Why didn’t you just call Joe to come and get her?”
“Because I’m taking her home.”
“I can see that honey . . . but you’re going the wrong way.” Maddie pointed a finger behind them toward Joe’s barn.
Syd shook her head. “Our home.”
“What?” Maddie was confused.
“I bought her for Henry.”
Maddie looked from Syd to the cow and back again.
“Oh,” she said.
It was crazy and ridiculous, but it made perfect sense. She wished she’d thought of it.
She linked her arm with Syd’s, and they continued walking on toward home.
“What about the car?” Syd asked. Maddie was still driving her Volvo.
Maddie squeezed her arm. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and someone will steal it.”
Syd laughed. “Fat chance.”
A big, white-faced Hereford lumbered out from beneath a tree as they passed and mooed at them with displeasure.
“I don’t think she’s very happy with us,” Syd observed.
They walked on in silence for a few moments.
“Maybe we should buy her, too?” Maddie suggested.
Syd looked at her strangely.
Maddie shrugged. “We could name her After.”
It was hard for Maddie to tell whether there were more raindrops or tears running down Syd’s face as they slowly walked the rest of the way home. But once they topped the last rise that led to their own land, the rain seemed to taper off, and the heavy clouds that had hugged the tops of the ridges all day retreated just enough to reveal a bright blue sliver of sky.
About the Author
From her early days, growing up on the western frontier of Pennsylvania, Ann McMan found creative ways to exercise her gift for fiction. Her first literary endeavors were modest—mostly confined to aphorisms scrawled on cracked pavement with colored chalk.
Free Upper Volta
But as the years passed and her skills increased, she branched out into literary nonfiction–best exemplified by the abstracts that follow.
Please excuse Ann from gym this week; she has
contracted a virulent case of Norwegian Scabies.
Sometimes, the performances were less effective.
Please excuse Ann from this week’s f ield trip to the
IXL Cottage Cheese Creamery. She is suffering from
acute bouts of ague and malaria—which, combined,
render it impossible for her to travel by bus.
(Ann was unaware that outbreaks of malaria were extremely rare in the Allegheny Mountains—four days in after-school detention helped her cultivate a greater appreciation for the rigors of research.)
College at an indifferent liberal arts institution taught Ann that understanding subject/verb agreement was not enough to secure her fame and fortune. After graduation, she got a job driving a young adult bookmobile—and spent her days piloting the great rig across the dusty back roads of rural North Carolina. Her duties included making certain that the mobile library always contained at least six copies of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, visiting the county detention unit (it was a great way to catch up with her brothers), and showing public service films about safe sex to pre-teens at 4-H Clubs all across her part of “The New South.”
Soon, the allure of higher education coaxed Ann back to school. For the past three decades, Ann has worked at a succession of premier institutions, designing marketing and advancement materials that promote, promulgate, and extol the benefits of indifferent liberal arts education.
Somebody has to do it.
All this time, she continued to write. And when, at the ripe old age of thirty, she realized that she was not like other girls, the great world of lesbian literature opened its arms, and provided her with a safe haven in which to grow and learn about her new identity. She will forever be indebted to those literary pioneers who had the courage, the talent, and the temerity to gift us all with an art form of our own. Ann’s first and subsequent attempts at writing lesbian fiction have been heartfelt attempts to pay that great gift forward.
Ann McMan is the author of the novels, Jericho, Dust, and Aftermath, as well as the story collection Sidecar.
Follow Ann and her humorous hijinks via her website http://annmcman.com, on Twitter at @annmcman, and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ann.mcman.