“You’re really lucky, you know,” Jett says.
“Everybody says that,” I reply, because it’s all I’ve heard for the last two weeks. Apparently the whole town was out at the ruins after I’d been shot to see them load me into the ambulance, thanks to Rick and Sheriff Yost blaring their sirens all the way out there. The only good thing that came of it was when the Mach was found farther down the road from where Lux and I had parked Mom’s car, the entire town was present to identify it. They swore the abandoned Mach 1 near the scene of the mysterious microburst was absolutely, 100 percent the property of Rome Galveston. And Mercy pinching the keys and title out of the glove box didn’t hurt, either.
“I know. But I was there, out at the ruins right after the ambulance left. The blood . . .” His voice trails off.
“There was a lot of blood,” I agree.
“Hard to imagine that could all come from one person and she could still be alive.”
“Well, I assure you, it was more painful to experience firsthand than it was to see the aftermath.”
Jett shoots me a glance. “I’m sure it was. I just want to say, in whatever weird, awkward way I’m managing right now, that I’m glad you’re okay. And I’m glad you found Mercy. You’re kind of a badass, Rome.”
I laugh this time. “I am, definitely,” I agree.
Jett’s phone beeps, and he casts a glance down to see who’s texting.
“Is that Mercy’s number?” I ask, unable to keep myself from looking.
“I, um, sent her a text earlier,” he says awkwardly. “I’m helping her out with a special project.” Jett pulls his phone out from the cup holder and hands it to me so I can text a reply. “Can you text her back that I’m taking you home? And while you’re at it, why don’t you finally add your number?” He smiles at me, his eyes crinkling.
I notice that the screen is cracked from a chip on the corner. “What happened to your phone?” I ask.
“I dropped it. Not long after you left the church to go look for Mercy with Lux.”
Mercy’s text to Jett only reads, ETA on the delivery? A crack runs right through the middle of the message.
I text Mercy, On my way home—Rome. Then I slip into his contacts and add my name and number. The crack in the screen taunts me, and I lick my lips. Jett’s watching the road, and my Fixer hands are twitching to Fix something after two weeks of lying in bed. I rub the shattered screen with my thumb, tracking the broken glass carefully. The cracks lighten and thin until they’re nearly smudges, and then they disappear completely.
Without saying a word, I put the phone back in the cup holder.
When we turn onto the dirt road that leads to the trailer, I feel that same twinge of embarrassment as I did the last time he dropped me off, but I push it away, because there’s nothing wrong with where I come from. I am Rome Galveston, badass. Fearless enough to protect my friends. Strong enough to ask for help with my buttons.
When we round the bend, I am momentarily confused by the crowd of people and cars. Lawn chairs dot the front yard, which needs to be mowed, and what looks like hot dogs sizzle on a grill. A banner hangs over the front door of our trailer. It says Welcome Home, Rome!
I see Mom near the banner now, standing next to Red, who’s frowning at Jett’s Challenger.
“So my mom was going to miss eating lunch, huh?” I ask Jett. Mercy’s cryptic text now makes sense.
Jett laughs. “She asked me to help with your surprise party. Everyone wanted to welcome you home.”
“I think I might’ve preferred the closet and the peanut butter thing you mentioned earlier.”
“Yeah, I kind of thought you might. But your friends are very persistent. Lux told me the only way I was invited was if I agreed to bring you so that she and Mercy and your mom could all help get ready.”
“That sounds like Lux,” I agree.
But it’s not just Mom and Red. Lux and Mercy come to help me get out of the car, both of them hugging me as gently as possible so they don’t mess up my sling or hurt me. Mr. and Mrs. Montoya are there, all of the Ruizes, Sheriff Yost, several of the volunteers from Mercy’s church, and most of the residents of Cottonwood Hollow. Tim and Eddie, from Red’s Auto, are there, failing miserably at running the grill, even with Flynn and Wynona offering advice. Neveah and Malakai are playing ball with Steven, and I catch sight of Sam Buford, who had better step up and finally ask Mercy out or I’m going to smack him with my only functioning arm. Tina, Morgan, and a woman I presume is Lux’s grandma are there, and I think that Tina looks more relaxed than I have ever seen her, despite the pink cast on her arm.
I have never been an expert at making small talk, but for the next forty-five minutes, I’m passed from person to person, asked to give a one-minute summary of what happened two weeks ago, and then told again how lucky I am. It would be awkward and annoying if I didn’t suddenly have a deep appreciation for a community that had rallied around me and been a family, even before I’d been shot in the ruins. Sure, Mom and I were two women living in a trailer on the edge of town, but everyone here had been a part of our lives, a piece of a family much larger than just the two of us.
Red tells me that the Mach is in his shop, and that when I’m getting around a little bit better, I can start Fixing the damage Garrett did during his brief ownership. It’s probably the best news I’ve had since Mercy handed me the keys and the title. Or maybe since the doctors told me I was going to live.
Just when I think all the attention is going to cause my head to explode, Mom announces that it’s time to eat. The residents of Cottonwood Hollow have put together a long table of food, and I am thankful that everyone turns their attention to the various bowls and trays.
Jett appears at my side and helps me make a plate of food with my one good arm, which thrills Mom to no end. When his back is turned, she gives me a thumbs-up and an exaggerated wink. Red scowls a tad less when Jett offers me his lawn chair and sits in the grass.
Later, I sneak into the trailer to use the bathroom, and the first thing I notice are the boxes. Mom’s packed almost everything; our few dishes are in dusty cardboard boxes that she’s taken from Red’s Auto, and the nice plastic totes are filled with her beloved, tattered paperbacks, organized by genre and author. It’s really happening. We’re really leaving. There’s a small pang of sorrow when I realize that we’ll be saying good-bye to the only home I’ve ever known, even if I wasn’t always proud of it. The trailer will go up for auction next week, and tomorrow afternoon Mom, Steven, and I will be moving into the small rental apartment above Red’s Auto.
Soon I won’t be one of the girls of Cottonwood Hollow. Someday I’ll look back, and this will just be somewhere I used to live, a fading memory of a run-down trailer with a leaning front stoop and a massive cottonwood tree out front.
Mrs. Montoya is waiting in the living room when I come out of the bathroom.
“I’m sorry!” she says when I jump about a foot in the air and jerk my shoulder painfully. “I wasn’t trying to scare you. I just wanted to speak with you without a big audience.”
“Oh?” I prompt, uncomfortable already. I wonder how Mrs. Montoya sees the trailer, the mismatched furniture and the faded wallpaper. The precariously stacked boxes of paperback novels and plastic bowls. There’s no smell of freshly baked cookies coming from the avocado-colored stove in the kitchen. I’m sure she visited before she let Mercy come over to play when we were kids, but I don’t remember her ever being inside the trailer before.
“I wanted to give you this,” Mrs. Montoya says, holding out a plain white envelope.
“What is it?” I ask. “Do you want me to . . . open it . . . or . . . ?” I’m never sure if I’m supposed to open gifts in front of people, and even though I don’t know, I know that Mrs. Montoya does know, and I don’t want her to think I’m rude. Or something.
She smiles. “Yes, please open it.”
Inside is a check with more zeroes than I’ve ever seen.
“Holy
shit,” I mumble. My eyes flash back up to Mrs. Montoya, “I’m sorry—” I begin.
Mrs. Montoya manages a little laugh. “It’s a pretty big surprise, Rome. I understand.”
“But I don’t understand. I can’t take this. I don’t deserve it.”
“What do you mean?” Mrs. Montoya asks, frowning. “That money is all donations. Some from our church, and the rest from Cottonwood Hollow. Some of your teachers and classmates’ families from Evanston donated, too. It’s to help cover your hospital bills.”
“I can’t just take money from people. I don’t just take money from people.”
“You’re going to take this, if not for me, then for Mercy. And for your mom.”
I think of Mom, of her quiet persistence that I didn’t need to worry about the hospital bills. “Does Mom know about this?” I ask.
“No,” Mrs. Montoya answers. “We didn’t want to say anything until we were finished collecting. But Rome, she’s trying so hard. And so are you. Don’t let Garrett Remington derail you. Let us help you. Just this one time.” She purses her lips and for a second I think she might cry. I’m struck again that this woman is family, that the people who’ve rallied around me are family. And that part of being in a family is letting them into your tiny, narrow trailer that doesn’t smell like cookies. It’s showing them your deepest, darkest fears and letting them shine a little light on them.
“Don’t be an ass, Rome,” Lux commands, coming in the front door. Mercy follows her.
“You were right,” Mercy says, crossing her arms and giving Lux a look that speaks volumes.
“I always am,” Lux replies. She tells me, “We all helped raise that money for you. Now don’t be a jerk and screw it up for us.”
I nod. “Thank you,” I tell Mrs. Montoya. “I can’t tell you how much I . . .” My voice cracks a little, but Mrs. Montoya knows what I can’t say, and she folds me gently in her arms.
When we go back outside, everyone is starting to pack up and leave, and Jett stops to say good-bye. He pulls his phone out of his pocket. “I’ll text you later,” he says, gesturing to me with his phone. “Maybe we can set up another date that doesn’t involve peanut butter.”
“I don’t know what you’ve got against peanut butter,” I reply. “It’s protein. I thought athletes were all about that.”
Mom and Red come over to tell Jett good-bye. When I show Mom the check, she looks like she’s going to bawl. She buries her face in The Collared Shirt, and Red blushes profusely.
“You deserve it, kid,” Red says. “Don’t blow it on car parts, though.”
Jett moves to put his phone back in his pocket, but frowns suddenly and holds it up for closer inspection. “The screen was cracked,” he says. He touches it hesitantly. “That’s crazy. The cracks are totally gone.”
“Somebody must’ve Fixed it,” I say.
Jett nods, looking at me again. “Pretty good for only one hand.” We leave Mom and Red and I walk Jett back to his Challenger so that he can leave.
“Technically both hands work. It’s this shoulder that’s a real bitch. But since your car is an automatic, I could probably still drive it on our next date,” I tell Jett.
He gets in the Challenger, leaving the door open as he agrees. “All right. I’ll let you drive it home from my next game. After you’re off the painkillers.”
I lean down and kiss him, hoping that Red can’t see us. “Deal.”
Twenty-Seven
IT’S SUNSET, AND MERCY AND Lux are pulling Emmeline’s dowry chest out of a hole not far from what’s left of the ruins. It was right where Emmeline’s map showed us it would be, the last small hill to the south, in what was once the dugout where Emmeline and John Remington spent a lovely afternoon before everything that happened between them. A little help from Neveah was all we needed to make the search a success.
I sit on the grass, my shoulder aching a little, watching them finish the job. Neveah is pleased that she was able to Find the chest so quickly, pinpointing it to an exact location and depth. She dances around us all, spinning and twirling and letting the sun cast a halo around her small form.
“You know,” Lux says with a grunt when they get the large wooden chest out of the ground, “I think you could help a little. I mean, your left arm is fine.” The shovels she and Mercy used to dig up the chest lay in a pile in the grass.
Mercy chastises Lux with a look. “She’s not supposed to do anything strenuous,” she reprimands. “You’ll survive a few blisters. I bet your mom can even Heal them for you.”
Lux makes a face.
“Is it locked?” Neveah asks, darting forward to examine the chest. She finds a twig on the ground and scrapes dirt from the lock. “Can we open it?”
Mercy hands me the bobby pin from her bra, and I go to work on the lock with my good hand. The tug is familiar, the ache a pleasant one that doesn’t tire me too much.
When the lock tumbles, Lux makes a sound of relief deep in her throat.
Neveah cheers, dancing around us again. I’d like to think that if Emmeline’s daughter had lived, she would have danced around her mother that way in the prairie sunset.
“Okay,” Mercy says. “This is it.”
Together, we open the chest.
The contents are shrouded in the same fabric that the diary was wrapped in. Mercy carefully lifts and unfolds the fabric, every layer bringing us closer to the contents. When she pulls away the last of the cloth, she reveals only yellowed letters, wrapped in ribbon. Three silver spoons. The deed to the Remington land.
“Where is everything?” Lux asks. “The gold bar? The two sets of silver?”
“Gone,” I whisper. With my good hand, I pull out one of the letters and fumble to open the envelope. A note written in a scrawling, shaky hand and a black-and-white photo fall into my lap. I read the note first.
May 4th
Dear Emmeline,
I don’t know what brought you to us after all these years, but I thank you. The gold bar saved the farm, and now my daughters will have a place to grow up. Two years in a row it’s been so dry that we barely harvested anything, and what with the Depression there’s no place to find work. I’d taken out so many notes against the land that I thought we’d have to sell for sure. I promise we’ll stay and take care of Cottonwood Hollow like you would have wanted. My two girls and I will make you proud.
Yours truly,
Patsy Truett
I pick up the photo. It’s of two little girls standing in front of a stone barn. I’ve seen a photo like this before, and I recognize the pond and windmill in the distant background.
“It’s the Truett farm,” I tell Mercy and Lux, my voice shaking. “Those are the Truett sisters when they were little. Abigail and Bernadette.”
The other letters are similar. All from daughters of Cottonwood Hollow, all explaining what was taken from the dowry chest and why. All are stories of struggle, accompanied by photos and trinkets and dried flowers from Readers, Fixers, Strong Backs, Wits, and every other talent we know.
The most recent letter is a surprise to us all. Nearly eighteen years old, it’s from Tina, who took some of the silver to help with a down payment on the small bungalow she bought after Lux’s father died, before she married Aaron. She promised she was doing it to make the best life for her daughter. She enclosed a photo of herself holding an infant Lux outside the bungalow, Lux’s hand stretched toward the camera as if inviting Emmeline into the frame.
Lux’s chin trembles. “I never thought to ask her if she knew anything about the dowry chest.”
Mercy wraps an arm around Lux’s shoulder. “Look at all those stories,” she says. “All those girls that Emmeline helped. Doesn’t that make you happy?”
I nod. Knowing that every one of these women had survived what seemed like it would break them makes me feel stronger. And it reminds me of Emmeline’s wish for us to take care of each other. Mom told me that she and Mrs. Montoya took Tina to the courthouse to file the restraining ord
er against Aaron the day he got out on bail, the three of them climbing the steps to the courthouse together, only one of them born in Cottonwood Hollow, and yet as tied to each other as Lux and Mercy and me. We are bound to each other, perhaps not by our brightest moments, but by our darkest.
“I don’t need it anyway,” Lux says softly. “Aaron’s out of the house. We did it without the money.”
Mercy squeezes her.
“Let’s put it back,” I say. “The important thing is that the deed stays safe. And the land and Emmeline’s home are still a part of Cottonwood Hollow and all the daughters born here, like she wanted.”
It doesn’t take much to put the chest back in the hole that we and so many other girls have dug it up from. I even help shovel the dirt back in by pushing it with the instep of my worn-out sneakers, as if this tiny gesture will ever show Emmeline how grateful I am.
I lie back against the hill where John Remington’s dugout once was and rest for a while when Lux and Mercy leave to walk Neveah home. It feels good to sit outside in the golden sunset and let the steady, gentle wind tug at my curls after so many days of being cooped up in the hospital. The trailer, with its empty bookshelves and stacks of boxes, doesn’t feel much like home anymore, and I’m not in any rush to get back and say good-bye.
When Lux and Mercy return, they settle on either side of me, and together we lie back and watch the sunset fade into a purple twilight.
Quietly, Mercy begins to hum our favorite song. Lux gives a low laugh and looks at me before she starts singing the words aloud in her beautiful, silvery voice. I join in, and when all our voices twine together on the last night of all three of us living here in Cottonwood Hollow, I know that everything is changing.
But we’ll always be connected, the three of us.
Palm to palm.
Scar to scar.
Acknowledgments
Once while I lived in a mobile home, a bad storm rolled in quickly. Golf ball–size hail and strong winds made it too dangerous to go outside to find a shelter, so I had to stay put and hope that everything would be okay while the tornado sirens wailed outside. Recalling the experience with my husband in the summer of 2016, I had an idea for a story about a teenage girl riding out a wicked storm in an old trailer, afraid of how things might end for her. Wondering how a storm could change her life.
The Deepest Roots Page 24