by Karina Halle
“So when did you two meet?” Rachel’s mom says to my dad and Jeanine.
My face goes red for no reason. I see my brothers stiffen. None of us like this question even though we’re not ashamed of it.
The chief clears his throat. “Vernalee,” he says sharply, and the look that he gives her is like he’s trying to fry her alive on the spot. He’s kind of scary.
But Vernalee just looks at Jeanine in surprise. Because she doesn’t know.
“I’m actually the nanny,” Jeanine says calmly with a nice smile on her face. “Hank’s wife, Emily, died when Shane was just six months old.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Vernalee exclaims loudly, hand at her throat.
“Okay, enough,” the police chief says. “They clearly don’t want to talk about it and you made a fool of yourself bringing it up.”
I look over at Rachel and she seems to shrink before my eyes, her shoulders curling in, staring down at her plate like she wants to disappear.
“It’s quite alright,” my father says quickly. “Honestly. It’s been a long time. We’re just all so lucky that Jeanine was here for us and still is.”
Jeanine and him exchange a pleasant look.
My father has had to say that so many times. So have I. But living in a small town, unless someone is new, everyone knows so we don’t have to say it often anymore.
It’s weird for me because to me Jeanine feels like a mother, my mother, but I also know she’s not. Even when I was really young, I called her Jeanine because that’s what my father would call her. I don’t know what it’s like to have a real mother. I think if there is a God, like the one that grandpa believes in, he thinks I don’t deserve one.
The truth is, I’m the reason my mother is dead. I’ve heard it put that way more than once.
“So,” Rachel says in a small voice.
I look at her in surprise. The adults have gone back to talking about other things. My grandpa was quick to change the subject to the ranch.
But then Rachel doesn’t say anything else so I say, “Do you like the food?”
She smiles, nodding. “It’s very good. We usually have ham, but I like turkey better because of the gravy. Did you know, in America they do Thanksgiving at the end of November? That’s so close to Christmas. I’d hate to be a turkey there in the winter.”
“We used to have turkeys,” I tell her. “But we ate them.”
Rachel scrunches up her nose.
“I’m not sure where this turkey came from.” I point at the plate, talking fast. “But we just have chickens now, out in the coop. We only eat their eggs.”
“Do you have any dogs?” she asks.
“We do. All my brothers have one. Me too. Mine’s called Blue cuz he’s a Blue Heeler. But Fox’s is called Red and Maverick’s is Yellow. So maybe that’s not why he’s called Blue.” I stop talking because I sound like a moron.
“I’d love to meet them all,” she says. “Especially your Blue.”
I smile at her. Suddenly I don’t feel so dumb anymore.
“They’re all in the barn right now, maybe sleeping in the hay. Or out and about. Jeanine wanted the dogs out of the house for dinner.” I suck in a breath and summon courage. “Maybe you could come over one day after school. We have lots of horses too. Do you like horses?”
“I love horses,” she says, eyes bright. They’re so blue, bluer than the summer sky. “I’ll ask my parents later.” Her eyes dart to them and she watches for a moment, almost fearfully.
I try to give her a smile of encouragement but just like that, her eyes stop shining and she grows quiet again. I decide to make it my mission to get her over riding one day. Maybe Jeanine or my dad or grandpa can call up Rachel’s parents and ask. After this, they’d have to let us be friends.
After dinner is over and dessert is served (homemade pumpkin pie, my favorite!), Jeanine comes back over to our little table and crouches down between us. She holds out a wishbone.
“This is the turkey’s wishbone,” she says. “I dried it in the oven while we were eating so it’s easier to break. Have you done this before, Rachel?”
Rachel shakes her head, staring at the wishbone curiously. I’ve done it a few times, but usually my brothers fight for it first and I’ve never had the bigger part, which means my wishes have never come true.
“The wishbone,” Jeanine explains kindly, “is magic. What happens is you think of a wish in your head, something your heart really, really wants, then you both grasp one end of the bone and pull toward yourself until it breaks. Whoever has the bigger piece, their wish will come true. If it breaks evenly, both your wishes will come true. But you must never tell anyone your wish until after it comes true. Okay?”
We both nod and Jeanine leaves, squeezing my shoulder as she goes.
Rachel and I both take one end of the bone.
I close my eyes briefly and I listen to my heart and what it’s saying and I hope and pray and wish with all my might.
I pull.
She pulls.
I open my eyes.
I have the bigger half.
For a second I feel like laughing with joy, then I see how sad and disappointed Rachel looks. She was really counting on that wish.
I want to tell her that it’s her wish that counts more than anything, that if I could give her mine and still have it come true, I would.
But the thing is…my wish would help us both.
I just have to wait for it to come true.
4
Rachel
“Did you scare Shane off already?” Hank asks me as I step inside the Nelson’s home. He and my mother are sitting at the kitchen table, both having a glass of wine. I can hear someone puttering around in the kitchen. It looks the same as it always did, warm wooden floors, faded floral yellow wallpaper, horseshoes and steer horns and a slew of pictures hanging in tiny brass frames, a tattered rocking horse in the corner.
“He said he’s going to fill the car up with gas,” I say as casually as I can muster. “And for you to save him dinner.”
My mother smiles at Hank. “He’s such a good boy.”
My eyes narrow briefly. It seems like my mother forgot what happened between us. I guess for some people, six years is long enough to erase all the ugly bits. I can only hope that hasn’t applied to the way she feels about my father.
“He is good,” Hank says gruffly, as if he doesn’t want to admit it. Hank has always meant well and has a good heart, but I’ve seen how he is with his sons. There’s some real tough love going on, but it seems to work since all his boys were raised well.
But if Shane is so good, why did he leave you like that?
Why did he tell you that he never loved you?
Why did he tell you he’d grown bored of you?
Why did he say the town would be a better place if I wasn’t in it?
I remember that night like it was yesterday, the night where my heart bled out. I took that wishbone necklace he got me for my sixteenth birthday and threw it in his face in front of everyone. I stared into the eyes of my love as they became the eyes of a stranger.
Shane didn’t just break up with me, he pushed me away and tried to destroy me.
I’ll never forget that, even if everyone else here already has.
God, I almost wish I could go back outside and do that scene with him over again to really try and hit him where it hurts.
“Raven!” Dick Nelson, Hank’s father, appears in the kitchen doorway, throwing his hands out. The man is so adorable and happy to see me that I let it slide that he called me by Shane’s old nickname for me.
“Hey, Dick,” I tell him, feeling shy all of a sudden.
“Well, come on over here and give me a hug, eh!” Most people in North Ridge don’t have a discernible accent, but Dick’s is full-on Canadian. Sometimes I think he puts it on.
Even though Dick has always been a grandpa to me—I never knew my own because they died, and spending so much time here as I did, it was hard no
t to think of him as anything but—it’s still surprising to see he hasn’t changed much. He’s a bit skinnier, but he’s not frail in the slightest. His skin is weathered and tanned like old cowboy boots, eyes a twinkling blue beneath white bushy brows.
He pulls me into a fierce hug, smelling like pipe tobacco. Like Hank, Dick is a straight shooter but seems to do it with a gallon of joy. I’ve missed this man.
“You’ve put on some weight,” he says to me as he pulls back.
“Thanks,” I say dryly, feeling myself cringe.
“It suits you,” he says. “When you were a teenager you were too thin. Body of a boy, I used to say.”
I frown, almost letting out a laugh. “Thanks again.” It wasn’t that bad, actually, though I was terribly self-conscious about my flat chest and knock knees. I honestly didn’t eat very much, for various reasons. The last six years, though, my body has decided that stress demands food and since advertising is one of the most stressful careers you can have, I’ve been stuffing my face. Hence, the weight gain. At least I have breasts now, though I don’t think my body has gotten the memo to stop expanding.
“Want a drink? Seems your mother and Hank have already dipped into the wine, but I’ve always got whisky and that’s never treated us wrong, has it?”
Whisky? Why the fuck not?
“Make it a double,” I tell him with a smile.
“Ooh, you’ve gotten sassier,” he says and leans forward. “I like that.” He winks and heads back into the kitchen with an extra spring in his step. “Vernalee, you better keep an eye on that girl. She might go around breaking some hearts in this town.”
I clear my throat before anyone can say anything. “The only heart I’m breaking is my boyfriend’s, back in Toronto. He misses me.” I think.
But the moment I say that, I regret it. My mother stiffens, going on the defensive like I knew she would. “You didn’t have to come here, Rachel,” she says. “I can manage perfectly fine without you.”
“You need her,” Hank says, pressing his fingers into the table as he gives her a levelling stare. “It’s been too long. It’s not right for you to have to suffer without your daughter here to help you.”
“You don’t get to decide that, Hank,” she says, and now my eyes are volleying between the both of them. Even though I’m involved in this, it feels primarily between the two of them. “I’m fine. I keep telling you that.”
“If Beth at the hospital wasn’t such a blabbermouth, you would have told no one.”
“And that’s my choice. Because there’s nothing to worry about.”
His brow furrows and that intense Nelson look comes through. “You have stage one lung cancer. It’s not nothing. You have to go in for surgery to have part of your lung removed and that’s if you’re lucky.”
“I’m fine.” She’s practically grinding her teeth.
“Vernalee.”
“Henry,” she challenges, calling him by his full name.
“No fighting at the dinner table. That’s always been the rule, and since Jeanine isn’t here to enforce it, I am,” Dick says from the kitchen, plopping ice cubes in our drinks.
“Where is Jeanine anyway?” I ask.
“Still at the house on Maple Street,” Hank says. “Del lives with her now. She was living with an ex, engaged and all that, but they broke up so she’s back home with her ma. Jeanine’s arthritis is pretty bad so Del helps a lot. And she’s still running the Bear Trap. Actually, she owns it now.”
While I’m here I should probably go to the bar and say hello. Del’s always been one of my favorite people here. I’m just a bit scared of running into the whole town while I’m there. From the day I turned nineteen, the legal drinking age, I practically lived there.
Dick walks past me, handing me my drink before gesturing to the table. “Sit down, Rachel, make yourself at home. After all, this will be your home for a little bit. Or at least Vernalee’s.”
Normally I wouldn’t think much of that since I’ve heard North Ridge will always be my home, but there’s something about the room and how the air in it changes that makes my skin prickle.
“What do you mean?” I ask carefully.
Dick sits down and then looks at me in surprise, as if he’s not quite sure he said something. “What?”
“What you just said…about it being my mother’s home…”
Dick chews on his lip for a moment, his eyes going blank, but Hank and my mother, well they could be sending telepathic telegrams for all I know.
“Rachel, honey, sit down,” my mother says, patting the seat next to her. She doesn’t normally call me honey, so I know something is wrong.
I feel like standing right where I am, staring down at them, but honestly, I’m tired. I take a seat and prepare myself for the next crazy awful thing in my day.
But she doesn’t say anything. Her eyes fill with shame, deeper than I’ve ever seen on her, almost as deep as the day I left, and she looks away.
Hank sighs as he watches her. There’s such an alarming tenderness in his gaze that something in me warms. His eyes aren’t golden, like his son’s, but there is so much of him in Shane. The kind of sincerity that you can’t fake.
He looks at me. “Your mother is in a tough situation. She’s going to move out of her apartment in a few days and move in here. With our last worker gone, the worker’s cottage is completely empty right now.”
I look at everyone. “I don’t understand. What tough situation?”
My first thought, the one that grips my heart, is that my father is out of jail somehow and she’s here in hiding.
“She hasn’t worked for a year,” Hank says. “She lost her job at the library.”
“And who else would hire me?” She lifts up her hands as if in offering.
“Plenty would have loved to help you out, Vernalee,” he scolds her. “But you were too damn stubborn.”
“No need for fighting,” Dick says calmly as he sips his whisky.
“Anyway,” Hank continues, “it’s too late now. You have to concentrate on getting healthy, getting better. You’ve been treating yourself like garbage and you know it. Drinking, smoking, barely eating. Some days I came by and you wouldn’t even get out of bed.”
God. With every word Hank speaks, my heart sinks lower and lower. I know we’re not close, but I still should have been there for her. Our phone calls had been so brief, so shallow.
“Henry, please,” she says softly, folding her frail hands in front of her, the age spots starting to leap off her skin. She looks so ashamed.
I don’t know what it is about being a daughter, but I find it nearly impossible to shut my heart off from her. It doesn’t matter that years ago, when I needed her most, when I trusted her with my deepest, most shameful secrets, she turned her back on me. Didn’t believe me. It doesn’t matter that she left me feeling like I had no one else in the world, no one but Shane. Because seeing her in pain, seeing how alone she is, how bad she’s actually gotten…it’s breaking me inside. A daughter can’t just shut out her mother’s pain like a switch, even if she wishes she could.
“Your daughter needs the truth and you know it. She’s always deserved better. Rachel was the one who always had to suffer,” he says.
I look at him sharply, and when he nods, I know he knows far more than I ever wanted him to.
“It’s just temporary,” my mother finally says in a small voice. She looks at me. “It’s for the best. I’m being evicted, Rachel.”
“What?”
“I tried to hide it from you for as long as I could, but…”
“Evicted?” I put my hands out, nearly knocking over the whisky glass. “Mom. Come on. This is an easy problem to fix. I have money.”
“No, Rachel—”
“I have a good job!”
“You just bought yourself a condo that costs far more than even your good job can afford.”
How does she know that? “That’s the price of real estate in Toronto. I can manage my m
ortgage, no problem.”
“But are you saving?” Hank asks. I jerk my chin back, wondering why it’s his business. He goes on with a shrug, “If you’re not saving, you’re not doing well. And you definitely can’t afford to pay for your mother’s rent. Not when I have a perfectly nice house for her here. You remember the worker’s cottage, don’t you? Three bedrooms, two baths, a kitchen. It’s not new and can use some repairs but it’s got everything she needs and everything you need while you stay here.”
“I’m not staying here.”
“Rachel,” my mother warns. “You really want to stay in a hotel?”
“Why on God’s green earth would this Raven girl stay in a hotel?” Dick says as he shakes his head. “We’re like her second family. You’re staying here, sweetheart.”
I don’t have the heart to tell Dick that there’s nothing wrong with this wonderful place, just one of the men who inhabits it.
“I’m sorry,” my mother says. “I was going to tell you…”
“When? When someone showed up at your door and physically kicked you out?” I’m trying hard not to be angry because I know how stubborn she can be, but God.
“Our plan was to tell you tonight,” Hank says. “I just wanted you to know your mother is in good hands. In fact, things couldn’t be better. When you go back to Toronto, we’ll be taking care of her.”
“Oh, come on,” she says, taking a sip of wine. “You know I can take care of myself.”
But taking care of yourself apparently means not eating or working. Just drinking and smoking until you die, I think to myself. I know before my father went to jail that he at least had the foresight to have money in a savings account, but there’s no way it would have been enough to keep her afloat for more than a year.
Oh, Mom. My heart is so heavy.
“It looks like you’ll be living with us until your mother gets better,” Dick says cheerfully. “It sure will be nice to have a woman on this ranch. The good lord knows Shane isn’t bringing anyone home from church or anywhere else.”