Outside, the rain had stopped, but the sky still hung low and sullen. By morning, I knew, it would be as if the storm had never happened. The temperature would climb back up into the triple digits, and the desert animals would hide in their underground homes to stay cool.
Devon and I sat at the table, sharing a splash of whiskey from a mug with an ostrich on the side of it. The handle was painted to resemble the bird’s neck, reaching down to stick its head in the sand. The whiskey left a honey-sweet taste in my mouth. I plucked a butter cookie from a tin on the table and washed it down with another sip. From behind the couch, Griffith poked his nose out to survey the room. He was a gray, three-legged cat with hair so short he looked almost naked, and he hated having people in the house. I could see him sizing up Aunt Christine, searching expectantly for the girls. Griffith despised the girls.
“Well,” Aunt Christine said, pausing in her cleaning to serve herself a plate of lasagna. “That all went about as well as could be expected.” She sat down and took a few dainty bites. “Could have guessed that Scott would make a scene.”
I studied her profile, trying to decide if she was upset. It had been my idea to invite him to the reception.
“He probably needs money,” she continued, not angry so much as tired. “I know your grandma lent him a fair amount over the years, but that’s hardly your responsibility.”
“Do you worry about him?” I asked, grabbing another cookie from the tin.
She sighed. “He is in my prayers every night.”
I never would have guessed. I wondered if, like me, she had the urge to hug him when she saw him, or if she had hardened beyond such impulses. We had all built up defenses where Uncle Scott was concerned. We had to, because we just never knew when he was lying. But I was painfully aware that the walls we built to protect ourselves had isolated Uncle Scott. His mother had died, and instead of being at the house with us, he had stormed off. I was grateful he at least had Matt.
Aunt Christine reached over to pat my hand. “Don’t let him get to you. This is your home. I’d have been shocked if your grandma hadn’t left everything to you.”
I didn’t know what she made of Joe Jared’s visit, or if she’d even noticed it, but apparently, it wasn’t as clear a sign to her as it had been to Uncle Scott. Unlike her brother, Aunt Christine didn’t stress about money. Her husband worked in commercial real estate, ran a thriving business he had taken over from his father a decade before. They hadn’t always been rich, but it had been several years since Aunt Christine had clipped a coupon. They lived in a six-bedroom mansion on the outskirts of Victorville and she spent her days focused on family. She packed lunches, crafted scrapbooks, and brought the girls out to the ranch once a week for a family dinner she cooked in our kitchen. Of all of us, I expected Aunt Christine would be the most saddened to see the ranch sold. I hadn’t thought Uncle Scott would care at all, and he had straight-up freaked out. I would have to think of a way to break it to her gently, give her plenty of time to pack up family photos and things. Still, nothing had been finalized, and I didn’t want to upset her if there was a chance the deal could fall through. I thought of the eggs.
If Joe Jared decided not to buy the ranch, it would take months, if not years, to arrange for the sale and slaughter of all 142 birds. I didn’t have the relationships set up for that line of business. And only after all Wishbone Ranch business was wrapped up could I go about trying to sell the house with its forty acres. By then, the job in Montana would certainly be filled by someone else.
No. The sale would go through. I would make sure of it. And I would tell Aunt Christine about it once Joe Jared’s lawyers delivered the final contract and everything was official. I didn’t want to upset her unnecessarily. She had so much on her mind.
I gazed at the urn that rested on the kitchen counter beside the vase of white lilies from the church. The dark wood had been polished and oiled until the whorls of the grain resembled a slick, topographical map. It looked far too small to contain the remains of a woman who had been such a huge part of my life.
I took another sip of whiskey and slid the mug to Devon.
Aunt Christine finished her lasagna and hoisted herself from her chair with a sigh. Over on the couch, the cat flinched and came up on his one front paw like he might bolt. “I should go,” she said, tossing her paper plate into the trash. Griffith, deciding there was no cause for alarm, settled back down. Before leaving, Aunt Christine rested her hands on the sides of the urn. She closed her eyes, and I saw her lips move—whether in prayer or goodbye, I couldn’t tell.
I followed her out to the minivan. Neither of us said a word. Our footsteps on the gravel driveway were muffled by the low clouds. It took her a minute to crawl up into the driver’s seat and stretch the belt around her giant middle. She rolled down her window. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart,” she said in a practiced way, “and lean not on your own understanding.”
I hated when she spouted Scripture at me. The borrowed words put distance between us, like I wasn’t really talking to my aunt anymore at all. And what did that quote even mean? Did she really believe I should disregard my own understanding of things? Was God supposed to swoop in and tell me what to do like I was fucking Noah?
She seemed to sense my irritation and dropped the sermon. “Everything’s going to be okay,” she said and reached through the window to take my hand in hers. “You take care of yourself, Tallulah, and I’ll see you for dinner on Wednesday, same as always.”
It surprised me how relieved I was to hear her say that. “Good night, Aunt Christine.”
“Good night, Tallulah,” she said and put the minivan in gear. Her headlights burrowed a tunnel through the night. I watched her drive away, the darkness caving in behind her as she went.
I stared in the direction of the road long after Aunt Christine’s van disappeared. Quiet returned to the ranch, and I was glad for it, but a nagging sense that something was missing persisted. It was my mom. I had actually expected her to show. Some small, foolish part of me still held out hope that she would appear, the smell of cigarette smoke wafting in her hair and a dozen excuses at the ready for why she had missed her own mother’s funeral.
I had to remind myself that she was not sentimental. Mom didn’t send cards. She didn’t keep old photographs. And she certainly didn’t come for visits. It had been stupid to think that Grandma Helen’s death would bring her home, no matter what she had said over the phone. My mom hadn’t set foot on the ranch since the night she’d hopped onto her boyfriend’s motorcycle and run off to Los Angeles, five months pregnant with me.
She had never been interested in the family business. As a kid, I knew she grew up on an ostrich ranch in the desert, but she left out a lot of details—like the fact that I had an aunt and uncle. It wasn’t until second grade, when my schoolmates and I drew family trees to put up on the classroom wall, that the question of extended family even occurred to me.
In class, I wrote my name in orange crayon over the photocopied trunk of a large tree, and then, as instructed, I drew two lines in a Y to form the branches of the tree. Where one line ended, I wrote “Laura Jones” for my mom, but while the rest of the kids continued working, adding fathers, grandparents, and cousins, I had nothing. The teacher suggested I finish it at home.
When I showed my mom, she tore a page from a notebook and told me to redraw the tree, but I hesitated. We were supposed to use the sheet our teacher had given us.
Irritated, she snatched the lined paper from my hand and held it over the original to trace the shape of the tree. “See,” she said. “Perfect.”
It wasn’t perfect. The lined paper was all wrong and the frayed edge where she’d torn the page from the notebook looked sloppy.
When I hesitated, she rolled her eyes and wrote my name across the trunk of the tree. She replaced the Y above my name with a single line up to her name and added a line up from her to a barbell of Grandma Helen and Grandpa