I tried to stick my hands into my pockets, but my dress didn’t have any. I shifted to brace my fists on my hips, but that felt weirdly aggressive, so I dropped my arms and stood there feeling awkward. “I was just telling Uncle Scott that I’m selling the ranch.”
Matt’s eyebrows lifted and he turned to Uncle Scott, assessing the response that was forming in his face and posture.
“Tallulah,” my uncle finally said. “You can’t.”
“I can, actually.” I wasn’t proud of it, but I had made my decision. If I wasn’t staying for Grandma Helen, I certainly wasn’t staying for him. I peered again through the open door into the living room to be sure no one had caught wind of our conversation. The guests continued to talk in low voices, oblivious to the three of us tucked away in the mudroom.
“But she never would have left it to you if she’d known you’d sell it.”
“She knew. I have to be in Montana by the end of August.” I hadn’t told Uncle Scott about the Forest Service. “I got a job. Grandma Helen knew. I have to go. I want to go.”
Uncle Scott tipped his head to one side, like he couldn’t quite comprehend the idea that I would sell.
Matt jumped in on his behalf. “Tallulah, what if—”
“How does this concern you?”
“Those birds were her life,” Uncle Scott said.
“Yeah, well, she gave that up too, didn’t she?” I covered my mouth with my hand, shocked at the bitterness I heard in my own voice. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
I pushed past the two men, out into the living room through the small crowd of Grandma Helen’s friends and Aunt Christine’s church buddies. I didn’t want to talk to any of them. Despite my earlier promise to be present and polite, I just couldn’t summon the energy. The best thing for everyone would be if I went up to my room and waited out the whole thing. I kept my eyes down so as not to invite conversation and was halfway to the stairs when I was pulled off-balance into the fleshy pink arms of Annie Schmidt.
The polyester of her dress reeked of eager floral perfume. She patted my hair. “I am so sorry for your loss. I have always cared about you,” she said. “If you need anything, anything at all, well, I want you to call me.” She held me out at arm’s length. Her gray hair was done up in a soft bun. “When Mary’s mother died, well, I was over there just about every night.”
The short-haired women next to her nodded. “That’s right. She was.”
Uncle Scott grabbed my elbow and pulled me away from Annie’s embrace. “Sorry,” he mumbled with hardly a glance in her direction. Annie and her friends looked like they’d been slapped. Leaning close, he whispered, “It’s not fair you get everything.”
He was right. It wasn’t fair, but I hadn’t been expecting to defend Grandma Helen’s decisions. I gritted my teeth and tried to pull away. Uncle Scott tightened his grip on my arm and yanked me so close that I could feel his muggy breath on my face. It smelled of cigarettes.
“What is going on over here?” Aunt Christine said in an annoyed whisper. She eyed the guests in close proximity and flashed an unconvincing smile.
“How come she gets everything?” Uncle Scott said, dropping my arm. “It’s not fair.” Matt appeared by his side. Our little family drama was becoming less and less private by the second.
“You sound like a dang child,” my aunt said, her voice still low. “Stop complaining and take some responsibility for yourself.”
“I’ve been sober five months.”
“Yeah, well, gold star for you, huh?”
“Aunt Christine,” I jumped in. “Don’t.”
She closed the space between her and her brother. “You want to talk about unfair?” she hissed. “Let’s talk about you, with no responsibilities at all, looking for us to get all excited about you doing what we all do every dang day. Life is hard, Scott, but we deal. We don’t go running off to get high.”
“Stop,” I said, unsure of how I had fallen into the position of defending the uncle I’d been arguing with just moments before.
“Dude, we should go,” Matt said.
By then, the room was so hushed, I could hear the patter of rain on the windows and the singsong voices of my cousins stomping in the puddles outside.
“What’d you get?” Uncle Scott asked his sister, holding up his wrist to display his father’s timepiece. “I got a watch.”
“Scott, come on,” Matt said, pressing his shoulder into Uncle Scott’s.
“Go home,” Aunt Christine said, meeting her brother’s stare without flinching. Matt gave up any pretense of a polite exit and dragged Uncle Scott through the room. The guests cleared a path, their faces full of disdain and pity.
“She got all this.” He waved his arms while Matt shoved him, more forcefully now, toward the door. “What do you figure it’s worth?”
“You have no sense of decency,” Aunt Christine spat at him. “We are saying goodbye to our mother.”
Uncle Scott straightened and lifted his chin, his obstinate glare passing over everyone present.
“Go on,” Aunt Christine said. “Get out.”
Uncle Scott spun and left the house with Matt right behind him. Aunt Christine and I followed them to the door and watched them cross through the rain. Matt bent his neck against the storm, but Uncle Scott stomped across the driveway, defiant even of the weather.
The girls, who had been catching raindrops on their tongues, watched as Uncle Scott trudged to the passenger side of Matt’s car. Their drenched dresses hung from their knobby shoulders. Their blond hair hung in wet ropes.
Uncle Scott scowled at me. I forced myself not to flinch. He dropped into the car and his face blurred behind the wet glass. I saw the flash of a lighter and the red ember of a freshly lit cigarette.
“Girls,” Aunt Christine said, her voice firm, “get inside.” The girls knew better than to argue. They filed into the house between Aunt Christine and me.
Outwardly, Aunt Christine maintained her calm, but as she held the screen door open for her daughters, I noticed her hands trembling. She faced me and gave a weak smile. “Hang in there,” she said. Then she grabbed my shoulders to give them a squeeze, and any hint of a tremor had vanished. Her grip was strong and unwavering.
“You okay?” Devon asked, coming up beside me and slipping an arm around my waist. I nodded and leaned in to him.
Aunt Christine herded her girls up the stairs to change into dry clothes. The wooden floor strained under their weight as they rounded the landing at the top and they marched in a line past Grandma Helen’s room at the back of the house, the adjacent room that had once been Uncle Scott’s. The room in the middle was mine. At the front of the house, overlooking the walnut tree, was the room that had belonged to Aunt Christine before she married and left home. Like the good mom she was, she had brought a change of clothes for the girls, knowing they would tire quickly of their formal attire. Perhaps she had even anticipated their playing in the rain. It would be just like her to see that coming.
I found myself a little jealous that she had something to do, a task to focus on that took her away from all the well-meaning people in the living room. A few of the women from her church offered tea to the rest of the guests. I accepted a mug and sat with Devon on the couch, thankful that he didn’t feel compelled to make conversation.
Later that night, after we said goodbye to the last of the guests, Aunt Christine bustled around the kitchen collecting used paper cups, stacking one into the next to form a tall tower. Mrs. Michaels, the chicken lady, had offered to help Uncle