They drove past the hulks of Freitag’s Mercantile on one side and the Lakota Hotel on the other. One busy and surviving, the other barely holding together as a sort of rooming house. Past her dad’s pharmacy, and then past the courthouse square and the sheriff’s office.
Past Mahoney’s saloon, with a history stretching back to the brief boom of the 1880s. No matter how good or bad the times, people always wanted drink. Even more so when times were bad.
Then a sharp left turn onto her dad’s street. Victorian houses, built on long narrow lots, lined the street, along with trees as old as the houses. People who had never lived here found it charming. It made Nora feel claustrophobic.
And finally, Jake pulled into the driveway behind her dad’s car, an old white Caddy he’d been nursing for so many years it was probably now an expensive collectible.
“Here we are,” he said, as if she wouldn’t know.
Only then did Nora realize that she was shaking, physically and emotionally. Stop it, she told herself. Stop it.
On joints that felt far older than her thirty years, she climbed out of the car, stiff and aching from the long drive.
If her dad had seen it in the papers, so had everyone else in town.
No escape.
Jake pulled all three of her bags out of the back of his car and dragged them up onto the porch ahead of her.
She climbed the front porch steps like a stranger instead of using the side door. Wood creaked beneath her weight, which was much less than even a few months ago. Like a stranger, she knocked, then put her fisted hands at her sides, waiting. She could almost feel eyes boring into her from the surrounding houses.
“See you around,” Jake said. She turned her head, watching as he climbed into his Jeep and drove off. Leaving her alone with the rest of her past.
Then the door opened and her dad faced her. The past ten years had taken a toll on him, too. Every one of them seemed to have etched itself deeply into his face, and his rotund figure had become lean. He regarded her steadily from blue eyes just like hers, shook his head a little.
“Come in, girl. It’s getting chilly. I’m making breakfast.”
Breakfast for dinner. His favorite meal. He turned and walked toward the kitchen, so she followed. A kind of numbness filled her as she moved through familiar rooms, the typical “gunshot” design, from front room through bedrooms to kitchen and bath. Only one addition gave any privacy, and it had always been her bedroom. Probably would be again.
“Have a seat,” he said, motioning to the small table with its cracked plastic top and four chairs that were older than she was.
She sat and let him pour her a steaming mug of coffee. He placed it in front of her and she reached for it, realizing she needed some kind of warmth and fortification for whatever was coming.
At last her body began to react to her environment rather than her fear and anger. She smelled the sizzling bacon, the coffee, the bread browning in the toaster. Good smells. Not everything about home was bad.
But very little of it was good.
Her dad kept his back to her as he worked at the gas stove. Rude? Unwelcoming? Or just her dad at his oblivious best? What had she expected? A hug?
Of course not. Too much lay between them, both time and events. Even though she had accepted his invitation with huge reluctance, she suspected he had offered it with even more. Angry words, fights, accusations. Too much history.
And maybe not enough.
She still couldn’t understand why he had called her to come home. The only reason she could imagine was that everyone knew what had happened. God forbid he should look uncharitable to the church that was the center of his life.
“How’s everyone?” she asked finally.
“About the same.” He didn’t even glance her way. Then the first prick. “’Course, you been away awhile.”
“Yes.”
He made up the plates with eggs, toast and bacon and brought them to the table, placing one in front of her. She realized she still wore her coat, so she slipped it off and hung it over the back of her chair while her dad grabbed some flatware.
He sat across from her and bowed his head, saying grace. He didn’t ask her to join him, though once he would have insisted. These days she didn’t feel like giving thanks for much of anything.
Her dad spoke as he spooned marmalade onto a slice of toast. “Jody said you should stop by.”
Jody, her best friend during all the growing-up years until Nora had finally left town for good. Once they had dreamed together of escaping to the larger world. Only Nora had escaped. “How’s she doing?”
“Pretty busy with four kids.”
“Four?”
Her dad let his gaze skim her way. “Two boys, two girls. Married Dave Anson.”
“I remember Dave. That’s a lot of kids in ten years.”
No reply from her father. Fred Loftis had pretty much let his attitude about women’s roles solidify in the Stone Age.
“Why did you send Jake?” she asked. Jake, the guy she had so brazenly offered herself to right after high school graduation only to be scorned in a way that had left a permanent scar.
“He could get away.” A simple response. She wondered if it was really that simple. Fred Loftis wasn’t tone-deaf, he just didn’t listen.
Great. “And Beth?” The girl Jake had scorned her for.
“They divorced. No kids.”
“Oh.” Could she be excused for feeling a twinge of vengeful satisfaction? Of course not. She didn’t have to become an ugly person just because the world was full of ugly people. But that probably explained what Jake had meant about things changing.
Her dad finished his first slice of toast, then used the other to dip in his egg. Nora forced herself to eat a few bites, even though her stomach was so tight there didn’t seem to be room for even a mouthful of toast.
“Not much has changed,” her father said after a bit. “Folks are hoping a new ski resort will liven things up. I’m not sure about that.”
Of course he wasn’t sure about that. Owning the only pharmacy in a hundred miles had made him a secure man, if not a wealthy one. Why should he care that others needed more and better jobs? Besides, growth could bring in one of those chains to compete with him.
She knew all the arguments. She’d grown up with them, and a whole lot of others besides. Arguments about her, mostly, but some about her mom, too. Maybe the ugliest ones about her mom.
She watched her dad wipe his plate clean with a final piece of toast. Only then did he look at her again.
“You need to eat,” he said flatly. “You’re all skin and bones.”
“I just got out of the hospital. It’ll take time.” She didn’t mention having been in jail, falsely accused. She still couldn’t bring herself to say that out loud.
Eventually she managed to choke down the two pieces of toast. The sight of the eggs and bacon sickened her.
And for once he didn’t expect her to do the dishes. He picked them up himself, rinsed them and put them in a dishwasher.
“You have a dishwasher!” She couldn’t believe it. Her mom had wanted one for years, and he’d always refused.
“Don’t have time to wash up myself.”
The bile of anger filled her mouth. Didn’t have time to wash up after himself?