It was my fault as much as it was hers. I let her walk away angry, my pride too deep to stop her, to be an adult. Let her go, I’d thought. Maybe she’ll come back with some sense of reason. I’d questioned whether or not she knew me, to press leaving like she did. Wondered if there was something else at play, another reason to run.
I thought the worst of her that night.
The truth of the matter is that I could have stopped her. If I had, they’d all still be here. But I didn’t. And they weren’t.
I flipped off my covers, my skin crawling and my guts full of bolts. Once, this was my parents’ bedroom, though their things were long gone, relocated to other parts of the house or stored away. I wouldn’t have taken the room if I’d had a choice. Mandy had insisted, and when she died, my brothers moved in whether I wanted them there or not. The twins sharing a room as boys was all well and good, but as adults they’d passed at the suggestion of bunkbeds when there was an empty room in the house.
Nobody wanted this room. But since the house had gone to me, I had no real argument.
With a sigh, I went about my business, brushing my teeth and dressing for the day before heading down to Dad’s office where stacks of problematic paperwork waited on my desk for solutions.
Trouble was, there weren’t any.
Not that my brain knew the difference—it happily blamed me for the numbers. After all, it was my responsibility to move them from red to black, to find money where there was none.
We hadn’t been in the best shape when Dad died—he was just as prone to sacrificing profit for lending a hand to the town as I was. Over the last couple years, we’d run up against a string of brick walls. The rising cost of lumber. The supply shortages. The exorbitant costs of building and repairs that the people of this town couldn’t afford. And then there were the town projects I’d agreed to do at cost. It benefitted all of us to refurbish Main Street. When Pastor Colburn needed a new roof for the church, I couldn’t say no, couldn’t charge him what I normally would despite the fact that churches in general were wealthy. They weren’t here in Lindenbach. Ten percent tithe on minimum wage or a farmer’s salary was barely enough to keep the pastor and his family fed and clothed, never mind renovations.
Any way you cut it was slim, not just for us, but for Lindenbach. We had a duty to help each other, because despite our differences, we were a family. Or at least I liked to think we were. Some days, I wasn’t so sure.
My brothers didn’t know about the books, and they couldn’t find out. They’d worry, running around like a gaggle of geese trying to fix something they didn’t break. If they were distressed, it’d be impossible to compartmentalize, to pretend things were okay. Their worry would multiply mine. I couldn’t stand to see them hurt.
It was easier this way—the hill I would die on.
I leaned back in Dad’s old leather office chair with an unholy squeak that I couldn’t seem to find in me to oil. That noise sent Pavlovian nostalgia through me every time, made me think of all the times I’d heard it and known everything was all right. That Dad was in here keeping us safe and sound, a peace one only finds in naivety.
Now I knew better.
I glanced at my laptop screen where our bank accounts glared at me. My guts twisted as I laid my fingers on the keys and did what I’d done too many times to count. Or maybe I just didn’t want to know the number, didn’t want to tally my shame.
I never wanted to be on Mandy’s trust fund, didn’t want my name anywhere near her money. I thought she was crazy for having us draw up wills when we were in our twenties, but after a very quiet and secretive lung cancer scare with her father, she insisted. I figured it made her feel more in control and couldn’t argue, but I didn’t want it and didn’t think we’d need it. I’d always figured we’d grow old together. Instead, I was a widower at the ripe old age of twenty-eight with a trust fund the size of Texas.
I tried to give it back to Mitchell, but despite his name as the title holder, he wouldn’t take it. Trust funds were a lawless thing, I learned, with rules determined by whoever set it up. The money was never truly Mandy’s. Only in her possession by the grace and good will of her father. But he’d insisted, saying Mandy wanted me to have it, unwilling to go against her wishes. So I kept it, but I’d never touched it, not until a couple years ago.
There was no one thing that had put us in the red, just a hundred here and there occurrences that amounted to a mountain of debt. At first it was just a month that we’d dip. Then a couple in a row. Next thing I knew, I had to skim the trust every month. It was the only way to keep my family’s business alive beyond refusing to help people worse off than me. All that money was just sitting there. It felt like my only option, but every time I touched it, I was left with the slimy stink of dishonesty. Of thievery. If we didn’t need it so badly, I never would have touched it. But here I was, taking money I didn’t earn and didn’t deserve whether Mandy wanted me to have it or not.
Before I could transfer the money, Cole busted into the office with a weary expression, sharpened by concern.
“I’ve got to go get Sophie.”
There was nothing else to be said. Sophie was at her mother’s, and combining that knowledge with the look on his face, I knew his ex had put Sophie in some kind of danger. Hopefully it was only neglect.
“What can I do?” I asked.
“I was supposed to get out to the Blum farm this morning and check on the guys, make sure things were up and running for the day. Chris’s wife had her baby last night, so we’re without a foreman. There are some supplies in the back of the truck for them too.”
“No problem. She okay?”
A curt nod. “Soph called me this morning. Julie went out last night but never came home. Everybody judged me for getting an eight-year-old a phone. I wish she didn’t need it.”
“Me too. I’ll handle everything. Let me know if you need anything else.”
“I will. Thanks, Keaton.”
He was gone before I could respond. With an excuse to stall, I closed my laptop, putting the unsavory task off until later.
But I never did manage to get the bitter taste out of my mouth.
5
START A RIOT
DAISY
It was one of those idyllic mornings, the kind that imprints into your memory in its entirety and for all time—the smell of coffee hanging in the air, the creak of Mama’s rocking chair, one sister singing an old honky-tonk song from the porch swing and the other harmonizing as Keaton Meyer pulled up to the house.
Yes, there were many reasons I’d remember the moment forever. One for my lack of bra—judging by the way my mother and sisters arranged their bathrobes, they weren’t wearing one either. My sister Jo’s boyfriend watched her with mounting suspicion as she swung her feet to the ground and smoothed her hair. He glanced at the Meyers Construction truck containing the reason for the fluster, and his eyes narrowed by a degree.
“What’s Keaton doing here?” Poppy hissed, crossing her legs, then thinking better of it and crossing her ankles instead. “Where’s Cole?”
“Can’t say that I know,” Mama answered, more curious than flustered. Keaton’s brother Cole had been managing the barn restoration that would turn our oldest and most dilapidated barn into a second event venue, and though it was well-established that we would have preferred a glimpse of Keaton, we’d have liked a few minutes notice, at least.