Hiking a scrawny leg over the empty barstool to his left, Leland flicked open the top button on his blue plaid shirt with one hand and pulled his hat from his head with the other. His copper hair matted to his sweaty brow. “Wish you could’ve been there, Cutter.”
Grady’s stomach lurched. He pulled his bottle to his lips to draw in another slow swig. He’d given up any sort of strong drink long ago, but often found himself in Jake’s bar for a root beer, just needing that familiar feel of some sort of bottle in his hands to take the edge off.
“It was a real nice service. Lots of people.” Leland pointed to Grady’s soda and jerked his head toward Jake. “One of those,” he ordered. He turned back to face his friend. “Did you know they serve food at memorials? The good stuff, too, not the store bought kind. Casseroles and pies and even fried chicken. The Friars are gonna have leftovers for the next month.”
“That so?” was all Grady could muster in response. Of course he’d wanted to go, but the food wasn’t the reason he wished he had been in attendance.
“Not that they need them. Mrs. Friar can cook one incredible meal. And now that Maren’s home for awhile, I’m sure she’ll help out—”
Grady’s neck snapped. “Maren’s back?”
“Of course, Maren’s back.” Leland threw his head back and guzzled the root beer that Jake settled in front of him, hitting his chest with a fist as he burped loudly. “You wouldn’t think she’d miss her daddy’s funeral, would you?”
“Nah, I s’pose not,” Grady admitted. “You know how long she plans to stay?” Gathering information from Leland was always easy, what with him constantly running his mouth like an old lady in a beauty shop. Grady assumed her stay was temporary, but the thought of her feet pounding the same gold country dirt as his did something strange to his gut.
“Through the summer, I think. Heard her job gave her quite a bit of time off,” Lee said before he took another drink. “She spoke at the service, too. Not a dry eye in the church.”
Grady didn’t want to hear that. He didn’t want to think about what Walt’s death would mean for her. For her family. For everyone.
“Listen, I know there was no real way for you to be there under the circumstances, but it would’ve been good for you to go. Closure and all.”
Every fiber of Grady’s being knew he should’ve been seated in one of those rustic pews, if not up on that alter giving his own eulogy to the man he’d modeled his entire life after.
In the end, Grady was the only one who knew the real Walt, anyway.
9
Maren
Familiar smells were a bit like time machines.
Maren hadn’t noticed it before, how the family home held the stale, yet not unpleasant odor of a trunk sealed shut for decades. But as her foot crossed the threshold of the ranch home and the scent smacked her in the face, it felt liked she’d never left.
She’d used up all of her good years in Riverburn already. Some people would die in the very hospitals they were born in. She figured that was the case for ninety-nine-percent of her town’s population. But Maren didn’t want to be included in that quota. Her dreams would give her a different ending than her beginning. Life would not circle around for her there.
She couldn’t keep reliving that heartbreak.
But the familiar scent of the walls and the hardwood and the linens were a portal to her thoughts. Suddenly, the years Maren had been away, making a life for herself in San Francisco, evaporated like a snap of two fingers. Gone was the woman, brave and strong, who had forged independently into her future.
Now she was just a daughter, missing her daddy and longing for his protective embrace.
Her sisters likely longed for it too, their sorrow fresh and their memories recent. They’d been able to hug him just last week. They’d spoken with him face to face. Their father had a great, strong voice, and it killed Maren that she’d never hear it again.
“Shut the door, Maren.” Josie was angry. They were clearly in different grief stages.
Maren turned to pull the door closed and her heel caught in the unrepaired floorboard that separated stubbornly from the others. Why it hadn’t been fixed was beyond her, but she was glad for the familiarity. Their mama had asked Walt hundreds of times to nail it back into place. No doubt he’d fixed miles of fence since that first request, but there were priorities at the ranch and cosmetic home repairs weren’t one of them.
But that’s all it took—a broken piece of scuffed wood—and Maren suddenly felt the wind knocked out of her.
“What’s wrong with you?” Josie sat at the kitchen table, back rigid, her arms straight out in front of her. She’d changed from her funeral dress already and clothed herself in a pink camouflage printed shirt and blue jeans as though she was about to go feed and water the horses. She probably was. Maren supposed these tasks didn’t get done without her help now.
When Maren was living at home, it was her father who tended to the herd. Sure, his girls would muck stalls and toss a horse a flake of hay on occasion, but as schoolwork accumulated, ranch responsibilities fell upon Walt’s shoulders. He wanted his girls to excel in their studies, something he always said he’d failed to do. His daughters were a good balance of brains and brawn. They had high GPA’s and a strong work ethic that could only come through blistered hands and weary bones.
Yet despite their shared upbringing, the three sisters couldn’t be more different.
Josie was grittier than she was graceful, and though Maren loved her unconditionally, they often didn’t like one another. Josie liked Maren even less when she told her she was moving from their rural Northern California home to the bustling city of San Francisco.
Even now, just a few feet apart in proximity, that distance between them didn’t feel any less.
With angry hands, Josie pushed off from the table. She stomped past, the hem of Maren’s white skirt trampled by a dusty boot as she traipsed to the door. Hot air swept against Maren’s back when Josie flung the front door open and Maren jumped as it slammed shut, even though she tried not to react to her sister’s outburst.
“She’s not mad at you, you know.” Carly was in the doorway to the kitchen, a plastic water bottle in her hands. Her ginger red hair fell just to her shoulders. Carly had become a woman in Maren’s absence, and though she was the youngest of the three, they’d always been closest, even though farthest apart in age. Maybe it was because Maren was ten when Carly was born and she was the real-life version of a baby doll Maren had always wanted. Protecting her from the moment she’d taken her first breath had been natural.
Josie didn’t want—or need—anyone to protect her.
Maren wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “I know she’s not mad at me.”
“She doesn’t know how to be anything but angry,” Carly said as she took a sip of water. She swished it in her mouth and swallowed. “She won’t let herself be sad.”
“I know,” Maren spoke again. “She’s always been that way, ever since she was little.”
What Maren didn’t know was how to be a good sister to Josie now that they were both adult women. Their languages were different, like they couldn’t understand each other no matter how hard they tried. Things were always taken the wrong way.