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  “Hey, your parents did the best they could.”

  This was generous, given what had happened the first time he’d taken Hannah to the house. Four years after he’d left Wyoming, he met Hannah at the hospital when she brought a group of school children for a tour. She seemed so alive, like Mercedes had been, and yet so different that he’d been enchanted and followed the group out of the hospital to the bus where he’d gotten up the nerve to ask if he could see her again. They had dated steadily for two months before he decided to introduce her to his parents.

  “This is Hannah,” he said, swallowing his nervousness. “She teaches school.”

  “Actually, I’m an assistant principal,” she corrected.

  “That’s what I meant,” he said, mentally berating himself for the mistake. Something about being around his parents made his brain go soggy.

  His mother offered her hand. “Nice to meet you.” Her voice was icy.

  “Has Brandon introduced you to his fianceé?” his father asked.

  Hannah blinked, caught by surprise. “Ah, no. I didn’t realize he was engaged.”

  “I’m not.” Brandon’s smile was strained. “Dad, we’ve talked about this. I told you Hannah and I’ve been dating for two months.”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to excuse myself. I have a headache.”

  They watched him go up the stairs.

  “Have a nice time, dear,” said Brandon’s mother. “Thanks for dropping by.” She gave a tight smile as she ushered them to the door.

  His parents had come around during Brandon and Hannah’s three-year courtship, albeit slowly, and they now acted as if Hannah had been their choice all along. He bet they called her more often than they called him. They still hadn’t forgiven him for the breakup. Or for leaving them and Hannah when he moved to California.

  “And so will you,” Hannah was saying.

  “So will I what?” He’d completely lost track of their conversation. That happened more often now, since the chemo. He didn’t have the ability to focus as well on two lines of thought.

  “Do your best with your son. I only wish . . .”

  “What?”

  Her voice was quiet as she answered. “I wish he were my son, too.”

  There. It was out, as Brandon knew it had to be. “I’m sorry, Hannah.” He wished he could say, “So do I,” but he didn’t. If Darrel were Hannah’s it would make him another child altogether, and he couldn’t wish that. Besides, wishing was for people who didn’t act to change their own lives—and he planned to act.

  He cleared his throat. “I’m going to call my lawyer.”

  She laughed. “The one who gave me the house, the car, half your savings and alimony? I think you’d better find someone else.”

  “You have a point.”

  They were silent a moment, and then she said, “Brandon, I miss you.”

  He thought of holding her in the night, of seeing her face every morning, of secret looks exchanged at his parents’ house, of dinners awaiting him after an exhausting day at the hospital. “I miss you, too, Hannah.”

  Chapter 11

  Diary of Mercedes Walker

  December 25, 1994

  No ring, no proposal. I’d thought for sure both were coming. Just a stuffed animal that I threw out my apartment window into the garbage bin below. Not in front of Brandon, though. I probably should have. I hate stuffed animals. They’re completely worthless.

  Still, I love Brandon—so much. He’s like the air that I breathe. Why do I keep thinking something terrible is going to ruin our chance together? He’s going away next spring to a hospital in Boston where his parents live, and I’ve been waiting for him to say he’s taking me with him. No word so far. I’d bring it up myself, but I don’t want to be like Momma and love a man so much that I lose myself, my values, or my dreams. Doesn’t real love mean he should support my dreams as well as his own?

  Maybe I’ve got love all wrong. Maybe love is an emotion you can only learn if your parents show you how it’s supposed to be. And honestly, I can’t say for sure if my parents ever loved me.

  Wayne walked into the kitchen, and the boys’ chatter stopped. Mercedes heard Scott hop up from his chair. “Dad, what did you do with your hair?”

  Mercedes turned from the stove, spatula in hand. There in the doorway stood her husband, looking the same as always except his hair was a bright red—almost the exact color she remembered from her youth. Her free hand went to her mouth. “Wayne, what have you done?”

  He strode to the table. “Do you like it?” The question was all too casual. The boys gaped, unsure how to respond.

  Mercedes burst out laughing. “You dyed your hair? You? That was what was in the box?” She could see Wayne struggling to pretend he was upset at her laughter, but he never managed to be really angry at her. He flushed a deep telltale red.

  “You mean the box I got from the mail?” Scott was grinning widely. “I like it, Daddy. You look just like Joseph. Well, except a little taller . . . and a little bigger . . . and older.”

  “Thank you, Scott.” Wayne said. “I think.” The boys giggled.

  “A lot bigger and older,” Joseph added. Their laughter grew louder.

  “I get the point.” Wayne poured a tall glass of milk and helped himself to the bacon and eggs on the table. “Are there hash browns?”

  Darrel nodded. “Momma’s cookin’ ’em.”

  Still chuckling, Mercedes carried the potatoes to the table. “Honestly, Wayne, what gave you the idea? I thought you said you’d never dye your hair.”

  “A man can change his mind.”

  “So we see.” She winked at the boys, who immediately started laughing again. Her own laughter bubbled up inside her. Every time she glanced at one of the boys, she laughed harder. They fared no better. Scott had tears coming from the corners of his eyes, Joseph slapped his leg as he laughed, and Darrel had a hand over his mouth in an attempt to support Wayne. Mercedes sat down to catch her breath, purposely avoiding her sons’ eyes. When they began to calm down, she said faintly, “It just looks so . . .”

  “Red,” Darrel finished. They exploded into laughter again.

  Wayne studiously focused on his breakfast, trying to ignore them.

  The laughter slowly died, and then Joseph said. “Reminds me of tomatoes. Yum.” And they were off and laughing again.

  “Knock it off,” Wayne said grumpily. “Or I’ll go shave my head right now.”

  Mercedes took his hand. “Actually, I like it. You look . . . well, I guess you look younger.”

  His smile returned. “That’s what I’d hoped. But it’s only semipermanent. It washes out after a week or two. Of course, I can always give it another dose.”

  Mercedes caressed his hand, sensing a vulnerability in her husband that she hadn’t felt since Lucy was diagnosed. For him to order hair dye the same week her old boyfriend returned from the past was no coincidence. “I love the hair, Wayne. It’s perfect. And you can bet that when I start going gray, I’ll do the same thing.”

  “You, gray?” He shook his head. “Your grandmother’s hair was dark till the day she died.”

  Mercedes grinned. “Hate to break it to you.”

  “She dyed her hair?”

  She nodded, and they laughed together with their boys around them. Everything would have been perfect but for the looming threat of Brandon’s presence in Riverton. Mercedes wanted to wish him away, but wishing had only ever brought her false hope. No, somehow they had to face Brandon as a family and put the past where it belonged, once and for all.

  After breakfast was finished, Mercedes left the boys to wrangle themselves into their church clothes while she went outside to pick a bouquet of daffodils from the front flowerbed. Their bright yellow color cheered her heart as she walked past the barn and garden to the small grove of trees where the family cemetery had been in use for more than a hundred years. Besides her Walker relatives, her grandparents on her mother’s side were here, out of
the way enough to not be stumbled upon casually but close enough to talk to when Mercedes needed comfort.

  She visited her grandparents first. She didn’t remember her grandfather well, because he’d died when she was young, but her grandmother had been a stalwart in her life, more of a mother than her own mother had been.

  “You can’t let it bother you, Mercedes.” Grandmother put a loving arm around her shoulders. “Your momma doesn’t see what kind of a man he is. She’ll love him until the day she dies.”

  Mercedes shivered. “I just want her to tell him to go easier on Austin. I don’t care about me. I do okay. But Austin gets more trouble than he deserves.”

  “He has you, and he has me. I know it’s not perfect, but he’ll be fine. At least she got him to take Austin to the hospital when you found him with that cut on his head.”

  “I think he would have died if she hadn’t.” Mercedes searched her grandmother’s face. “You told him you’d sell the farm if he ever hurt Austin again. Can you really do that?”

  “I sure can. He’s borrowed enough money from me that I own it now.”

  “I hate the farm.” Mercedes put all the anger she felt into the words, and they came out ugly.

  “Shush, child.” Grandmother’s hand stroked her hair. “It’s not the farm. It’s your father. Some day you’ll understand. But until then, I want you to know I’m always here for you.”

  Mercedes understood now. Understood that she’d needed love from her father and mother. Understood that a lack of love had driven her into Brandon’s arms without the hint of a safety net. When he’d left, she wasn’t really surprised. Everyone she’d loved left in one way or another. Even Austin, though he came back now and again. Everyone left but Wayne.

  “Oh, Grandma, I wish you were here.” Mercedes pushed away the daffodil she’d left on the headstone last week and set out a fresh one from her bouquet. Moving to her mother’s grave next, she set one there as well. “What made you stay?” Mercedes felt she understood that a little better now. It was the same reason part of her was happy to see Brandon again. “But I won’t let him take Darrel.”

  She passed over the place left for her father. He was still in the same assisted-living facility that Wayne had put him in shortly after they’d married—to prevent further abuse to her and their children. Over the past years he’d mellowed to the point where she loved him now for the man he was, though she still didn’t understand the man he’d been before. She usually drove to see him twice a month but had missed her last trip. He’d wonder why, but with Brandon here, the memories of the past had made her angry at him all over again.

  Later, she thought. I’ll see him later. When it’s over.

  Or would it ever be over? Did the pain of one generation always have to be visited upon the heads of the next?

  Only if you allow it to continue.

  Her grandmother’s voice rang in her mind as memories converged on the present. Mercedes smiled and looked back at her grave, nodding. She passed her father’s older brother and his parents, whom she’d never known, and their parents, and several other relatives, including some small children. She left flowers on the graves of the youngest ones, knowing only too well how their mothers had grieved over them.

  She stopped beneath a tree where a mound of grass-covered dirt was still raised, even after so long. She’d chosen this place for the slight rise, how it seemed to look over the others. Lucy would have loved to play in this spot, especially since Wayne had tied up a rope swing with a wooden seat where Mercedes could sit when she visited her daughter. Look at me! Look at me! Lucy would have called from the swing as her short legs churned over the grass. Mercedes could almost hear the words on the light breeze.

  She brushed the old bouquet from the simple headstone and arranged the rest of her flowers on top, smiling when she thought about how much her baby would have loved them. Lucy loved anything bright and happy, especially flowers in the hospital. For that reason, Mercedes always wore bright clothes when she came here. “How do you like my pink skirt, sweetie? Daddy says it makes me look like a teenager. That’s until you see the wrinkles in my face, of course.”

  Tears welled up in her eyes. “Oh, Lucy girl, I miss you. But Grandma’s taking good care of you, I bet—like she did me.” Though Mercedes had accepted that the pain of losing Lucy would never fully leave her heart, the thought of all the relatives who had gone before comforted her.

  Sitting next to the mound, she put her hand on the soft grass she so lovingly tended. “Lucy, I can’t lose Darrel, too. First you, my youngest, and now my oldest. I can’t. Please, if you have any pull up there, talk to God.” She smiled through the tears. “Or get Grandma on it. She knows how to get her way.”

  A hand on her shoulder startled her. She looked up. “Wayne.” He was the only one she knew who was so much a part of the land that he could sneak up on her, however unintentionally.

  His smile was gentle. “She would have loved those flowers.”

  “I know.”

  “Right up until the point where she tore them apart to see what was inside.”

  Mercedes laughed.

  He sat beside her on the grass in his Sunday suit, his red hair bright against the backdrop of the tree.

  “I think Lucy likes your hair.”

  He grinned and reached for her hand. They sat quietly a moment. Then he offered her a handkerchief from his pocket. Her husband, still so old-fashioned in many ways, always the gentleman. One of the things she loved about him. She wiped away her tears.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  She nodded, and he drew her to her feet. Hand in hand they walked slowly back to the house.

  Chapter 12

  Diary of Mercedes Walker

  April 14, 1995

  I’m pregnant. I can’t believe this is for real. I feel so sad and devastated, which is not the way one should feel at this time. I’m so angry with Brandon. He’s still planning to leave at the end of the month. He mentions us, but it’s always so far in the future. I think his parents are putting pressure on him, but he won’t talk about it. I wish we could run away to another state and forget Massachusetts. I’ve finished my course now, and I didn’t sign up for another. I think I’ve been waiting for Brandon to ask me to go with him. I’m not going to tell him about the baby. I know he doesn’t want to be a father yet, and I have no intention of forcing him to love me. I’m mostly afraid that if he learns about the baby, he’ll talk me into doing something I’ll regret, and that’s what got me into this in the first place.

  Wayne lifted the cup and drank the water in one gulp. He filled and drained the cup three more times before his thirst was slaked. His eyes took in the field he’d passed over again with the field cultivator and deemed it ready to plant. It would be the last they’d plant with the spring wheat. The feed corn would be easily taken care of in the next couple mornings.

  In the next field over, he could see Darrel and Brandon inside the cab of the new tractor, pulling the planting drill over the prepared soil. Nearly finished. Darrel and Brandon could work the last field in less than an hour, or maybe Wayne would send them back to the house and he’d finish up himself. He didn’t really need them at this point.

  He was tired. Dead tired. He felt as though he hadn’t slept in a week. It was normal to feel tired at planting time, but this seemed something more. There was an odd feeling in his right hand, probably due to his long time at the wheel on the ancient tractor he’d been using today instead of the one Brandon was driving. He hadn’t used this machine since replacing it last year just before harvest time, but over the winter he’d been able to make it run again, and it saved time to have Darrel use the new one while he battled with this creature.

  He’d been torn about letting Darrel ride with Brandon, even while knowing it was the right thing to do. Wayne had to be vigilant whenever Darrel was using the equipment. Darrel was competent, but he was still a child and had a tendency to daydream at times, as all boys did. Not a g
ood thing. Improper use of the equipment could relieve a man of his arm, as it had the neighbor down the road last month, or worse, his life, as it had Wayne’s own father when he was a baby. Wayne had made sure Brandon understood the dangers, and with Brandon watching Darrel carefully, and Darrel directing their work, Wayne was able to work harder himself without as much worry.

  Darrel’s a good boy, Wayne thought, and he knows farming. They would be finished on schedule now, not running behind. Better yet, this time with Darrel might soften Brandon’s heart toward their family.

  Or it might make his longing take more drastic measures. Only time would tell.

  They were coming toward him on the tractor. They’d be nearly out of grain, so he’d top up the drill with seed before starting on this field. Wayne rubbed his chest, feeling the sweat underneath and the way the shirt stuck to his skin. He needed a long, hot shower. At least he didn’t feel hungry, though he was normally starving by now. Mercedes had gone all out for their lunch today, as she often did when Darrel was all day with him in the fields.

  It’s not because Brandon’s here, Wayne told himself, though he didn’t know that for sure. She was different since Brandon’s arrival. More fragile, younger. Wayne wondered if he was losing her, if she had ever really been his.

  Pouring a little water over his hair, Wayne shook his head vigorously before shoving his hat back on. His hair was still a bright red, and he was more comfortable with it now, but he wondered what Brandon thought. He had stared yesterday but hadn’t commented.

  Wayne felt a shortness of breath as Darrel jumped off the tractor and ran toward him, full of energy despite their long day. Wayne poured him a cup of water. “Thanks, Dad.” Darrel chugged it down.

  “How’s he doing?” Wayne asked, motioning his head toward Brandon, who was coming slowly toward them.

  “Pretty good, I think. But he doesn’t get the rows quite straight.”

  “That takes practice.”