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“If it’s all in the past, why didn’t you simply destroy that diary?”
Marynell’s face grew slightly flushed, the same way it had when she was up on the ladder. “You always insist on twisting the most innocent things,” she hissed. “You do it in order to cast me in a bad light. If you must know the truth,” she sniffed, “I simply forgot all about the silly thing. I didn’t even know it was in that box with that other stuff. P.J. keeps so much old junk up there, anyway.” Her eyes shifted sideways. “I intend to give him a good talking to about that room. That’s nothing but a firetrap up there.”
Markie studied her mother with growing suspicion. “Why were you so anxious to get the diary back from me a while ago?”
“I told you, I don’t see that there’s any reason for you to relive your past mistakes. And I certainly didn’t see any reason for Robbie to have to know what happened. I hope to goodness you haven’t upset her. Where is she?”
Another deflection.
But Marynell’s games didn’t matter now. What mattered now was Brandon. Now that Marynell knew Markie had given her baby up for adoption, what would happen when Brandon Smith showed up in Five Points? Markie wondered if she should put a stop to that plan immediately. But how could she? The sound of Brandon’s voice letting out a yee-haw when she told him he’d been chosen for the internship rang in her ears. How could she possibly disappoint a young man who had worked so hard for this opportunity?
“Markie,” Marynell snapped, “I said, where is Robbie?”
“Upstairs. Packing her stuff.” Markie turned away from her mother and started to cram her own things into a tote.
“Oh, this is just plain ridiculous. Robbie has no business going back out to that farm in her condition after the shock she’s had.” Marynell strode back to the sink, picked up another potato and started peeling it as if the matter were decided. “You are making a mountain out a molehill, Margaret, same as you always do.” She spoke with her back to Markie, dismissing her. “Getting in a snit about something that doesn’t matter anymore.”
But the way Marynell was attacking that potato told Markie that the diary, for some reason, did matter. It mattered very much. She quietly moved to the counter and gave Marynell’s profile a wary once-over, wondering with increasing ire why had the woman kept that diary all this time?
Marynell continued to hack at the potato without looking at Markie, but when she said, “What did you do with it, by the way?” Markie’s suspicions were confirmed.
“The diary?”
“Of course, the diary,” Marynell’s voice became suddenly shrill as she turned on Markie. “What on earth have we been talking about here?”
“What does it matter what I did with it?” Despite herself, the volume of Markie’s voice rose to match her mother’s. “The incident’s in the past, remember?”
“You think this is all about you, don’t you?” Marynell yelled, and tossed the unfinished potato into the pan with the others. “For your information, your sister is in an extremely vulnerable position right now and I am trying to protect her.” Clearly flustered, she pawed in the sink for another potato.
Marynell had claimed the same about Markie upstairs earlier—that she was only trying to protect her. The woman, Markie thought with a healthy dose of skepticism, had become a regular Mother Teresa. “What has my diary got to do with protecting Robbie?”
Marynell whirled to face her daughter again, this time with a hard, meaningful stare, as if she held a gun and was tempted to pull the trigger. “All right, then. If it’s the only way to make you give up that diary, then I’ll tell you, you little—” Before Marynell could spit out whatever was stuck in her craw, from the mud porch attached to the kitchen a familiar Texas twang sang out, “What in tarnation is all this racket?”
Markie and Marynell both started at each other, slapped into an uneasy silence by the sound of P. J. McBride’s voice. In the heat of their exchange, they hadn’t heard the screen door open. Or close. Markie wondered how much her father had heard.
His slender, benign face appeared around the doorjamb. “I could hear you hens squawkin’ all the way down to the barn.” P.J. grinned as he awkwardly pulled off a knee-high mud boot, hopping on one foot to keep his balance.
“Oh, shut up!” Marynell snapped. “And stop slopping mud everywhere!”
“Mom,” Markie chastised. Suddenly it occurred to her that she never called her mother Mom except when her father was being attacked like this.
“Well, honestly,” Marynell huffed, “I can’t stand it when he goes around talking in that hick way. It’s so affected.”
“Mom!” Markie scolded again. “Hi, Daddy.” She stepped into the mudroom and gave P.J. a quick, conciliatory hug and a kiss on the cheek. “How’s that low-water bridge looking?”
“Terrible. Still running high. Almost too high to drive across. What’s going on in here?” His tone was more serious now, though he demonstrated his usual wry perspective. “Or am I already sorry I asked?”
“It was nothing,” Markie explained while her mother presented her back to the two of them.
P.J. shrugged and removed his other boot. Markie went back to packing up at the table while the room grew so painfully quiet that the tick of the grandfather clock that had been passed down on Marynell’s side could be heard from the living room.
“Heard a real interesting rumor in town today.” P.J. spoke as if he were offering the distraction of a cookie to a couple of quarreling toddlers. He stepped into the kitchen and smiled. It broke Markie’s heart the way he always strived for normality.
When neither woman responded to the comment, P.J. tried again. “Robbie’s gonna have a new neighbor. Justin Kilgore’s taking over a big hunk of the Kilgore Ranch, moving into the old mansion.”
Markie’s eyes went wide. Her head snapped up to see her mother returning her stare with similar shock. But Marynell’s expression quickly congealed into a mask of fury. “Now, that is interesting.” Her voice dripped sarcasm as her gaze bored into Markie’s.
P.J. seemed oblivious to the undercurrent between the two women. He had gone to the refrigerator and retrieved a pitcher of iced tea. “Rumor is he’s decided to restore the old ranch house. Got some kind of project going with the Mexicans. I always liked that old house—solid limestone. And I always liked Justin.”
Her father turned and gave Markie a bright look as if something had just occurred to him. “As I recall, you and him was pretty good buddies that summer back when you was volunteering on his father’s campaign.”
“I—” Markie started but found she couldn’t speak.
She swallowed against a thickening in her throat that threatened to choke her. She could feel her cheeks beginning to burn and was relieved when her mother turned her back to them again and resumed working on the potatoes with a renewed vengeance.
Justin was coming to Five Points? To live? Right next door to Robbie? This was impossible, the cruelest blow fate could render. What kind of wormhole of fate had she been sucked into? If she hadn’t promised her sister she would stay until the baby came, she’d high-tail it back to Austin right now.
“Maybe you two should get together, while you’re both here in Five Points and all. Bill Keenan over at the barbershop said the guy’s single again. It wouldn’t hurt you to be social. Kilgore’s a decent fella, good-looking, kind of in your league, I reckon.”
“I…” Markie finally found her voice, “I’m afraid I won’t have time for any socializing. I’ll be too busy at Robbie’s place.”
Marynell’s thin arms jerked with three vicious swipes of the slicer before she spoke. “Your daughter has some fool idea about taking Robbie and the boys back to their farm.”
“Oh, really?” P.J. poured his tea. His manner remained evenhanded and accepting, as always. “Is that what Robbie wants?”
“Yes. She said so. I’m sorry, Daddy. I know you were looking forward to having the boys here with you for a while. But Robbie’s got to do what’s right for her.” And I do, too, Markie thought. She would protect her heart. After all these years, the thought that she still needed to made her incredibly sad.
“Well, it’s her choice. I guess that means you and Justin Kilgore will be neighbors, too, at least for a while.” P.J. smiled as if this was a dandy idea. “What can I do to help you get settled?”
“Oh, that’s typical. You go and take her part.” Marynell jerked her head at Markie, though her gaze remained fixed on the potatoes. “Isn’t that the way it’s always been?”
P.J. extended his well-honed farmer’s arms toward his thin wife. “Now, Marynell. Hon.”
She shrugged him away. “Leave me alone. Nobody cares that I’ve done all this work, getting things ready for the boys. Now it’s just—pfft!” She flipped a hand and water droplets sparkled in the sunlit air. “Change of plans!”
“Now, Mother,” Markie said sadly. P.J. tried again. “Come on now, sugar,” he coaxed. “We’re all just trying to do what’s best for Robbie here. She’s got a lot to cope with. While I was in town I talked to Mac Hughes and the farm situation is not good.”
Mac Hughes was the local banker who handled the loan on the Tellchick farm.
“What did he say?” Markie asked quietly, casting an eye at the stairs. If the news was really awful, they’d have to break it to Robbie carefully.
“Danny was way behind on his payments, Mac wouldn’t say how far. He said he can wait a few weeks until Robbie gets over the funeral and all, but he’s going to have to have some kind of payment soon.”
Marynell flew across the room at Markie, flapping the dish towel like the wings of an angry hen defending her chick. “See? I told you it would be better if they were here. And didn’t I tell you not to upset Robbie! Well, if I have anything to say about it, we are not going to lose that land! Now, go upstairs and get me that diary!” She punctuated the last four words with four pokes of a bony finger to Markie’s shoulder.
“Mother!” Markie yelped. “Cut it out!”
“Marynell.” P.J.’s level voice stopped the women’s bickering. “Just calm down now and tell me what this is all about.”
“It’s all her fault.” Marynell’s hurt-filled eyes were now brimming with tears. “After all she’s put me through. Now this!” She pressed the wadded dish towel to her mouth. “Now she’s trying to take Robbie and the boys away from me!”
“Mother,” Markie repeated, more quietly this time, though she was undeterred by Marynell’s emotional display. She decided to get back to what her mother had been ready to blurt when P.J. came in. “What does my diary have to do with Robbie’s land?”
“Your diary?” P.J. said. “You mean that old pink diary I stuck in the box with your other things? Is that what this is about?”
Markie and Marynell stared at P.J. Just as Markie hadn’t needed to ask her mother if she had read the diary, she did not need to confirm that her father hadn’t. And so she realized that not only was he unaware of her teenage pregnancy, he knew none of the other things that had happened eighteen years ago. He certainly had no idea he had a grown grandson on his way to Five Points.
“You put that diary in that box?” Marynell asked. Anger flared again, quickly replacing her self-pity.
“Well, I figured you wouldn’t want it. You don’t even want to keep my family diaries that are a hundred years old. It was on a shelf way up in your closet. I found it back there when I was putting some Christmas stuff up. Long time ago. I just figured Markie left it there…did I do something wrong?”
“It’s all right, Dad. Mother and I will talk about this later, after she’s had a chance to calm down.” It was clearly a threat, a warning that Markie would somehow get to the bottom of this deal.
For her father’s sake Markie patted Marynell, even though what she really wanted to do was strangle her. But she had to get her dad out of here. Marynell would make him suffer for this trespass.
“Right now I’ve got to go upstairs and help Robbie get packed,” she said. “We could use a little help getting the heavy bags downstairs.” Her fingers tightened ever so slightly on her mother’s shoulder. “We are going back to Tellchick Farm. You understand that now, don’t you, Mother?”
Marynell gave her a bitter look, but nodded when P.J.’s head turned.
“You female-types.” P.J. took a sip of his tea. “If it isn’t one drama around here, it’s another.”
OVER THE NEXT TWO WEEKS, Markie became progressively more fatigued. The move to Robbie’s farm had cost her dearly, not only in time and money, but in a hidden emotional toll that couldn’t be calculated.
And it had cost her plenty of plain old sleep. To the point where she was having weird dreams again. Dreams where she was kissing Justin Kilgore. Dreams where the two of them admired their newborn together. She chalked it up to being in this place, to knowing that he was near.
Every night, after Robbie and the boys had hit the sack, she went downstairs and soundlessly went about the task of plugging her laptop into Robbie’s phone jack in the kitchen and setting to work at the sturdy oak table.
She knew she couldn’t last like this—working until 2:00 or 3:00 a.m., answering e-mails, devising strategies, setting up schedules, just plain putting out fires for her client. It seemed as if she had her cell phone plastered to her ear all day, burning up the minutes. And at night her fingers were tethered to the Internet, a curse and a blessing it turned out, keeping her awake far too long into the night.
But every morning she was up early to fix breakfast for the boys and Robbie and help her sister sift through the wreckage of her life. These first two weeks had flown by in a blur of trips to negotiate payment schedules with the funeral home, the doctor, the bank. They’d sorted through Danny’s clothes early in the first week because Robbie burst into tears every time she so much as glanced at a pair of his boots. They’d gone through the farm’s books and bills and paperwork together and, together, had come to a sad conclusion. Danny and Robbie’s debt was horrendous. Robbie admitted to Markie that it was far worse than Danny had let on.
“Sissy,” Markie started gently, “I don’t see how you can hold on to this farm.”
They were sitting at the same oblong oak table where Markie had been working her late-night hours. Only it was midafternoon and the slanting southwest sunshine made the table, made the whole house, in fact, look dusty and stagnant. Several flies had slipped in when the boys had clamored out to play. The insects wasted no time in finding the smears of ketchup the boys had left on the worn countertop.
As Markie got up to swat the flies and wipe the table, she longed to be back in her sleek, new air-conditioned town house on the edge of Austin’s urban sprawl. As penance for that selfish thought, she vowed to give her sister’s kitchen a thorough cleaning…as soon as they confronted this financial mess.
Robbie moaned softly with her elbows propped on the table, her head cradled in her hands. “But what are Mother and Daddy going to say if I default on the note? They cosigned on this place.”
“Let’s not worry about them. Let’s try to decide what’s best for you and the boys. If you file for bankruptcy, I believe you can stay on the place as a homestead.”
“Bankruptcy?” Robbie lifted her pale face. “I can’t do that. Danny would never do that. I’d rather sell out.”
Once Robbie had made up her mind, they’d gone to a Realtor in town, arranged for the sale of the place, and Markie had taken on the task of riding and walking the property with the appraiser.
“He said it might take months to find a buyer for a farm of more than a thousand acres,” Markie told her sister when she got back.
“Then the sooner I list the place, the better.”
“He thinks you should fix it up first.”
“Oh, really?” Robbie’s voice rose sarcastically. “Now, there’s an idea! Oh. But wait. I’m flat broke, pregnant as a pea, with three kids pulling at me all day long. Well, shoot.”
Markie had just stood there, flabbergasted. This was not her nicey-nice sister talking.
The work and stress had been going on like this for a few weeks when one night in the wee hours, right after she’d unplugged the laptop and jacked Robbie’s phone back in, the thing let out its jangling ring, as if it had been waiting. Markie snatched up the receiver.
“Hello?” She kept her voice down. A farm could be so eerily quiet. Noise carried especially far in the wee hours. Down by the remaining outbuildings one of the dogs set to barking.
“Markie?” The resonant baritone voice was unmistakably like the one she’d heard on the phone from Dallas recently. “This is you, isn’t it?”
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