The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [108]
“I don’t go out there anymore, Louise, remember? Where’s Lucy?”
Louise dabbed at her eyes. “She passed on,” she said. “I came in here one morning, and she was dead. I dealt with it all alone.”
I patted her back. Surely Olea would have helped if she’d known. Louise’s hand shook as I refilled her cup.
Olea’s move scattered my thinking. Was I still employed by them? If not, I’d need another job. My innovative fur ranching ideas would require more money, for years, before I’d see any real gain. And there’d been secrets kept from me. Olea’s marital status, her faith history. How many more secrets might there be among the three of us?
Louise’s lip trembled. “Bring her back, Clara. We’re a … family.”
Olea hadn’t been all that pleased with Coulee City. Maybe she’d moved hoping to get Louise back to Spokane, or even New York. But why wouldn’t she have bought a house somewhere besides down the street if that was her intent? The trouble between her and me before I left must have festered. Did she buy the house with my power of attorney? Do I own her house? What’s left in my bank account?
I avoided conflict by refusing to acknowledge it until I absolutely had to; Olea avoided it by going away.
“Tomorrow,” I said. “I’ll talk to Olea tomorrow and get Lucky back.”
“Welcome home,” Louise said. She patted the back of my hand.
Within seconds, I watched Louise nod off. I stood to take the cocoa cup from her hand before it spilled. Welcome home indeed.
In the morning, cowboys moved cattle through the dusty streets to fading summer pastures, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before there’d be the fall rodeo bringing buckaroos from outlying ranches to apply their skills to bronc busting and bull riding.
I tried to decide what I wanted to come out of my meeting with Olea—besides getting Lucky back. Here was a true alien door. I didn’t want things to escalate the way the confrontation with my stepfather and mother had. I wanted clarity. My mother would have prayed before a time like this. Maybe if my parents and I had prayed that day, the break would not have happened.
Now I was guilty of fanciful thinking, but I prayed anyway as I tromped down the block to the two-story house Olea had bought. A touring car sat parked in the drive. The porch wasn’t nearly as wide as the one at our house on First Street, but it had newer paint that glistened white in the morning sun. The air smelled of bacon as my neighbors prepared their breakfasts.
Olea opened the door before I could lift the knocker. Lucky scampered out past her and wagged his bushy tail, tongue lolling as I bent to hug him. “I knew it must be you. Otherwise Lucky would have barked,” Olea said.
She looked the same. She wore her long Victorian skirt that swept the tips of her toes. She’d apparently been looking at a hawk soaring with the lifts and downdrafts along the coulee walls because small binoculars hung at her neck.
“I wondered if you’d come back,” she said as she turned her back on me. Lucky and I followed her as I closed the door. My heart started to pound and I took a deep breath. She was a formidable woman.
“Of course I’d be back. Why wouldn’t I?” I said. Lucky plopped down on a big pillow beside Olea’s reading chair. Then he stood back up and trotted over, nuzzling me with his head beneath my hand. I took a seat at the divan. I scratched his neck as I waited for Olea to respond.
“Oh, I thought you might fall in love with … Europe,” she said, “and not want to return to this little part of the world.”
“Paris was lively but noisy. And a little smelly too.”
“And Greece and Finland?”
“I loved them both.”
“What about Norway?”
“I did like Norway. We went to Grue, where my mother was born. Overall, it was a very informative trip.”
She put the binoculars to her eyes and looked out the window. “So you made it a pleasure trip anyway, even without us along. Franklin is easy to travel with, isn’t he?” she said.
“Yes, he is.”
I let the dog groan happy