by Ann Hunter
“What about— ”
Alex shot to her feet, everything spinning the way it had at the grave. “I don’t know!”
She knew so little still, and They knew so much. What else was North keeping from her? How had she not thought to consider these questions? She choked on a breath. Carol’s hand was in hers, trying to draw her back to earth.
“Hey. I’m sorry.”
Alex pulled away from her.
“Where are you going?”
“To get answers.”
Alex raced down the stairs from her bedroom so fast, Laura fell forward from her chair at the kitchen table.
“Where ya goin?” Laura asked, scrambling after her.
“North’s office.” Alex huffed. “Don’t you have anything else to do?”
Laura replied cheerfully, “No, I’m bored.”
They bumped into Brooke down the lane. “Hey I was just coming over to see you.”
“We’re going to North’s office,” Laura announced, marching behind Alex. She grabbed Brooke by the elbow and pulled her along.
“You know you can’t just override Pop, right?” Brooke said, “It doesn’t work that way.”
“I know, Stick,” Alex growled.
“So why are we going to see North?” Laura asked.
Alex rounded on them, walking backwards. The sound of her soles grinding against gravel grated on her nerves. “Now is not a good time you guys.”
“It’s always a good time when we’re together.” Laura grinned. Brooke offered a chesire-cat smile as well.
Alex clenched her fists. These two had never been very good at minding their own business. Put them together and it was either interrogation central, or Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dodo.
She blurted, “Angie’s my mom.” She hoped it would have tasted sweeter, but it didn’t. She grabbed at the collar of her t-shirt, pulling it away as though it would give her lungs more room to breathe. Her chest was so tight.
All three came to a halt right in the middle of the lane. They stared open-mouth at her. Joe said everybody knew. Why did they look so shocked?
“Are you…” Brooke swallowed. “Are you serious?”
Alex glanced between them. “Didn’t you already know?”
Brooke and Laura looked at eachother, then back at Alex, and back at eachother. The cicadas were getting louder in the background.
“We’re, like… cousins,” Brooke finally said. “Well, not real cousins, cuz I’m not actually related to Angie, but she was the closest thing I had to a mom when mine passed.”
Laura erupted in joy, bouncing around with the realization. “Ohmigosh, we’re like cousins… and sisters… and cousins.”
Brooke pulled her back down to earth. “Easy there, Trigger.” She shifted her gaze to Alex. “But…. Wow.”
“I know right?” Laura squealed. “She and I are sisters and cousins, like you’re cousins, but we’re sisters.”
Alex backed away slowly. “This is getting…”
“Weird,” Brooke finished for her.
Laura swept Alex into an embrace. Alex squirmed. “Ugh, do y’gotta do the lovey feely…” she sighed as Brooke brought it in too. “Okaaaayyy.”
They pulled back from her, each kept a hand on one of her shoulders. “So why are we going to North’s office?”
Alex glanced over her shoulder to her destination in the distance, then back to them. “There’s so much I don’t know. I have to have answers. Not just about my mom, but my dad too.”
They squeezed her shoulders. Brooke nodded. “We got your back, kid.”
When Alex barged into North’s office, he rose from his chair and buttoned the bottom of his jacket.
“Alexandra.”
Alex’s eyes locked onto a familiar face; the man sitting across from North. He craned in his chair and smiled at her.
“You may recall my attorney, Mister Michaels. Our mutual savior.”
“Great to see you again, kiddo.” He smiled and offered his hand. Even though he had been the one to secure Alex’s future at North Oak, she merely nodded to him.
“Tell me about my father,” Alex said.
North cleared his throat. “Mister Michaels, if you’ll excuse us.”
“Of course.” The brawny man rose from his seat and shook North’s hand. “Another time then.”
They both watched him go. Alex shut the door behind him as North sank into his high-backed chair. He would’ve looked kingly if he hadn’t been so pale.
He motioned to a seat across from him. “Sit down.”
“No thanks,” Alex said.
His Adam’s apple bobbed with a hard swallow. He leaned forward and took a drink from a square, crystal glass.
Alex leaned against the door, blocking an uncomfortable space between them. “You worked so hard to keep me at this farm, and now that I know stuff, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Why?”
“Adults sometimes have to keep secrets to protect— ”
“No. No more secrets bullcrap. I’m not buying that today.”
She noted the way his knuckles faded to a paler shade. She wondered if he was trying to hide his shaking. “Let’s start again.”
North’s eyebrow raised.
Alex pressed her lips together before speaking. “So you’re my uncle. When were you planning on telling me?”
He opened his mouth, but before he could answer, Alex made him close it sharply.
“The truth. I’ve lived through Hell. You don’t have to sugarcoat anything.”
North sat up straight, folding his hands on his desk. “Alright.”
“When were you planning on telling me you and I were related?”
“I wasn’t.”
Alex took her seat slowly. “Why?”
“Because I believed if you lived with the Showmans, a life away from privilege, you’d be better for it.”
Alex squinted at him. Hadn’t she already done that before collapsing at the front gate after Ashley died?
“Money corrupts. I wanted you to stay humble,” he added.
Alex looked down at her hands. After the bad things they had done in her life before North Oak, she could almost appreciate the good they did now around the farm. She thought on North’s son, Johnathan, and appreciated it more. Sometimes he was downright arrogant and self righteous. She didn’t like him at all.
“How did my mother die?”
“In a car wreck. Drunk driver in a semi.”
She glanced up at him. “And my father?”
“Same. They were together when it happened.”
Alex bit her lip, uneasily haunted by that weird hollow grieving she’d felt earlier that spring the first time she’d learned her mother had passed. An awkward sadness for someone you’d never met. She shifted in her seat.
“Why isn’t he buried with my mother?”
“Alexander was not exactly loved by my father. In my father’s will, he forbid him from being buried anywhere on North Oak.”
Alex gripped the arms of her chair, swallowing back the pit pushing bile up her throat. “Where is he?”
North shrugged. “New York. I think.”
Her eyes watered and stung. She dashed away the tears that threatened to overflow. What had her father done to earn such a cruel end? To be buried, at least in her mind, as far away as possible from her mother.
“You were named after him, obviously,” North said. “And you’re his spitting image. That’s how I knew you were one of us the morning I brought you in. I’d recognize those sharp, hawkish angles anywhere. That proud chin, the serious brow, always a bit of a smolder and the look of the devil to him. It’s all written on your face, plain as a day.” His voice grew bolder, “I hardly needed the DNA test to prove it, but I suppose it helped for insurance reasons.”
Alex was sure she was going to be sick. She couldn’t let him unnerve her though. She took a sharp breath and locked eyes with him. Those same eyes she knew her mother had. Maybe a touch of Angie would put him in his p
lace. With the shrine of pictures on every wall, she was either his weakness or some guilt Alex hadn’t yet fathomed.
Her stare was enough to drive him back into his seat and make him fall pale again. He turned his head slightly sideways, glaring at her from the corner of his eye.
“But then I see your mother. And it’s almost more than I can bear.”
Alex grit her teeth, making sure he got a darn good look at her now.
THE DEAL
“She kind of just left me there,” Carol sighed as Cade drove her home from the farm. “Some days I don’t know where I stand with her.”
Cade shifted gears, slowing the car as they approached Carol’s house. “That’s Al for you. I think we get along because we don’t talk much. Can’t fight if there aren’t words.”
“But you’re her dad. Do guys really talk that much?”
Cade chuckled. “That’s the beauty of friendship, right? A great relationship doesn’t need a lot of words. You can be with someone and know exactly what they’re thinking without saying a thing.”
Carol wasn’t so sure how true that was. There were times Alex looked at her so steadily, drilled right through her, that she wished she knew what she was thinking or feeling. For all their time together, Carol thought that girl was still unreadable at times.
They parked in front of her house, and Cade turned to her. “You are so important to Alex. I wish you could see that. I hope you never question your place in her heart.” He smiled softly. “She’s still a little broken. We all are. But that’s okay. Cracks in broken things is how light gets in.”
Carol nodded, offering a brave smile in return. She let herself out.
“Call us if you need anything,” he said as she headed to her front door.
Carol put a kettle on at six o’clock, along with a simple stir fry of ramen noodles, green onion, spam, frozen peas, and scrambled egg. Her mother would be home from her double shift at the hospital soon. When the front door opened, Charlotte collapsed on the couch and kicked off her shoes with a long sigh. Carol crossed to her with a steaming mug of chamomile tea.
“How was work?”
Charlotte took the tea with a grateful smile. Carol sat next to her, and snuggled up.
“Long,” Charlotte said, sipping the tea.
Carol flicked on the TV, and found Jeopardy. “I made some dinner if you’re hungry.”
“Maybe in a bit.”
She looked up into her mother’s haggard face, and ached inside. She wished there was more she could do to ease her exhaustion. These double shifts to make ends meet had to be killing her.
“Next summer I can get a job and help out.”
Charlotte set the mug down and shook her head adamantly. “No way, kiddo. You save that money. You save it and go to college.”
“But I’ll have scholarships. I won’t need it.”
Her mother looked deep into her eyes. “You will. There’s books, and food, and a whole world of expenses you don’t even know about.”
Carol rose. “Please, mom. There has to be something I can do to help out.”
Charlotte reached for her hand and squeeze it. “Keep doing what you’re doing. We’ll get by.”
Carol already did the laundry, dishes, kept up the house. What more could she do? The grocery shopping? She’d need a license for that. Heaven knew her mother didn’t have time to teach her, and she could barely wait for tenth grade driver’s ed.
“I don’t want to get by anymore. I want to do better. For both of us.”
Carol slipped her hand out of her mother’s, and headed to the kitchen. She pulled a bowl from the cupboard and filled it with the stir fry she’d made, but when she got back to the couch, Charlotte had nodded off. Carol sighed, and set the bowl on the coffee table beside the couch, and covered Charlotte with their favorite afghan.
She kissed her mom on the forehead, and headed up to her room, feeling a little defeated. Maybe they both did.
A glint caught her eye. A beat up blue pickup truck crested the horizon between paddocks, kicking up dust in its wake. Strands of hay trickled off in the breeze from the bed of the truck with more freedom than Carol thought she’d have. Dejado waved from behind the wheel, and Carol had an idea. She broke into a grin and waved back. In fact, she hadn’t had an idea this exciting since the triangle theory last summer.
Dejado steered toward her and paused, letting his truck idle. “You’re looking well today.”
Carol tilted her head to the side. “Is that how boys in your country talk to girls?”
Dejado rubbed the back of his neck. “It did sound rather…. What’s the word?” He sighed. “Maybe that’s why I can’t get through to her. We don’t even speak the same language.”
Carol met his dark eyes. He drummed his fingers on the outside of the cab door. She had a feeling he was working through something in his head.
“Are you sure you can’t give me more than a scripture?” he blurted.
She laughed. “What more could I give you? It’s not like I can drive her to you and expect love at first sight. That ship has sailed.” She scanned the old truck, her own mental cogs turning.
“There has to be something,” he said.
“Teach me to drive.”
His eyebrows raised. “What?”
Carol crossed to him, leaning on the door. She poked her head in through the window, looking at the wheel and stick shift. She looked at Dejado. “I’ll keep helping you if you teach me to drive.”
“Why?”
“Is there a who, when, where too?” Her heart beat a little faster, surprising herself at the sudden quip. Alex was rubbing off on her.
“When you put it that way,” Dejado said, obviously trying to hide a laugh. “It sounds like a were-owl.”
She shook her head, pointing to herself. “Who.” Then pointed into the distance, thinking of the back pasture she and Alex often rode past that nobody used. “Where.” She rounded the front of the truck and climbed into the cab, buckling herself, and glaring at the young man. “When.”
Dejado gripped the steering wheel with both hands. “Are you even old enough?”
Carol stared straight ahead, convinced her idea was both crazy and brilliant. “Mister Augustun, we live in a podunk, backwater town. Who’s going to notice?” She glanced at him. “Let alone, care.”
He tapped his forehead against the wheel with a groan. “I’m barely getting this driving on the wrong side of the road thing down, and you want me to teach you.”
“Do you want to get into Alex’s good graces or not?”
Dejado threw his back against the seat with a big exhale, rolling his head to look at her.
Carol smirked. “Let the blind lead the blind.”
The truck revved and rolled into motion.
When they reached the back pasture, Dejado hopped out, and Carol slid over to the driver’s seat. She was glad she wore a dress today. She liked them because they hid the way her thighs squished out when she sat. She tucked hers beneath her, and hid her fingertips behind her knees, trying not to think about her weight as Dejado climbed into the cab seat beside her. She stared forward into the field, hoping he wouldn’t notice her self-consciousness. Maybe this wasn’t the great idea she hoped it would be.
“Alright,” Dejado said. “Put your hands at ten and two o’clock.” He glanced to her. “Or, you know, whatever’s comfortable.”
Okay. They both needed this in a way, she reminded herself. Knowing how to drive would help both her and her mom, and she’d figure something out to help Dejado. She closed her hands around the wheel, slightly off the mark he’d set. The truck grumbled quietly beneath them.
Dejado continued, “There are three pedals on the floor.”
Carol took a peek.
“The clutch, the gas, and the brake. Put your foot on the clutch and press down, then let it out slowly.”
Carol pressed her foot against the smallest pedal, while her other foot rested on the gas.
“Don
’t give it gas yet,” Dejado said, but it was too late. Carol gunned it, and they both shot backwards in the seat, bumping their heads on the cab wall behind them.
Dejado yelped, but Carol started laughing. The poor old truck choked. Dejado placed his hand over his heart, breathing hard. He looked at Carol with wide eyes, like she was crazy, and what in the world had he gotten himself into.
Carol hadn’t laughed like this since Thorne had freaked out in one of her earliest riding lessons with Alex. She was pretty sure Alex had the same expression.
Dejado leaned over and started the truck again. “Go easy, alright?”
Carol cleared her throat and nodded, trying to regain her composure. This time she left the gas pedal alone, allowing the truck to roll forward by itself.
Dejado covered his eyes, saying hoarsely, “Now the gas.”
Carol pressed the gas pedal down gently. The truck stalled again, but she kept on trying until they were getting somewhere.
Dejado looked between his fingers once Carol drove smoothly, save for the natural bumps and divots in the ground. He rapped his knuckles on the dashboard. “I think you’ve got it.”
Carol broke into a grin, her confidence building way too fast, and floored the gas. Dejado sank in his seat, gripping the door. She let out a holler and threw the wheel left, craning the truck into a big continuous arc. She laughed wildly, shutting her eyes.
“Eyes open. Eyes open!” Dejado yelled, his voice going up an octave.
Carol cranked the truck into a tighter circle until they were turning on a dime. She started slapping her palm on the horn. She couldn’t control her laughter anymore. Her pulse hammered. When they finally skid to a halt, she breathed rapidly. She honked the horn a few more times in triumph, and maybe a little bit of delirium.
Dejado crawled out practically from beneath the dashboard, and took hold of the steering wheel, his own hands trembling. “Easy there, cowgirl.”
Carol beeped the horn again. She looked at him, feeling the bright glow in her eyes. “I guess I’m a little more redneck than I realized.”
Dejado ran a hand through his hair, trying to compose himself. “Well, you know what they say.” He gulped, his voice still a little high. “Everyone loves a country girl.”
