Sweet Return

by Anna Jeffrey

  Joanna had missed the first half of the game and the band performance of the opposing team. She craned to see the scoreboard. “Sorry. Who’s winning?”

  “Our boys are ahead. Cody’s doing good.”

  Cody was Shari and Jay Huddleston’s seventeen-year-old son, the oldest of their four boys. He was a hard-bodied high school jock glaringly suffering from testosterone overload. Joanna had been present the day he was born.

  Shari finally looked Joanna’s way. “Oh, my God. What happened to your head?”

  Joanna had tried to cover the bruise between her eyes with concealer, then foundation. Apparently that hadn’t worked. She gave an audible sigh. “I ran into Clova’s screen door.”

  “Ouch. Is that what kept you so long?”

  Jay, sitting to Shari’s left, peered around his wife. “Yeah, Joanna, where you been? A fox get in the henhouse?” He yuck-yucked at his own joke.

  Jay had been a high school hunk himself. He had grown into a man who still made women go silly and giggly when he was around. His brown hair had turned silver at the temples, but his blue eyes continued to twinkle with mischief, as they always had.

  Shari had thickened around the middle, but Jay was still lean and trim, with broad shoulders that filled out a subdued button-down and a cute butt that filled out a pair of tight Wranglers. Though he and Shari needled each other incessantly, everyone knew they were as much in love today as they had been at eighteen. In the early years of their marriage, Shari had seemingly been pregnant constantly. Back then, the common joke in Hatlow was that with Shari sharing a bed every night with a stud like Jay, no wonder she was pregnant all the time.

  In many ways, Joanna envied Shari and her rowdy family of males, envied the way Jay looked at his wife as if there were no other woman in the world and the possessive posturing he sometimes displayed. If a man had ever looked or felt the same way about Joanna, she didn’t know it.

  Now she leaned forward and replied to Jay across Shari. “I’ll have you know, Jay Huddleston, if I stopped bringing you eggs, you’d miss them.”

  He laughed again. “How is that possible? Do I look like a man that can tell the difference between a forty-cent egg and one that costs a nickel? So who took a swing at you?”

  “She ran into a door,” Shari told him.

  He guffawed. “What were you drinking?”

  “I got delayed,” Joanna said to Shari, ignoring the teasing. “Clova’s son showed up.”

  Shari drew a quick breath. “Dalton? You are shitting me.”

  Jay peered around his wife again. “Dalton Parker’s back in town?”

  “He drove up in a rental car this morning.”

  “Wow,” Shari said. “That is amazing. Listen, what does he look like?”

  “Like a guy. What else?”

  “Is he still good-looking? He was so hot when we were in high school.”

  Joanna’s thoughts rushed to her first reaction upon renewing acquaintance with Dalton Parker. Yep, he’s hot.

  “And you’re an expert on hot,” Jay said, veering a sidelong glance at his wife.

  “I married you, didn’t I?” She slugged his shoulder with her small fist and let her hand rest there. Joanna had figured out long ago that with Shari and Jay, this sarcastic back-and-forth was nothing more—or less—than foreplay. More than once she had wondered if they jumped into bed the minute they reached home.

  “He’s still hot to look at,” Joanna said. “But he’s an absolute and totally arrogant jerk.”

  “I can’t believe that,” Jay said. “We played football together, him and me. I always thought he was a good guy. He was a couple of years older and smarter’n all the rest of us, but still a good guy.”

  “He must have changed,” Joanna said. “I’m not sure I’d call him a good guy. And I didn’t see anything that made me believe the smart part.”

  The band left the field and formed up in two columns in the end zone, setting up a great roll of drums. A double row of cheerleaders and pep squad members lined up at the oversize doorway leading from the dressing rooms.

  “Here they come, Mama.” Jay slapped Shari’s knee, then stood up, whistling and clapping his hands.

  Seconds later, Hatlow’s Mustangs, brightly uniformed in black and gold, ran the gauntlet of supporters to drum rolls and cheers and whistles from the bleachers.

  “Joanna,” Jay said, looking back at her across his shoulder as he continued to clap to the rhythm of the band music. “I want you to keep an eye on Cody this half. He’s doing a damn good job.”

  Joanna could see the pride and excitement in Jay. Every time she saw that enthusiasm in him, she couldn’t keep from remembering the day of Cody’s birth. On that day, Jay’s expression had been closer to bewilderment than pride. He was eighteen years old, still a few weeks away from high school graduation.

  “The one I want you to keep an eye on is that little blond cheerleader with the hair down to her butt,” Shari said. “Jay caught Cody and her half naked in the backseat of his pickup last night.”

  Knowing Cody as she did, Joanna could envision the scene. She remembered Jay being much the same when they were in high school. Joanna gazed harder at the line of cheerleaders wearing short black skirts and bright gold sweaters. The subject blonde looked like a typical high school hottie. “Like father, like son,” she said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Shari asked.

  “Nothing. I just remember how it used to be when we were kids.”

  Of Joanna’s small circle of close friends in high school, Shari had been the first to “do it.” In high school in Hatlow, Texas, that had been a big deal. Just those few years ago, there were no reports of thirteen-year-olds engaging in sex acts for entertainment. Shari had shocked all of them by declaring her intention to “go all the way” with Jay, and the remaining virgins eagerly awaited her report at the following night’s slumber party. “It was icky and messy and I didn’t like it,” Shari said. Obviously her attitude had changed.

  “Where were they parked?” Joanna asked.

  “Right here under these bleachers,” Shari answered, pointing downward with her thumb. “So he’s grounded. Jay and him are gonna be spending some quality father-son time every evening until Cody’s forty.”

  “Humph,” Joanna said. “I suppose he hasn’t figured out that his mother was six months pregnant when she and his father got married.”

  “We don’t discuss that.”

  The teams lined up across the field, facing each other for the kickoff. Drums rolled and everyone in the stands stood up, sounding out a collective “ooooohhh” until the kicker booted the ball. With the game under way and boosters seated again, the band broke into Hatlow’s fight song. The cheerleaders set up a chant and another hand-clapping routine.

  Clapping to the rhythm of the music, Shari leaned toward Joanna. “Jay and I are celebrating my birthday Wednesday night. He’s taking me to the Rusty Spur over at the state line.”

  Oops. Joanna had forgotten Shari’s upcoming birthday. What kind of friend was she? “They have a band on a weeknight?”

  “No, just the jukebox, but that’s okay. You’re gonna come with us, right?”

  “Oh, damn, Shari. I don’t know if I can do it on a weeknight. I get up with the chickens, you know. Literally.”

  “Joanna, I’ll be thirty-six years old. You’re my best friend. You’ve got to be there to witness me going over the hill.”

  “You’re not over the hill ’til you’re forty.”

  Jay piped up. “When you live in a house with four half-grown boys, you’re over the hill at thirty-five. Believe me. C’mon, Joanna. Go with us. Some horny dude might be lurking in the Spur. When was the last time you got a little?”

  “Jay!” Shari punched his arm. “That’s none of your business.”

  “I’ll go on one condition,” Joanna said. “I have to get home—”

  “Get him! Get him! Stop him!” Jay leapt to his feet, yelling and waving his fist. He
slapped Shari on the shoulder with a ham-size hand and nearly unseated her. “Did you see that, Mama? Did you see that?”

  “Oh, hell, I missed it,” Shari said, squinting toward the huddled football players. “Is Cody still on the field?”

  Jay gave an exaggerated sigh and clasped the sides of his head with both hands. “God Almighty, Shari. Not anymore. He’s an offensive lineman. The other team got the ball.”

  “Oh.” Still, she sprang to her feet and thrust a fist in the air. “Go, Cody!” Then she sat back down and refocused on Joanna. “Anyway, you’re gonna come with us, right?”

  “I guess so,” Joanna replied, already regretting making the commitment. She would prefer to take Shari to lunch, just the two of them, and give her a nice present.

  Dalton had forgotten what a fine cook his mother was. She, on the other hand, must have remembered how much he used to love chicken-fried steak with mashed potatoes and cream gravy. These days he rarely ate such fare, but tonight he stuffed himself.

  Joanna Walsh would be sorry she didn’t stay for supper. He was still annoyed that she hadn’t been all that accepting of his apology. He thought he had been gracious.

  Mom topped off the meal with hot peach cobbler made from home-canned peaches, and he couldn’t resist a serving with some vanilla ice cream.

  After they ate, he helped police the kitchen. Mom washed dishes by hand, he noticed, then recalled how the ranch’s hard water calcified plumbing. A dishwasher would have stood no chance. He dried the dishes for her, something he had done as a child, stacking them as he dried them on the ancient butcher block that had sat in the middle of the kitchen for as long as he could remember.

  He strained for conversation. Communication was hard with a woman he hardly knew anymore. Hell, he had never known her, really. She had been a puzzle to him forever.

  Now even her appearance seemed alien. The face of the mother that had always been affixed in his mind didn’t show deep creases around her mouth or fans of wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. It struck him as he glimpsed her profile that though she had aged, he could still see the strong resemblance between himself and her—the dark brown eyes and black hair, the prominent facial features, the same olive skin. Anyone could tell they were blood kin.

  “I’m glad you went to the hospital and saw Lane,” she said. “You always meant a lot to him.”

  Dalton didn’t like being reminded of that. Guilt pinched him that he had made little effort to stay in touch with Lane. He had sent a postcard from here, a snapshot from there, some silly souvenir that had little meaning. “He looks pitiful lying in that hospital bed.”

  “I’m pretty sure a drunk drivin’ charge is comin’. I asked Clyde to find us a lawyer.”

  Clyde, Clyde, Clyde. Dalton searched his memory. “I must have forgotten who Clyde is.”

  “Clyde Jordan? Why, Dalton Parker, I can’t believe you don’t remember him. He’s been a friend o’ this family since I was a girl. Lord, he was friends with my daddy.”

  An old guy, Dalton thought. He had probably never known him. “Do you know what Lane’s blood alcohol was?”

  She shook her head. “I ’magine it was too high. He’s been hittin’ the bottle hard. He don’t seem to be able to help hisself. Too bad he can’t go to one o’ them fancy clinics like them movie stars go to.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Dalton said, recalling that a penchant for alcoholism is hereditary. He might not know his father’s identity, but he was glad not to be the spawn of Earl Cherry.

  The chickens had been stuck in his mind since the moment he saw them and more so after he learned the story of them. He wanted to bring them up, but he didn’t want to risk a quarrel so soon after his arrival. The chickens could wait. “So what’s going on with the ranch, Mom?” He carefully set a dried bowl on top of another one. “That back fence looked like it hasn’t been taken care of in a helluva long time.”

  “The ranch ain’t got no money, Dalton. It’s been touch and go for a long time. The drought, cattle prices. Somethin’ new I can’t do nothin’ about comes up ever’ day. A lot of the old-timers have sold out.” She rearranged the dishes waiting to be dried in the dish drainer. “Sometimes I think I ought to, too, but if I did, I wouldn’t get nothin’ in my pocket. The bank would get it all. Then I’d be even poorer than I am now.”

  A red flag unfurled in Dalton’s mind. “Farmers Bank downtown? Do you owe them much?”

  “They’re holdin’ paper on ever’thin’.”

  As Dalton recalled, it wasn’t unusual for some part of a rancher’s livestock and equipment to be used as collateral for operating loans. “But not the land, right?”

  She continued to wash dishes without acknowledging his question.

  “Mom. You’ve mortgaged the land?” He couldn’t mask the incredulity in the question. His grandpa, her father, would have said a rancher who mortgaged his land was on his way to doomsday.

  She heaved a huge sigh, still not looking at him. “’Til Lane got hurt, that was my worst trouble.” She shook water from her hands, picked up a dish towel and dried them, then walked over to an envelope-filled pocket hanging on the wall. She picked one and brought it back to him. “I wasn’t gonna bother you with this, but I guess you might as well know it. I ’magine ever’body in town knows it.”

  He slung the dish towel over his shoulder and took the envelope. The letter inside warned her that the land taxes hadn’t been paid for the past two years and failure to pay them was grounds for foreclosure. A copy of a summary from the county tax assessor was attached. He saw that the ranch had an agriculture tax exemption, but still, two years’ worth of taxes on seventeen sections added up. He looked up at her, but her eyes and hands were busy with scrubbing a skillet.

  “But you’ve banked there forever,” he said. “They know you. They’ll work with you. Just go talk to them.”

  She stopped her work and finally looked at him, and he saw the angst that was in her heart in her eyes.

  “No, Dalton. Things is changed. Some foreigners bought the bank. Ain’t even any o’ the old people workin’ there anymore. They wanted ever’body that worked there to speak Spanish. Most of ’em quit. They didn’t wanna speak Spanish.”

  Puzzled, Dalton’s eyes narrowed. “So who owns the bank now?”

  “I don’t know ’em. It’s a bank from Spain.”

  “Spain? As in Europe? How the hell did a bank in Spain even find Hatlow, Texas?”

  “I don’t know. They’ve bought a bunch o’ the banks in the little towns around. All I know is they ain’t farmer friendly anymore. They want the Mexcun bizness. They’s gettin’ to be more Mexcuns than Americans around here.”

  As a resident of Southern California, Dalton well knew the dramatic changes brought by the massive Latino immigration. He had no trouble believing that the bank, seeking the Hispanic business, would require its employees to speak Spanish before it would insist that the Hispanic customers speak English. He made a mental note. Monday morning he would be on Farmers Bank’s doorstep. He would get to the bottom of this situation.

  “So, Mom, that back pasture looks awful. There’s big chunks of bare dirt back there. How many cows are you grazing now?”

  “I got a little over four hundred mother cows.”

  The longer Dalton had been removed from the ranching industry, the farther it had receded in his thoughts, but bits came back to him. He did a simple arithmetic calculation in his head, at the same time considering that raising cattle in the arid environment of West Texas called for deft range management. Four hundred cows plus their calves were too many for the amount of grazing the Parker ranch owned. An even bigger red flag waved in his mind. “That sounds like a lot.”

  She shrugged. “Lane thought if we added some extra cows, in a couple o’ years, we’d get ahead o’ the bank. If we could o’ got some rain, it might o’ worked. When the Good Lord didn’t bless us, I thought we could get out of it by buyin’ a little extra feed. But since they started makin’
gasoline outta all the corn, feed’s got so damn high. Besides that, feedin’ every day makes a lot o’ extra work.”

  Thoughts tumbled through Dalton’s mind. Over-grazing was a disaster irremediable in a short amount of time. In a fuckin’ desert, it could take a generation. Hell, it was possible it couldn’t be fixed at all. A sharp ache traveled from temple to temple through his brain. By coming back here, what the hell had he stepped into?

  His mother finished straightening the kitchen, came over to him and looked into his face. She reached up and laid a hand on his shoulder. “I thank you for comin’ home, Dalton. Seein’ you makes me happy. You’ve been gone a long time.”

  He patted her hand, his mind still on the ranch’s problems. “I know, Mom. I’ve just been…well, busy.”

  “I think I’ll turn in.” She gave him a weak smile, placing a hand on her back and rubbing. “That fence buildin’s hard on an ol’ woman.”

  Dalton watched as she left the kitchen and disappeared into the hallway, the visual from earlier in the afternoon of her and that teenage kid struggling with a wire stretcher vivid in his mind. She was a small woman, probably didn’t weigh much over a hundred pounds. She had no business building fence. But what the hell could he do about any of it? He didn’t live here anymore.

  He turned on the TV and channel surfed a while, then settled on a news channel out of habit. TV news was so much a part of his life, he felt as if he knew the commentators personally. He could even predict what some of them would say next. World events dictated his daily plan. A part of him was trained to wonder if there was somewhere in the world he needed to be. Somewhere besides Texas.

  Chapter 9

  Joanna, Shari and Jay left the Hatlow High School stadium soon after ten o’clock. Hatlow’s Mustangs had won, a fact that had Jay overjoyed. As far as Joanna knew, Jay and Shari, having gotten married so young, had rarely been out of Wacker County. Their son’s participation in high school football was the most exciting thing in Jay’s life. For that matter, most of Hatlow was the same.