Owen's Daughter

by Jo-Ann Mapson

  “Oh, I’ve been in remission for years,” Opal said. She lifted up her wig, revealing a shiny bald head. “I have alopecia.”

  Skye walked Opal to her car as they set up a time for next week. There would be four riders in all, and Opal asked if she might have a horse with more “pep.” Skye would put her on Lightning. She watched her drive away, and thought, Damn, I forgot to ask Opal for the thirty-five dollars! As she stepped into the breezeway where she would brush both horses, she overheard her dad talking with Peter. Owen was hauling rented heat lamps outside the barn, placing them every five feet or so. The wind was picking up, and Skye felt certain her dad would be dragging them back inside the barn shortly. “Hi, Peter,” she called out. He looked at her but did not wave. The look on his face said hangover in flashing neon.

  Damn it, Skye thought. Nothing I said made any difference. I guess if he wants to throw himself a pity party, that’s none of my business. She moved the horses to their stalls, listening to her father and Peter talk.

  “I could use some help here, son.”

  “What do you need me to do,” the boy asked flatly, his hands in his pockets.

  “Oh, don’t tell me. Somebody has a case of the poor-me blues?”

  “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” Peter said.

  Skye rubbed Lightning’s neck, stifling a laugh.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it. Can you help me unfold the tables? I need them set end to end. The tablecloths are in the box over yonder.”

  “Yonder?” Peter laughed. “Sure thing, Hoss.”

  A slap of New Mexico wind flew into their faces, flinging grit with it. Skye watched her dad brush the dust off his face with his bandanna. “That wind is giving me no end of doubts,” Owen said. “Maybe we should move the party indoors. What do you think?”

  “What is wrong with women?” Peter asked, clearly focused on matters other than the weather.

  Her dad chuckled. “Other than the fact that they are a superior species, I haven’t a clue,” Owen said. “If this is about Bonnie, your mom already told me. Getting divorced is never fun.”

  “Tell me about it,” Peter said. “First, she’s like, ‘Let’s just get this over with as quickly as possible, since we both want the same thing.’ But we don’t want the same thing, and what I want isn’t up for discussion. She lives with somebody else. She’s having his baby. Now she wants me to give her alimony! She makes more money than I do. What the fuck?”

  “Next time you feel like dropping the F-bomb, say ‘pinochle.’”

  “Why?”

  “Because it will sound so ridiculous you’ll understand why swear words change nothing. I’m sorry to say, Peter, but the judge will rule in her favor. You might as well get used to it. Now grab hold of that end of the tablecloth and give it a shake.”

  The moment Peter gave it a snap, Brown Horse let out a panicked shriek and kicked her stall door hard. “Uh-oh,” Skye said, coming out of Lightning’s stall and going to Brown Horse next door. Someone in her past must have whipped her, Skye figured. “Hey, it’s okay, Brown Horse,” she said, soothing the horse the way she had Gracie. Sometimes Gracie had a bad dream; other times, after a video, she could remember only the monsters and not the heroes. Just then, a tablecloth blew by the barn, and Brown Horse kicked again, just missing Skye. “That’s enough of that,” she said, and quickly latched the stall door. Maybe they should move her to the other side of the barn. Santa Fe was famous for wind. As in cartoons, it picked up lawn chairs and umbrellas and tossed tumbleweeds wherever it chose.

  “I can’t believe the stinking wind,” Peter complained, wiping grit from his face. “It’s like the whole world is against me.”

  Owen laughed. “I can hear it now on the five o’clock news. Dick Knipfing, KQRE, reporting live from the gala at Reach for the Sky: ‘This afternoon, the wind picked up for the sole purpose of irritating Pouty Petey even further than usual.’”

  “Stop making fun of me,” Peter said.

  “Quit calling me Hoss. I’m going to find the party planner lady. We need to move everything indoors.” A car door slammed. “Peter, go see if that’s the caterers, would you?”

  Peter clomped off, looking about thirteen years old, as if his mother had put the kibosh on his plan to attend a girl-boy party. Though she hated to admit it, sometimes he reminded Skye of herself. And they both had something to cry about—the end of Peter’s marriage and Skye’s missing daughter. She wanted a life like that of the happily married Vigils, Glory and Joe, who had that cute little baby and another on the way. She had dreamed of veterinary school, and maybe that could still happen sometime in the future. Even if it didn’t, she wanted a little house with cherry-print curtains in the kitchen. All she had to do was serve her community hours, stay sober, and find a paying job. She could do that. Right?

  Skye groomed the horses, polished tack, and checked all the mousetraps.

  “Are you going home to change?” Joe asked her as she put the horses away.

  “I guess I am now,” Skye answered.

  Then she headed home to shower, change, and come right back.

  She threw her keys down as she walked in the door, and was unbuttoning her shirt on the way to the bathroom when she heard the front door open. Oh, my Lord, was it Daddy, wanting to talk to her about the scene she’d walked in on? Skye wasn’t any more ready to talk to him today than she had been yesterday or the day before. But she might as well get it over with, so they could look at each other normally again. She came out of the bedroom, already blushing, when she saw it wasn’t Daddy at all. A familiar-looking woman with a Louis Vuitton roll-along and a matching pet carrier stood in front of her. She was dressed in white slacks, a white blazer, and a white scarf knotted fashionably around her neck. Her small white dog, which looked like a Pomeranian, peered around the woman’s legs, took one look at Skye, and began barking as if she were Freddy Krueger.

  “Pearl, you hush up right now. I mean it, or you’re going back in your crate until suppertime.”

  “Mama?” Skye said. “Oh, my gosh. You never answer my phone calls. I can’t believe you came. You look beautiful.”

  Her mother set her purse on the couch. “I do own this house.”

  Skye’s stomach clenched. “Does that mean you want me out?”

  Her mother stared. “Travel makes me dehydrated. Fetch me a drink, will you? There’s vodka in the freezer.”

  Skye couldn’t move. “I’m sorry. I poured your vodka down the sink the day I got here.”

  Her mother blanched. “That was a specialty vodka! It cost a hundred dollars a bottle. What were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking if I didn’t pour it down the sink, I’d pour it down my throat, because I am and always will be, I guess, a recovering alcoholic.”

  Mama said nothing. Skye could see the wheels in her head deliberately not turn. She did not, and would not ever, believe Skye was an alcoholic. In her mind, alcoholics lived on Skid Row and slept in cardboard boxes.

  “Look,” Skye said. “I can’t pay you back for the vodka for a while, but I promise I will. There’s a box of wine in the pantry. Why don’t you drink that? I have to take a shower, and then somehow get the coffee stain out of this shirt. After that, I’ll be out of your way.”

  Skye turned, and then it happened. Her mother reached out and took her by the arm, the first touch between them in a long time. Skye felt the pull in both directions. She was twenty-three one minute and age ten the next. Apparently a mother’s touch rendered a person a child.

  “You and I are overdue for a discussion. Sit down on the couch.”

  Skye stood where she was. “I have to go back to work, Mama. It’s a brand new job. If you want to talk, I’ll talk to you later.”

  Her mother’s mouth drew thin in a straight line, just as it had before she commenced yelling at Skye’s father. “Fine,” she snapped, though Skye could see it was anything but. “When do you get off work?”

  “Tonight there’s a grand opening party the
re, and my boss insists I stay until everyone is introduced. As soon as it’s over, I’m driving to T or C.”

  “A party?” Sheila asked, eyes gleaming. “What kind of party?”

  “It’s a fund-raiser for Reach for the Sky. It’s at a stable. Dirt, et cetera. You’d hate it.” She decided not to mention the canapés, the silent auction, and that her dad would be there.

  But it was too late. The party life was her mother’s natural habitat. “We can go together. There should be ample time for us to chat while you drive me there.”

  “I don’t know, Mama,” Skye said. “It depends on what you want to talk to me about. I have to tell you, I’m feeling pretty fragile right now, what with Gracie being missing.” Her eyes filled with tears, and she tilted her head backward so they wouldn’t spill.

  Mama picked up her little yapping dog and fed her a treat from her purse. “Your father said you changed your name to Skye. May I ask why?”

  When had she talked to Owen? “I needed a fresh start after rehab.”

  Her mother looked her up and down. “Skye, then. Can you guarantee this time you’ll stay sober?”

  “I can’t. Like they say, I just go one day at a time.”

  “Your track record isn’t good.”

  “You think I don’t know that? Shit, Mama. Why do you even bother?”

  “Do not curse at me, young lady. Since you haven’t done too well on your own, I think I am the one to help you fashion a decent life.”

  Oh, my God, that sounded so mean. “How do you propose to do that?” Skye said.

  “I’m willing to work with you on a mutually agreed-upon payment plan with a low interest rate.”

  “Are you effing kidding me? A payment plan, with interest, is going to help me get my life in order? Jeez, Mama. I thought I’d hit bottom with you, but apparently the well continues down a thousand more feet. I don’t need your kind of help. I’d rather stay at a homeless shelter.” She wrenched free, went into the bedroom to grab her few clothes from the closet. “I’m leaving now. I’ll find somewhere else to stay.” She made it as far as the front door, opened it, and Sheila grabbed her arm again.

  “Now you just wait a cotton-picking minute,” her mother said. “I’m not done here.”

  In the sunlight coming from the open door, Skye saw that her mother had some wrinkles and a few gray hairs had escaped the dye job. In other words, makeup didn’t cover everything. “Make it quick, Mama. I have to go.”

  Her mother toyed with the bracelets on her left wrist. “What do you plan on wearing to that party?”

  Skye held up her clothes. “Since this is all I have in the entire world, this is what I’m wearing. I’ll change in the Porta-Potty at the stable. Good-bye.”

  Her mother took the shirt and jeans away from Skye. “This won’t do for a fund-raiser.”

  “Mama, what the hell do you think? I’m supposed to run out and buy a cocktail dress? I am broke. The last thing on my mind is a dress code.”

  “While you’re showering, Pearl and I will find you something perfect for the party.”

  “Please don’t. If you want to help me, then give me gas money so I can go find Gracie.”

  They stood there silently, eyeing each other. Skye knew she’d gotten off on the wrong foot the instant she confessed that she’d dumped the vodka. But damn it all, how cruel was it to ask a newly sober person to get within five feet of anything with alcohol in it? Was Mama really that freaking clueless?

  Her mother smiled. Was it real or icy judgment? Who cared? By the time the gala ended, Sheila’d probably be back in Phoenix. “It’s important to honor your commitments. Go take your shower,” her mother said. “You don’t want to be late. We’ll talk later.”

  Skye got into the shower and lathered up her hair, trying to get all of the grit out of it. The water hitting her shoulders felt like a masseuse’s hands. If Santa Fe weren’t always on water rationing, she’d have stood there until the water tank emptied. It freaked her out wondering what the world would be like when Gracie grew up. Would they be trucking water into Santa Fe, the way they were in parts of Texas? Would more wildfires take down the forests? So many heavy issues. She thought over the trail ride with Opal. The woman was extraordinary. She reminded Skye of the people she saw during Fiesta Days, dressed traditionally, wearing all their silver and turquoise. If Opal’s friends were anything like her, Skye couldn’t wait to meet them. She had the feeling that they might change her life, even if all she did was read the books they recommended.

  What had made her mother come all the way to Santa Fe? Why now? Surely by now Skye had left a hundred messages for her. Not once had she called back.

  Their troubles had begun in an ordinary way, if you could call pregnancy at seventeen ordinary.

  Since it was too late for an abortion, Mama had suggested she give the baby up for adoption.

  Skye said she understood that some mothers could do that, but she wasn’t one of them. She was having the baby. And keeping it.

  Mama said, You’ll regret this forever. You’re throwing away your perfectly good life.

  Skye said, So you’re saying I should throw away this baby’s perfectly good life to save me some trouble?

  Unspoken between them was the subtext, of how Mama might’ve wished she’d done the same thing. Neither of them would touch that topic, the mother-daughter nuclear weapon that once fired could never be unfired.

  Radio silence for weeks. Mama had finally text-messaged her: Then you’re on your own. Don’t come crying to me when everything falls apart.

  She hadn’t even wanted to meet Gracie. She did not send a birthday card. Acted as if Gracie didn’t exist.

  A year went by, and things were falling apart with Rocky. It was the beginning of Skye’s own problems with alcohol and drugs. She called her mother once a week, but Sheila would not pick up the phone. When Mama bought the peed-off terrier, she invited Skye to the housewarming party she threw, but not Rocky, and no children were allowed.

  It had been the first time they’d seen each other face-to-face in a year and a half. Skye arrived a little drunk. Well, a lot drunk. But Mama was drunk, too. The two of them had a massive fight. After that night, the silence spread out like a snake uncoiling itself in the sun. They began to play the game of Who Will Say Sorry First, and still, no one had lost—or won. What exactly was Skye supposed to apologize for? Her pregnancy? Gracie? Being a little high at the housewarming party? Okay, a lot high. Her entire existence? Maybe it was time for Skye to bite the bullet and say she was to blame, even though she didn’t think the rift between them was entirely her fault.

  And today? Mama in the flesh? What did that mean? Skye was sure she’d ruined any possibility of Mama lending her gas money. The expression on her mother’s face said she was sure Skye would spend the money on drugs. Hard enough to cut glass, that diamond on her ring finger had to be worth tens of thousands of dollars, and all it did was sit on her finger looking pretty. The irony of that fact alone was so ridiculous Skye couldn’t measure it.

  Chapter 13

  “Mama?” Skye called as she came out of the shower. She didn’t get an answer, but Sheila’s suitcase and Pearl’s dog carrier were still here, so her mother hadn’t skipped town yet.

  She was blow-drying her hair, which seemed to take forever, when Mama’s little white dog came scurrying into the bathroom and started barking at her. Skye aimed the blow dryer at the Pomeranian and it ran out of the bathroom, yipping, tail tucked. She set down the dryer and pulled on her mother’s robe. “Mama,” she called.

  “Out here!”

  The front room couch was covered with shopping bags. So many packages that it looked like Christmas. “Mama,” Skye said, “I told you not to do this.”

  “I just bought you a few things. Here,” she said, holding out a dress on a hanger, encased in plastic. “This is for tonight.”

  Skye shook her head no. “I am not wearing that. Take it back for a refund. I told you—if you’re going t
o spend money on me, please let it be gas money so I can go looking for Gracie. She’s the only thing that matters.”

  “Everything was on sale, clearance, not returnable. Just try it on. I think it will go nicely with your boots.”

  Skye sighed. “Mama, I am putting on my jeans and a clean shirt and I am leaving the second Mr. Vigil is done introducing everybody.”

  Her mother’s mouth was set. “I’ll make you a deal. You wear the dress tonight and I’ll pay for your gas to drive to T or C.”

  “That’s blackmail or something.”

  “It’s just a little enticement to get you to wear it. The dress should be bribe enough! Try it on.”

  What next? Skye lifted the plastic from a velvet dress so dark blue, you could only call it indigo. She hated it on sight, because it reminded her of all the things she’d never be able to afford. It had long satiny sleeves and a short skirt, with embroidered flowers—periwinkle blue, yellow gold, and pink—on the bodice. She pulled off her jeans and T-shirt and lifted the dress over her head. It fit perfectly, but she felt like one of those dressed-up dogs rich women carried around in purses: utterly ridiculous. But if she caved in to Mama’s deal, they both got what they wanted, and the expense to her was what? An hour of pure humiliation. She could do it, for Gracie.

  Mama was smiling. “It’s exactly right,” she said, pushing Skye toward the bathroom mirror. She took hold of the cuff of the left sleeve. “Those are called bishop’s sleeves,” she said, buttoning it so that the loose material overlapped in a generous way. “This design is called the ‘Dalia.’ Isn’t that just the sweetest name you ever heard? And it’s made by—”

  “I know who made it, Double D Ranch,” Skye interrupted. “Even if I have no money, I do have good taste. I sure as hell know you paid full price for this dress. Three hundred dollars, Mama! Do you have any idea what three hundred dollars means to me? ” She stopped and took a breath, instead of telling her. Immediately the tears came.