Writing Free

Chapter 37

   Button was six and ready for first grade when we came home to Danford to stay. I started reclaiming my lost life by playing the piano for the Baptist Church. It wasn’t that I derived any spiritual comfort there, but I basked in the praise of the people for my music.

  Then, in January of 1956, I began my career as the librarian for the Danford Public Schools, spending mornings in the elementary school library and afternoons at the high school. It wasn’t long before I began to stay late two afternoons a week to accompany the newly reformed Glee Club.

  Unfortunately, the Glee Club met in the basement, and there was only one entrance, an outside one with a dozen steep concrete stairs which I couldn’t safely navigate. Besides, to take the strain off my always painful twisted back, I used my wheelchair to move between the two libraries and other places in the school.

  Some of the brawniest members of the football team were also proud members of the Glee Club, and the first afternoon when I sat staring at the forbidding stairs, two of them simply picked me up, wheelchair and all, and carried me down. From somewhere, Anna Lee’s words came back and out of my mouth. “Drop me, and I’ll cut out your gizzards!”After that, I was known as “Miz Giz”, and I never lacked someone to push my chair or offer needed help which I learned to accept graciously.

  Toward the end of the year, one of the school board members saw Todd and George Alan pick up my chair and start down the stairs and came close to collapsing on the spot. When I came back in September, a sturdy ramp had been constructed on top of the entire narrow staircase. The boys were disappointed—but I assured them it was for the best.

  By the time Will and Ruthie were seniors three years later, Francie was hugely pregnant with her whoops. She blamed it on a weekend trip she and Tank took to San Angelo. Ruthie professed being mortified and unable to show her face in school until Tank threatened to take a paddle to her backside. Having never touched any of his children—the disgrace of the naughty corner or withheld privileges always sufficed—Ruthie wasn’t worried about him changing tactics now, but she didn’t like being ignored when she was pouting and trying to make a statement. And she was right there when Christina Frances was born three days after graduation.

  Francie had finally heard from an unknown cousin in Poland. Christinza had been with Mrs. Walkinski at Dachau, but it had taken her thirteen years to track down Francie in Texas. She wrote of Mrs. Walinski’s unflagging assurance that they would come through everything and be in Danford someday. She kept us alive, my brother and me, giving us most of her bread and gruel, but one day she couldn’t get up, and when we came in from working, she was gone. We never saw her again, but we will never forget her. We owe her our lives. Bread, gruel, hope, love lost when our parents were shot in our village before we were sent to the camps, she gave us all of this. We honor her forever. She spoke of you often, Franciszka, and loved you with all her heart.

  Francie managed to translate the letter although she hadn’t spoken Polish in many years and sobbed as she re-read the letter to all of us at lunch the next Sunday after church. “Knowing is better than not knowing,” she said, but we had always known she’d never given up hope. Tank took her to San Angelo that weekend, and we all felt that hope—and Mrs. Walinski— lived again in Chrissy with her mother’s dark curly hair and olive skin.

  Then, because Francie and Tank never seemed to add to their family without Vic and Peggy adding to theirs, Aaron came to them about a baby girl with an inoperable heart defect who had been abandoned in the hospital by her parents who couldn’t cope. As with all things, the family weighed in around the kitchen table, and when Chrissy was six months old, Vic, Peggy, Rosie, Randy, and Jake brought Robyn Margaret home.

  We called her Robbie, and all the children doted on her needs as they had on Button’s. For a year she just struggled to stay alive. Aaron had given her two years, but by the time she was three, she was speaking in complete sentences and adapting to moderate cerebral palsy requiring braces and crutches that didn’t dampen her spirits. She and Chrissy seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time in the naughty corner, but nobody really cared. Robby was alive and thriving, and we almost forgot Aaron’s dire predictions.

  So the children grew up, and we grew older, perhaps wiser, and certainly I felt happier and more at peace every day. Will, Ruthie, John Gordon, Grace Ann, Chrissy, Rosie, Randy, Jake, Robbie, and Button were short of Dutch’s dozen. Of course, Mary Nelle and the baby boy I’d lost would’ve done that, but I never mentioned that nor did anyone else.

  Button continued to voluntarily send birthday, Christmas, and Valentine cards to Bix and include short notes about what she was doing in school. I never encouraged her, just put the stamps on the envelopes and mailed them, and she never mentioned that he never acknowledged a single one. Vic and Tank had taken over in the father department, and she never seemed to feel a lack. I hoped it lasted forever.

  Aaron kept his distance and acted professionally when he saw Button or me. He worried about my blood pressure, calling it idiosyncratic. “I can’t find a single cause,” he’d grumble, but he managed to keep it reasonable with medication which I took faithfully. My back grew worse, so he sent me to an orthopedist in San Angelo who took my time and money and did nothing for me. I went mostly to keep the peace and tossed the prescriptions for pain medication.

  All I wanted to do was live long enough to raise Button and see her launched into a successful life. She’d always have family at the ranch and, though we were close, I knew she’d survive if I didn’t. She sailed through school, made friends, and participated in sports and other activities. Her lack of a left had didn’t seem to get in her way, and her best friend Shelly Friedman born unexpectedly to Milt and Sue when Rebekah was thirteen, cut her no slack. Neither did I. I’d almost died of terminal self pity, and Button deserved far more.

  I’d fought my way out of the psychiatric ward to become her mother again, and one day when she was seven, she saved my life again. One night during our reading time before bed, she snuggled up with her book but didn’t open it. “Mother,” she said, looking up at me with my own tiger gold eyes, “I have something to tell you.”

  I braced myself. “All right, Button. You know you can tell me anything.”

“When I was spent the night at the ranch with Grace Ann last weekend, I asked Jesus into my heart. Granny prayed with me, and she said I should tell you.”

  The hurt that flooded my heart was real. She had done something on her own and had instinctively gone to Miss Grace, knowing she could do what I couldn’t. A feeling of abject failure crept in with the hurt. My mouth went dry. All I could manage was, “I see.”

  “Yes, she said I always needed to tell you everything, especially something important like this.”

  “I see,” I said again. If Button noticed my coldness, she didn’t react.

  “And she said I needed to talk to Brother Vann and go down and make my good confession in front of the church and get baptized.” She snuggled closer. “Is that all right with you, Mother?”

  I found my voice with difficulty. “Of course, Button.”

  She opened her book. “Let’s read now, Mother.”

  I took her to see Brother Vann whose new wife served her lemonade and cookies and joined me in the outer office while Button and the pastor spoke privately. “She’s a lovely child,” Carol said. “She looks just like you!”

  “So everyone says.”

  “I was seven when I was baptized. How old were you?”

  Fortunately, someone came in, and I was saved from replying that I’d never set foot in a baptistry or wanted to.

  Brother Vann emerged with a smiling Button ten minutes later. “She understands completely, and I’ll be happy to baptize her whenever she—and you—are ready. Let her take her time.”

 With a perfunctory thank you for his time, I fled with my child.

  On Sundays, though Button walked in with Dutch, Miss Grace, and the rest of the family, she always diverged at the end of the aisle and sat in the pew nearest the piano. At first, it had been for security, but now she just seemed to consider it her normal place. When I played the invitation hymn at the end of the service, she waited through the first verse. Then she put down the hymnal and started for the front where Brother Vann waited. Half-way there, she paused, looked back, and our eyes locked.

  From somewhere, the words and a little child shall lead them pounded my consciousness. My fingers lifted from the keys, and a sweet smile lit my daughter’s face as I struggled up from the piano bench and joined her. She slipped her hand into mine, and together we made the last few steps.

  Button’s clear answers to Brother Vann’s standard questions echoed in the church. I heard murmurings behind us and wondered what people were really thinking. Then the pastor turned to me. “Is there something…” he murmured to me.

  Button squeezed my hand. “I need...I need…” I whispered.

  I don’t know how completely I meant what I said that morning. It would take much more time for the faith I’d never had to kick in, but it was a start. Miss Grace’s hands on my shoulder as I returned to the piano to play everyone out of church while Button stood and received hugs and blessings at the front, were warm and comforting. I never doubted she was praying for me at that moment as she had done for years.

  One by one, the children graduated and went off to college. Tank had elected not to go to A&M despite Dutch’s urgings. “I can learn all I need to know from you, Dad,” he’d said, and of course, he had. Together they’d taught Vic. But the boys, Will, John Gordon, Randy, and Jake all took it for granted they’d head there and did. While Will and Jake wanted nothing more than to come home and spend the rest of their lives on the ranch Randy opted for medical school, and Ruthie went the veterinary route. Grace Ann’s musical talent, which I had nurtured since returning to Danford, took her to a prestigious music school with a full scholarship. Then John Gordon followed up with enlisting in the Air Force and following his lifelong dream of flying—straight into Viet Nam.

  The table at the ranch on Sundays seemed empty with only Chrissy, Button, and Robbie left. And Robbie, at ten, was coming to the end of her time with us, despite our denials. One Sunday afternoon, she caught me alone in the parlor and closed the doors with the tip of her crutches. In some ways, I’d been closer to her than the others based on our unacknowledged health issues. She had surpassed all expectations—walking albeit with difficult, even riding under Will’s supervision and wearing a special leather harness Dutch made for her, and making the honor roll at school on a regular basis. She’d had her chores like the others, tailored to her abilities, and everyone held her to the same standards the other children had followed.

  Now she plunked herself down on the sofa and faced me squarely. “Aunt Peaches, what is it like to die?”

  I put down some of Grace Ann’s music I’d promised to sort through and send to her, and joined Robbie on the sofa. “I don’t know, Robbie. I think it must be like going to sleep in your daddy’s lap at night and waking up in your own bed in the morning.” Lord, where did those words come from?

  “I wouldn’t mind it if I could go to sleep in God’s lap and wake up in Heaven.”

  “I rather expect you can count on that.”

  She nodded. “I kind of thought so, but I thought I’d ask you.”

  “Why me?”

  She leaned forward a bit. “Because I think you know about things like this better than the others.”

  I didn’t ask her why.

  She died in Vic’s arms, surrounded by her mother, sister, and two brothers before school started again that fall. There was no funeral in the church, just a very large gathering of family and the friends of all ages who spilled out of the small cemetery and up the hill toward the house. She was buried under a pecan tree beside Peggy’s mother whom Dutch had seen to bringing over from Carlsbad after the war. There were tears and smiles as we all sang her favorite song, Brighten the Corner Where You Are. When the last notes died away, Tank, Francie, Vic, Peggy, and I found ourselves with arms joined walking together as we had for a lifetime and felt somehow comforted.

  Within a year, we were gathered again, this time to bury John Gordon, shot down on a reconnaissance mission, his body only recovered because two of his buddies—at the risk of their own lives—refused to leave him to the encroaching Vietcong.

  I found myself sitting alone on the porch with Dutch that night. It was past his bedtime, but he lighted a second cigar and appeared glad for my company. “A man’s not supposed to outlive his son,” he said softly. “I hurt for my boy.”

  I didn’t tell him I knew that. We weren’t really having a conversation.

  “Gracie’s and my three baby girls, Mary Nelle, your little boy, Robbie, John Gordon, all gone.” He blew a smoke ring into the night air. “Like the smoke rings that go up and go away.” He blew another and turned toward the longhorns grazing in their pasture. “Built that herd like Gracie and I built this family.”

  Finally I had something to say. “Family lasts forever, Dutch. This family anyway.”

  I saw him hesitate, then nod once. “I reckon,” he said. “I reckon.”

Chapter 36

   For three days I tried to think of some way to initiate a conversation with Tank to tell him that I didn’t want the money and ask him to intercede with Dutch, but Francie was always around. I was both embarrassed and angry that I hadn’t considered all the implications of becoming a Tankersley. In short, I felt foolish.

   Button, on the other hand, was deliriously happy. She kept up a constant stream of chatter about how she was really and truly a cousin. But with the children in town with Dutch on Saturday afternoon for the movie matinee at the Crown, and Francie and Peggy sewing with Miss Grace, I got my opportunity.

   I was coming in from the porch when Tank appeared out of the parlor. “How about coming in here with me for a talk?” he asked, taking my arm. He closed the doors behind us. “We didn’t handle things very well Tuesday, did we?”

   “Tank, I never even though about. . .”

   “I know you didn’t, honey, but we did. It was all talked out right after Dad made the offer.”

   “I don’t have any right to any part of the ranch.”

   “You’re a Tankersley now.”

   “Only by courtesy,” I said. “You know I did this for Button.”

   “Maybe someday you’ll feel like it was something you did for yourself.”

   “Dutch and Miss Grace are the only real parents I’ve ever had,” I said. “Even if I did acquire them a little late. And they’re the only grandparents that Button will ever have. But that still doesn’t give me the right to profit from what they built.”

   Tank sat forward in his chair. “Listen, Peaches, when Dad first brought up the idea of making Vic part of the family, I couldn’t say yes fast enough. If things had been different, he’d have grown up out here anyway. Dad asked me if I understood that the ranch would belong to both of us after he’s gone, and I said that I did. It was a relief, to tell you the truth. I can’t even imagine Dad not being around, but just knowing that Vic’s here, well, it’s made life a whole lot better.

   “So when Dad talked to the both of us about you, we knew what the bottom line was, and neither one of us gave it a second thought. Dad doesn’t like talking about money, and I don’t either, but you need to know that there’s plenty. More than enough for the four families. Francie handles the books. Each family draws a salary with allowances for the children. The rest of the quarterly profits go into the common fund for emergencies. We haven’t had to draw on that much.”

   “I don’t need a salary,” I said slowly, thinking I really should have told Dutch first. “I have a job. Or will in January.”

   “What?”

   “Steve Woodrow saw Button and me in the park when we went into town the other day. He said he knew I’d taught during the war. I told him my minor was in English but I had a degree in library science, and he said they were losing their librarian in January and asked if I were interested. I told him yes.”

   Tank looked pleased. “That’s great, honey.”

   “I also asked him if he knew my history and gave it to him myself. He said he didn’t listen to gossip. He only cared about people doing their jobs. He asked if he could submit my name to the school board. I told him he could.”

   “So that’s why you need to get settled in town right quick. Dad told you he’d see what was available.”

   “I’m not leaving the ranch, but Button and I need a home of our own. We need time to bond again, just the two of us. And once I start work, if the school board doesn’t turn me down based on my past history, I don’t want to drive back and forth.”

   “They’ll hire you on Steve’s recommendation.”

   “You’re sure of that, are you?

   “Sure as I’m sitting here. We have a good school system in town. A few upgrades since we were there, but the board is still interested in the kids learning everything they need to know.”

   “We’ll see.”

   “Why did you think you had to tell Steve about yourself?”

   “I’m sure he’s already heard things. He might as well hear the truth from me. I’m ashamed of what I’ve done, the years I’ve wasted with Button, the worry I’ve caused all of you. But I’m not ashamed of who I am anymore. And I’m clean, Tank. Drying out once was more than enough.”

   He patted my hand. “I reckon it was pretty awful.”

   “Just in case you doubt him, I’d be dead by now if Bix hadn’t signed me into that psychiatric unit. I’d tried suicide three or four times, and I would’ve gotten it right eventually if the pills and the booze hadn’t killed me first.”

   He winced. “I wish we could’ve helped you years ago.”

   “You all tried, but I had to want help first, and I didn’t. Anyway, back to the point of this conversation, I won’t need a salary since I’ll have my own. Would Dutch consider just adding what he’d have given me back to the general fund?”

   “I’ll talk to him.”

   “I’ll tell everyone about my job at supper tonight. That way you don’t have to take the heat.”

   He laughed. “No heat to take around here. I’m proud of you, Peaches. We all are. And Vic and I are glad to have a sister.”

   “Just remember what Vic said—he wouldn’t even try to keep me in line.”

   Tank laughed again. “Neither will I.”

   Within a month, with Dutch’s help, I found the house of my dreams with a bay window in what would have been the dining area but would now showcase my baby grand when I gave Pam the go-ahead to ship it. It even had three bedrooms, and Babbie wrote she’d be my first guest. Sometimes it wasn’t easy to have her around when memories of Tom came rushing back, but she and her parents still held a special place in my heart. They didn’t know about the worst parts of my life, only that my marriage had finally failed, and I wanted to keep it that way.

   Valerie helped me furnish the house with a few pieces from her showroom and the rest from Mr. Birnbaum’s second-hand store. He only bought the best, and his son, who had taken over most of the business, made sure I got the best.

   Even with paying cash for the house, the furniture, and the freight on the piano, I still had money from the divorce settlement to bank with the money Edward had left for me. I determined to live on my salary and keep the rest for any emergency.

   Aaron had been oddly absent until now, but he showed up at the new house one afternoon when Valerie and I were hanging the oils of Mary Nell and Button on the wall facing the piano. “Just came to say hello,” he said. “And that I’m available if you need a doctor. Uncle Doc quit practicing last year after his heart attack.”

   “That’s what Peggy said,” I replied. “I’ll bring Button in for a checkup sometime. She’s current on her vaccines. I’m doing fine at the moment.”

   “Okay. Okay, that’s good.” He looked around. “I like what you’ve done with the house.”

   “Thank you.”

   “You might consider a ramp on the back steps, especially for wet weather.”

   “Tank and Vic are coming Saturday to build one.”

   “Oh. Well, if I’m free, I’ll drop by and lend a hand. You’ll need a railing, too.”

   “I’m taking every precaution, Aaron. I don’t want to fall. Dutch even found someone to come out and install safety bars in my bathroom.”

   He nodded. “I hear you’re going to be the school librarian come January.”

   “I signed a contract last month.”

   “Sure you’re up to working full time?”

   My patience was wearing thin. Although he was trying to come off as casual, he was getting into my business, and he needed to get out of it. I turned to face him as Valerie straightened the last frame. “Aaron, I’ll say this once. I’m clean, and I intend to stay that way. I take medicine for my blood pressure and keep muscle relaxants if I get a leg cramp at night. However, with the new brace, that doesn’t happen often. I don’t drink anything stronger than ginger ale. I never liked Scotch anyway. It just dulled the pain of a bad situation which doesn’t exist anymore. You’re a good doctor, the best around since Doc according to Peggy. But stay out of my private life.”

   He seemed startled. “Sorry,” he said finally.

   “All right.”

   He made a little more small talk before leaving. “He is a good doctor,” Valerie said when he’d gone. “He’s also in love with you.”

   “He’s the last person I could ever be in love with. I should never have married Bix, but then I wouldn’t have had Mary Nell and Button.”

   She stepped back to survey the oil paintings I’d labored over. “How long did it take you to do these?”

   “Six months, a little more. I started them when I was in the psych unit, and Miss Grace let me set up on the enclosed back porch to work on them at the ranch.”

   “You’re very talented, Marian. I heard Mable Thomas wasn’t coming back from Dallas. Are you going to continue playing for church?”

   “It pleases Miss Grace and Dutch.”

   “Whatever you do needs to please Marian, too.”

   “It does.” I ran my hand over the top of the baby grand. “I’m glad I paid to have this shipped.”

   “I am, too. Edward replaced my violin with a very expensive one just before he died.”

    “Maybe we can do something special together at the church,” I suggested.

   “I’d like that. I practice regularly. Ned already seems interested, so I’ll see if he wants to learn in another year or two.”

   “You said he was with Grover this morning.”

   “They’re out in the yard, but it’s almost time for me to make lunch.” She hesitated. “Grover’s failing, Marian. I took him to the doctor in San Angelo last week.”

   “What’s wrong?”

   “It’s his heart. I try to see to it that he takes his medicine, and he finally agreed to come into the house at night to eat his main meal with us.”

   “What did the doctor say exactly?”

   “Grover wouldn’t tell me anything except that his heart isn’t as good as it used to be, but I know the signs because of Edward.”

   “Has he ever told you how he came to work for Dan Kroll?”

   “A little. Apparently, his parents were born into slavery on the Kroll plantation and stayed on after emancipation. He began driving for them at a young age, and when Dan Kroll and your mother moved to Danford, he came along. I always…” She hesitated.

   “What?”

   “Edward thought...and I tend to believe he was right...that Grover and Dan Kroll are...were... actually half-brothers.”

   “What gave him that idea?"

   “You know how it was on the plantations. Or maybe you don’t being from West Texas where there really weren’t any. The slave owners availed themselves of their slaves in many ways.”

   “My god!”

   “It happened. I think Dan Kroll kept Grover close as a concession, though I’m not sure to what. I think Grover knew who and what he was and felt responsible for you and Edward.”

   “I don’t know what kind of relationship he had with Edward, but he was very good to me when I came back here for high school. He taught me to drive the summer after graduation.” I smiled. “And gave me what for when he found out I’d driven to San Angelo to pawn things to finance going to TSCW on my own instead of to Vassar!”

   Valerie laughed. “Edward told me about that adventure.”

   “I didn’t tell him, so Grover must have.”

   “It’s something he would do. He’s very protective of Ned, too.”

   “I hope he’s around for Ned for a very long time,” I said.

   Valerie’s eyes were sad. “I hope so, too.”

   Living in town, I had more time to spend with Valerie and also with Sue and Milt. Anna Lee dropped by regularly, supposedly just to visit, but she always took my blood pressure and gave me the once over. She’d never married and never spoke about the man she’d loved and lost in the Philippines. But she was Aaron’s right hand now that Peggy had become the part-time school nurse.

   Unlike Francie, she always approved of my plans going forward. “I know you wouldn’t take this job at the school if you didn’t think you were up to it,” she said, “but don’t try to do too much extra, at least at first.”

   “Just playing for the church,” I said.

   “I mean other things. For instance, Piggly Wiggly will deliver your groceries. Did you know that?”

   “No, but Button likes to help pick out what we’re going to eat.”

   “And Milt and Sue and I are always around in emergencies.”

   “I’ll definitely call you.” I sighed. “I never liked to ask for help before, but everything that happened has humbled me to some extent.”

   She stretched her long legs in front of the yellow chintz sofa. “I like what you’ve done with the house.”

   “Valerie helped a lot, and Button and I are quite cozy here.”

   Anna Lee rolled her eyes. “Purple curtains in her room?”

   “That’s what she wanted. For now anyway.”

   “She’s a sweet little girl. Does she ever ask about her father?”

   “No.”

   “One of these days she will.”

   “I’m sure.”

   “Does she ever hear from him?”

   “He doesn’t believe she’s his. Or so he says.”

   “But she is his child.”

   “As you asking me to confirm that?”

   Anna Lee grimaced. “I didn’t say that right. I don’t doubt she’s his child, so I wonder why he does.”

   “He knows the truth, but he can’t have anything but perfection in his life, and Button’s not. So I lied to give him an out, and I don’t regret it.”

   “You shouldn’t. Well, it’s his loss, although I understand where he’s coming from. What happened with his father scarred him for life.”

   “We were all scarred, Anna Lee, except for maybe Tank, Francie, and Milt. We’ve just had to live with it, but Bix can’t. It was too late for him to heal when the truth finally came out.”

    “Milt said his father served on the jury and that they all knew they were convicting an innocent man. But the evidence didn’t give them any choice. And you had a rotten time growing up the way you did, too.”

   “At least I wasn’t Dan Kroll’s daughter. That’s a blessing.”

   “I’d say so, but I’m sorry you found out the way you did.”

   “I survived.”

   “You landed on your feet all right. I don’t mind telling you I was afraid you wouldn’t.” She looked around the room. “It’s peaceful in here. That’s not a word I’d ever have connected with you before.”

   “I’ve found a relative peace.”

   “Aaron says a psychiatrist wouldn’t hurt me. He says I still have a lot of garbage from the war.”

   “Aaron says a lot of things, but why wouldn’t you? I’ve heard those camps were hell.”

   “They were that, but I came out alive. A lot didn’t.”

    “We’re survivors, Anna Lee. Both of us are survivors.”

   “Francie still doesn’t know what happened to her mother, does she?”.

   “Not really. She knows she’s not coming back that’s all.”

   Anna Lee tossed back the lock of hair perpetually falling into her face unless it was underneath a scrub cap. “Francie lost her mother, Milt lost his brother Harry, Carey Hardegree and Jobe Law are gone, Vic lost a leg, and I lost Bill. War stinks. Life stinks, too.”

   “It does,” I agreed. “Life stinks.”

   Francie dropped by once, but she didn’t stay long. I had a feeling she didn’t like seeing me contented for the first time in my life, and I couldn’t figure out why. But I didn’t mention it to Peggy or to Miss Grace. I finally had a family, and I wanted to keep them forever.

Chapter 35

   With my car, I had freedom to go into town on my own. Two weeks before school started, Button and I set off after breakfast to buy shoes and school supplies. Francie, of course, protested I shouldn’t be driving. Fortunately, Miss Grace wasn’t in earshot when I told her to shut up.

After making the necessary purchases, we took our ice cream to the park and found a bench under a shady tree—and well out of sight of the Kroll house. Although Valerie had transformed it as she’d promised, I still wasn’t comfortable seeing it more than I had to.

   The man who approached us wearing slacks and a short-sleeved shirt looked familiar. “Mrs. Matthews?”

   I nodded.

       “I’m Steve Woodrow. I heard you play at church on Sunday. You were magnificent.”

       “Good,” I said, “but not quite magnificent.”

       “I replaced Mr. Nunn at the high school when he retired as principal six years ago. I understand you taught English during the war.”

       “That’s been a while back, but yes, I did.”

       “The faculty who’s still around—and a few ex-students I’ve run into—say you were a real asset.”

       “I tried to be.”

       “Did you enjoy teaching?”

       “English was my minor. I have a degree in library science.”

       “I heard that, too. Our librarian is leaving in January when her husband is deployed overseas, so we’ll be looking for a new one. Are you interested?”

   My heart skipped a beat. “Actually, I was going to come in and talk with you about a job. Right now I’m not settled in town.”

     “You live at the Tankersley ranch.

     “Temporarily. I’m going to buy a house in town.”

Button swallowed the last bite of her ice cream, and I handed her my empty cone. “Throw these in the trash, and then you can go play while I talk to Mr. Woodrow.”

  She ran off obediently. “A prospective student?”

    “My daughter Button. She’ll be in first grade this year.”

    “She looks like you.”

    “So everyone says. Mr. Woodrow, let me be totally blunt with you. I’m sure you’ve heard the gossip about me.”

    “I don’t listen to gossip.”

    “I’m a recovering alcoholic and addict. Scotch and prescription pills were my poison. You may not feel I’d be an asset this time around.”

  He smiled again. “Can you do the job?”

    “I can definitely do the job.”

    “Then I’ll submit your name to the school board. With your permission, of course.”

    “They’ve heard the gossip, too, I’m sure.”

    “We have a top-notch staff because our members are interested in people who can do what they’re hired to do and get along with each other and the students.”

   “Do what you want to then.”

  He nodded. “Have you registered Button for school?”

    “Not yet.”

    “There’ll be a general registration for new students, the few that we get, next week on Monday. Just bring her birth certificate and shot records. Was there a kindergarten in Houston, which is where I believe you’re from?”

    “She went to preschool, but she’s been with the Tankersleys several months. The older children have taught her to read and do simple math.”

   “Excellent. Well, bring her along. I’ll be in touch with you whenever you need to come in and a sign a contract.”

   “You’re that sure I’ll get one?”

   He rose. “I can almost guarantee it.”

   I didn’t mention my prospective employment, but I did tell Dutch I was ready to look for a house in town. For once, Francie didn’t say anything. “There’re plenty around,” Dutch assured me.    “After the war, a builder came through her and put up a whole new neighborhood just west of downtown.”

   “He had a good reputation,” Tank added. “So the houses are well-constructed. I’ve been inside one or two of them. Nice kitchens, laundry room, two bedrooms, two baths, and a combined living and dining area. And a garage. That’s important.”

    “Do any of the houses have three bedrooms? I’ve kept in touch with Babbie Seward, you know, and she’ll want to visit. Pam Fordham will, too.”

   “We can look,” Dutch said. “I’ll talk to Pete Graham tomorrow. He handles most of the sales.”

   “Whenever it’s convenient for you.”

  He took off his glasses and cleaned them with a handkerchief. “I’ve talked to my lawyer in San Angelo. He can get us a court date when you’re ready for that.”

  I took a deep breath. “I’m ready. I think I am anyway. Can you divorce me if I mess things up?"

  Tank laughed. "Nope, you're for keeps, just like Vic."

  The whole family piled into one station wagon and one truck for the trip to San Angelo. In the courtroom, Peggy whispered to me that the same judge who presided over Vic’s adoption would be on the bench.

  When he came in wearing a half-open robe, he surveyed our large group and then rested his eyes on Dutch. “Well, Mr. Tankersley, back again I see. Family not big enough?”

    “Soon will be,” Dutch replied easily.

   “Where are William Neil and Victor John?”

  Tank and Vic stood up.

   “Haven’t killed each other yet, I see.”

   “Haven’t had time,” Tank said. “Too busy.”

  Vic nodded. "Running a ranch doesn't leave time for much else."

   “Well, who is it this time?”

  The lawyer stood up. “This is Marian Matthews and her daughter Button. Mrs. Matthews will keep her name for herself and her daughter but add Tankersley in place of her maiden name.”

   “Which is?”

  I steeled myself.

  The lawyer cleared his throat. “Kroll, your honor.”

  “Kroll!” The judge looked like he’d swallowed something rotten.

 I felt everyone around me tense.

  “Stand up, Mrs. Matthews.”

 I got up slowly, conscious of brace clicking into place.

  “I take it you were the unfortunate offspring of Daniel Kroll.”

  “He wasn’t my biological father, your honor.”

   “No, I guess he wasn’t.”

   “Are you divorced?”

   “Yes.”

 Full custody of your daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you want to be part of this bunch?”

   Unable to speak, I just  nodded.

 He turned back to Tank and Vic who were still standing. “You realize what this means?”

  “We’re outnumbered,” Vic said.

 The judge glared at him. “It means your inheritance will be split three ways instead of two.”

I realized then I hadn’t even thought about that and opened my mouth to say that I didn’t want anything, but the judge kept talking.

 “You do understand that, don’t you, William Neil and Victor John?”

 “It’s all be discussed,” the lawyer said hastily. He’d clearly lost control of what should’ve been a simply matter according to Dutch.

 “Not with me!” I blurted.

 “First family quarrel?” the judge said, almost pleased with what he’d brought about.

  “No, it’s just that…” I looked helplessly at Dutch.

  “You’ve one of three, like it or not. Want to change your mind?”

 I almost said I did, but Miss Grace touched my arm, and I closed my mouth.

  “The ranch makes a good living for all of us,” Dutch said without permission. “We’re not worried about things. And I plan to be around a while longer.”

 The judge sought the ceiling with his eyes and reached for his gavel. “So ordered,” he said, bringing it down on the bench so loud it startled all of us. “Stop by the county clerk’s office to see about an amended birth certificate.”

 I finally found my voice as he left. “Dutch, maybe…”

  “We should’ve sat down and talked all this out, I reckon, but I figured you understood.”

  “I never thought about it.”

  “We’ll talk about things tonight. You know Francie does our bookkeeping. She can explain it better than I can.”

 Tank turned to Vic. “Well, it looks like we’re finally stuck with her.”

 “Looks like,” Vic said.

 “Think we can keep her in line?”

 Vic shook his head. “I wouldn’t even try.”

 Dutch reached for his hat. “Let’s go eat. We’ll come back to take care of the paperwork this afternoon.”

 Miss Grace put her arms around me tightly. “Thank you for becoming our daughter, Marian. We love you.”

 I sank down in the chair, buried my face in my hands, and sobbed.

Chapter 34

     I’d been at the ranch for two weeks when life began to fall into place. First, Luke Vann, who had replaced Brother Baxter as the pastor of the Baptist Church, came out one morning and asked to speak with me. Miss Grace offered him the privacy of the parlor or the kitchen where I was shelling black-eyed peas. Enticed, I felt sure, by the smell of fresh sugar cookies just out of the oven, he opted for the kitchen.

     Button and Grace Ann, who were serving a sentence in the Naughty Corner, looked up eagerly as he came in but didn’t move. He looked at them and then back at me. I shrugged, deferring to Miss Grace who was pouring coffee and serving her cookies. Then she turned to the little girls.

     “It’s been five minutes,” she said. “Tell Granny why you’re in the naughty corner.”

     Grace Ann sighed. “We took cookies without asking.”

     “What would I have said if you’d asked?”

     “Yes,” Button said. There were traces of the purloined pastries around her small mouth.

     “What will you do next time?”

     “Ask,” they said together.

     Miss Grace nodded. “Then run outside and play.” She handed each of them a cookie.

     Luke exploded with laughter as soon as they’d scampered out the back door. “The naughty corner?”

     “One minute per year of age,” I said. “It’s very effective. Of course, I’m too big for the corner, so I get the lye soap instead.”

     “Lye soap? You’re kidding!”

     Miss Grace shook her head at me and took another pan of cookies out of the oven.”

     “It’s a private joke,” I said, “but I’m improving everyday.”

     He savored a cookie. “The reason I came is that Mable Turner’s mother has taken ill in Dallas, and we don’t have a pianist for the next two Sundays. I understand you play.”

     “Not in a while.”

     “Could you help us out?”

     My fingers tingled. “Of course.”

     Francie bustled in from cleaning her chicken houses. “Good morning, Brother Luke.” She held up her basket almost overflowing with eggs. “I’ll send home half a dozen with you if you like.”

     “I need to come out here more often,” he said, winking at her. “I came to see if Mrs. Matthews would help us out by playing for church the next two Sundays.”

     “She can’t,” Francie said quickly. “She’s not…”

     I bit back the word that would have earned the threat of lye soap. “I’ve already accepted,” I said tightly.

     “Peaches, you can’t…”

     “Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do! You’re not my keeper!”

     Luke Vann’s smile faded.

     “You’ll have to use the sink on the porch to wash your eggs this morning,” Miss Grace intervened. “This one is full of baking things to be washed.”

     Francie huffed off with Luke staring after her. Finally he said, “We’re taking a vacation from choir practice in August, so you won’t have to worry about coming in on Wednesdays.”

     “All right.”

     “And that means we’ll have to count on you for special music besides just the regular hymns and things.”

     “All right.”

     “Marian played for the church when she and Peggy lived in town during the war,” Miss Grace said.

     “Oh?”

     I nodded as I grabbed for an escaping pea. “I’ll look forward to it.” I’ll look forward to all those old biddies in the church watching me at the piano and thinking about a sinner providing their worship music.

     He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and pushed it toward me across the table. “This is the bulletin I’ve roughed up.” Next week, I’d like for you to choose the hymns.”

     “Certainly. I’m sure Miss Grace can help me select the right ones.”

     When he’d left, carrying a nice package of a dozen cookies and a container of eggs, Francie came back into the kitchen. “You’re not really going to do this, are you?”

     “What’s the matter, Francie? Worried I’ll be too drunk to play and end up embarrassing the family?”

     She stared at me. Miss Grace turned toward Francie with a deliberateness that didn’t bode well for either of us. “Girls, I’m going to say this one time and one time only. You are both grown women. You are both daughters of this house. As such, you’ll stop all of this bickering. I don’t want to hear anymore of it. Francie, Marian can make her own decisions without input from you. If she wants advice, she’ll ask for it, and we’ll give it if we have any. Otherwise, we’ll mind our own business.”

     She turned to me then. “Marian, I know in the past you’ve used your words to keep people from hurting you, but you need to understand no one is going to hurt you here. Whatever Dan and Vivian Kroll did to you, Dutch and I won’t repeat it. You are home, you are safe, and the unhappiness of the past is behind you. Your life is your own to do with as you wish, and we will all support you.”

     She took a deep breath. “Do I make myself clear?”

     “Yes, ma’am,” Francie squeaked.

     I nodded, “Yes, Miss Grace.”

     “Good. Now finish those peas so I can get them on for lunch.”

     In the afternoon, I went up to the parlor and lifted the lid of the old upright piano. Sitting on the stool made me flash back to the night I’d been rolled around the gym by all the boys. I smiled at the memory but then felt overwhelmed as I thought of the ones who hadn’t come home from the war. Carey Hardegree from the neighboring ranch. Dutch had leased some of the land to help out Carey’s widow and save the ranch for her young son. Jobe Law, our drum major, who’d strutted with the best off them—until he’d strutted with the Marines onto the beach at Iwo Jima died there.

     Vic had left a leg in Germany. Others had come home with mental and emotional scars which would never completely heal. I’d done my best to self destruct, but here I was alive and well. I had my daughter back. And I had a life ahead of me, whatever life I chose.

     I placed my fingers on the keys and began to play. It was out of tune, but it was my trumpet charge into the future battles—and I’d have them—but this time, I’d emerge victorious.

     The next morning I rode to San Angelo with Vic who was having some work done on his spare prosthesis and thought maybe the same shop could adjust my brace which was giving too many problems to ignore. As it turned out, they said the one I had was a joke and could fit me with a new, lighter one. A week later, I still limped slightly but not, as Tank cracked, like a tipping teapot. It was true.

     That night Dutch asked me to walk out onto the front porch with him after supper. He sat down in a wicker rocking chair, lit his cigar, and blew a perfect smoke ring toward the deepening dusk. I was sure Miss Grace had shared her morning’s edict with him and wondered if he was going to reinforce it.

     “So you’re going to play the piano for church next Sunday.”

     “Yes.”

     “Hope you haven’t forgotten my favorite song.”

     I searched my mind. “In the Garden?”

     “That’s it.”

     “Do you really believe that, Dutch? I mean, that God talks to you?”

     Personally, I wasn’t sure there was a God, but I’d give him the benefit of the doubt.

     “Why not?”

     “I don’t know. I just wondered.”

     “Gracie and I buried three little girls out back. I made their coffins and carried then down the hill myself.” He blew another smoke ring. “Then there was Francie and Peggy, and now there’s you.”

     “I’m not. . .”

     “We all had a talk before you came home. Took me a long time to get Vic, and it’s been longer for you. But the offer’s out there—and the name.”

     I stared at him through the fading light. “What are you talking about?”

“Gracie and I wanted to make the offer after the war, but Bix came home, and you went with him. We thought about it again after Button was born, but that didn’t work out either. Now it’s your choice. You were never really a Kroll, but you can be a Tankersley.”

     My mouth went dry. “You...you want to adopt me like you did Vic?”

     “That’s it.”

     “And the others…”

     “Are all for it, but they promised not to say anything until you came home, and I had the chance to talk to you.”

     We sat in silence for a while. “Think about it, Marian. Whatever you decide, you’re still family.”

     Finally I found my voice. “You know Button is Bix’s child. I had to lie to him to make sure he didn’t take her just to finish me off.”

     “Never doubted it for a minute.”

     I dug my fingernails into my palms. “The other one is, too.” Somehow, I’d always suspected he knew about Rosie, although I didn’t know how.

     He didn’t say anything for a minute. Then, “Figured as much. The train you came in on that night was from Austin where Rosie was born, not from up east.”

     I felt a certain relief mingled with fear. “Does anyone else know?”

     “Not even Gracie.”

     “It was the right thing to do. I don’t regret it.”

     “That’s good.”

     “Button needs a family. Bix never wanted her, and he never will. He’s ashamed she isn’t perfect. Neither am I for that matter, but he always managed to ignore that f I did what was expected and to his benefit.” I caught the scent of the mesquites and heard the cicadas begin their nightly serenade. “I need family, too, but I’m not sure I’m cut out to be part of this one. I’m not like the rest of you.”

     “You’re yourself.”

     “I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”

     “We are. He stood up. “Think about it, gal. Get things settled in your life, and then decide what you really want to do. No hurry about anything anymore.

     The next week, Pam drove my car to Danford when Phil came with the divorce papers. “I can fight this,” he said after we’d gone over everything.

     “Why?” I asked. “I didn’t ask him for anything, and fifty thousand dollars is more than generous.”

     “But that’s it, you understand. No alimony, no child support. . .

     “It doesn’t matter.

     “Look, Marian,” Phil said, “we all know that Button is Bix’s child.”

     “Of course, she is, but I had to tell him she wasn’t to keep him from taking her away from me.”

     “That wouldn’t have happened.”

     “Maybe not, but I couldn’t take the chance.”

     Pam looked grim. “He isn’t taking anything from the house. I’ll have everything packed up and freighted here.”

     “Not everything. Just the household goods like linens and dishes. I’ll need those.”

     “What about the furniture?”

     “No.”

     “And your baby grand?”

     I hesitated. “I hate to let that go.”

     “Then don’t,” she said. “I’ll take care of having it freighted by people who know what they’re doing.”

     Phil took out his fountain pen. “As your attorney, I’m advising you against signing these.”

     “Are you my attorney? Isn’t that a conflict of interest, you being Bix’s partner?”

     He scowled. “Not my choice to be his partner, but Dad called us both in, told us to shape up and get along, or one of us was going to go.”

     “Bix?”

     “Either of us who couldn’t put the firm first.”

     “I don’t want to fight with Bix anymore,” I said. “I have my daughter, and we’ll be fine.”

     “What are you going to do?” Phil asked.

     “I don’t know. Valerie wants me to work with her, and I may do that part-time, but I need the discipline of an all-day job.” I reached for the pen. “Look, Phil, I appreciate everything you’ve done, but it’s over. Bix has his freedom, and I have my sanity. It’s better this way.” I signed the papers and handed them back.

     He put them away, then reached into his pocket for an envelope. “This is the check then,” he said, handing it to me.

     “I’ll have Tank take it to town tomorrow and deposit it for me. I’ve already opened an account at the bank.”

     Phil snapped his briefcase shut and stood up. “I hope you’ll keep in touch with us, and if you ever need an attorney, I hope you call me.”

     “I will. Of course, I will.” I stood up, too, and embraced Pam. “And we’ll keep in touch.”

     She bit her lip. “I’ll miss you, Marian.”

    “I’ll miss you, too. Thank you again for everything.”

     After supper, when all the children were either in bed or in their rooms studying, Dutch herded us all up to the parlor and said we had things to discuss. “We’re not asking you to tell us your business, Marian, but we need to know how we can help you now.”

     “I don’t care what you know,” I said. “At least, I don’t care now. I wish you didn’t know what I’d done in the past, but. . .”

     “That’s finished business,” Dutch interrupted me. “Let’s talk about now.”

     “Well, Phil brought me a check for fifty thousand dollars this afternoon. I signed the divorce papers and forfeited my right to any future claims on him.”

     “You mean he’s not going to support you?” Francie gasped.

     I curled my lip in her direction. “Why should he? I can support myself.”

    “Peaches, you can’t. . .”

     “Don’t tell me what I can do!” I flared.

     “That’s enough,” Dutch said evenly. “So what do you want to do, Marian?”

     “I’m going to buy a house in town,” I said. “I’d like for us to be settled as soon as possible. I know we can’t do it before school starts in the fall, but my goal is at least by Thanksgiving.”

     Dutch nodded approvingly. “When you’re ready to look, let me know.”

     “Marian, this is your home,” Miss Grace said. “You know that, don’t you?”

     “Of course, I do,” I said. “But I can’t stay here forever.”

     “You can if you want to,” Francie said.

     “Then, I don’t want to.”

     She tossed her head.

     “Please stop picking at each other,” Peggy said.

     “Sorry,” I said.

     “Well, I’m not,” Francie said angrily. “Bix Matthews owes you a lot more than fifty thousand dollars!”

      “He owes me nothing, Francie. I’m only taking the money because it means a fresh start for Button and me. And, in a way, I earned it. He wanted to climb the social ladder, and I helped him. I was very good at that anyway. But now it’s my turn. Button and I need a home of our own, and that’s what we’re going to have.”

     “You need to stay right here where we can take care of you!” Francie’s eyes welled with tears.

     “I don’t want to be taken care of, Francie. Can’t you get that through your head once and for all?”

     “You can’t. . .”

     My promise to Miss Grace went out the window. “Dammit, don’t tell me one more time what I can’t do!” I screamed at her.

     Dutch stood up. “I believe I said that was enough of that,” he said evenly. “Francie, Marian has a right to her life, and that’s what we’re going to see to it that she has. Whatever help she wants from us, she’ll have it, but otherwise, we’ll back off.” He turned to me. “And Marian, this family doesn’t use that language here in this house or anywhere else.”

     I was still seething. “I’m not family,” I snapped.

     He fixed me with those faded brown eyes. “You’ve been made the offer.”

     “I’m sorry, Dutch. It’s...it’s more than generous. And it’s tempting. The Krolls just thought they were someone. The Tankersleys are.”

     “Peaches, you’re exhausted,” Peggy said, eyeing me with concern. “We can talk about all this later.”

     “No.” Everyone looked at Dutch. “No,” he repeated, “we’re going to settle things tonight. Not the name maybe. She has to think about that. But Marian has more strength than anyone’s ever given her credit for, and what she doesn’t have, we do.” He walked to the mantle and leaned on it. “You’re a daughter of this house, and it stands. It’s up to you to decide how you want things.” He glanced at Francie. “And we’re all behind you whatever you decide.”

     The room was silent save for the steady ticking of the mantle clock. No one moved or spoke. No one looked at me. Outside the locusts were humming in the mesquites. I could smell fresh-cut grass and hay. In the distance, the cattle were settling in for the night. A calf separated from its mother bawled piteously, then stopped suddenly. I pictured it finding the warmth and security of the cow’s teats.

     My new brace snapped automatically as I rose from the sofa and walked to the windows overlooking the porch. Still no one spoke, but there was a voice inside my head. You are home, it said. You are safe. For the first time you can take everything that’s being offered to you. . .love, the security of a family, the honor of a name that stands for everything you never had. . .You can hold out your hand or close it. . .

     I turned around. “You’re sure this has all been thoroughly discussed?”

     Dutch looked at Tank, who nodded. “It would please me,” Tank said.

     “You’d stack the odds against us,” Vic said, straightening his leg to regard the tip of his boot. “But I can’t think of any odds I’d like any better.”

     “We promised to take care of each other when we were fifteen,” Peggy said in that soft, little-girl voice she lapsed into when she was feeling something deeply. “We need each other, Peaches. All of us.”

     Francie tossed her head. “All I want is for you to be happy,” she said.

     I squared my shoulders. “Then. . .Dutch, Miss Grace. . .I accept your offer. I’d like very much to be a Tankersley, and I know you’ll understand why Button and I will keep the Matthews name. It’s an honorable one, even though Bix felt ashamed of it for so many years. I may be the only one who can understand how he felt, because I wore the Kroll name like the scarlet letter.” I squared my shoulders. “I’ll be Marian Tankersley Matthews and try to live up to every day for the rest of my life.”

Chapter 33

   “So you’re ready to go home,” Dr. Comer said as he watched me pack up my art supplies.

   “More than ready.”

   “To stay?”

   “Forever?”

  I turned around. “I told Dutch so.”

   “And if you tell Dutch Tanksley something, it’s set in stone.”

   “Absolutely.”

  He held out a small box. “These are the tapes you agreed to let me make while we talked.”

   “I don’t want them.”

   “What shall I do with them then?”

   “I don’t really care. Give them to Bix. He won't listen to them, but if he does, he might find out some things he doesn't want to know."

    “How about I just hang on to them until you think about it longer?”

  I shrugged. “He’s sicker than I was, you know.”

  He nodded. “I think you’re right.”

  Though Tank’s face didn’t betray his feelings when he arrived to take me home the next day, I knew how changed I was. My hair had gone completely white almost overnight, a phenomenon Dr. Comer told me wasn’t unusual. The twenty pounds I hadn’t had to spare had accentuated the complete rounding of my left shoulder and back. My hands still shook, though the discipline of painting and sketching was helping.

  He was smiling as he walked toward me. “Hello, Peaches honey,” he said gently. “You ready to go home?”

  The word home broke through my tenuous control, and I could only nod.

  He kissed my cheek. “We’re sure ready to have you.”

  Dr. Comer came by with my prescriptions while Tank was taking my suitcases downstairs to the car. “I know you said you didn’t want them, but there’s a mild sleeping pill and something for pain.”

  “That’s like handing me a loaded gun,” I said.

  “I don’t think so. You’ll fight the big black cloud more efficiently if you get some rest and don’t hurt all the time.”

  “Maybe it’s all in my head after all.”

  “You know better than that. But leave the Scotch alone when you’re taking these.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to have to dry out again. Once was enough.”

  He tucked the prescriptions in my open purse. “Marian, I believe you’re going to be one of my success stories. I believe you’re going to make it.”

  “I don’t have any choice,” I said. “I have a daughter to take care of.”

  Tank always knew when to talk and when to keep quiet, and the long drive to Danford was no exception. We stopped several times so that I could stretch, and about five we stopped for an early supper. “I told Mom not to wait on us,” he said as he held my arm while I unlatched my brace and slid into the booth. “I didn’t figure you’d want to brave the whole crew tonight anyway.”

  “Does Button know I’m coming today?”

  “She knows you’re coming sometime soon, but Cissy wasn’t going to tell her it was today until late this afternoon.” He ordered coffee for both of us and passed me sugar. “We added a den a few months back, right off the kitchen, and put in that big rock fireplace that Francie saw in a magazine.”

  “Is the rock from the ranch?”

  “We hauled it from the base of the mountain with the Indian caves.” The waitress brought our coffee, and he stirred his thoughtfully. I willed my hands not to shake as I added sugar to mine, but it was no use. He reached over and took the jar out of my hand. “How much?”

  “Just a little.” I felt my face grow hot.

  “It’s going to take some time, honey,” he said quietly. “Nobody’s going to be watching you.”

  “They’re all going to be watching me,” I mumbled. “Watching me and waiting for me to self-destruct.” I looked up at him. “But I won’t. Not this time, Tank. This time I’m going to make it.”

  “I believe that.”

  “You and the krolik.”

  He smiled. “I didn’t finish telling you about the den. We put a bedroom and bath on the back. There’s a picture window that looks out toward the mountains and a bath with a glassed-in shower and plenty of safety bars. And there’s room for a daybed for Button whenever you’re ready for her to stay with you. She’s bunking with Grace Ann right now.

  “I should have sent a picture or something. She won’t know me.”

  “She’ll know her mother all right.”

  “Does she. . .does she ever mention Bix?”

  “She never did before.”

  “I suppose not. That’s for the best.”

  “Are you all right with everything, Peaches? The divorce and all?”

  “He’d never have let me get it, so it was a relief when he made the decision. But I want everyone to understand that the last thing—maybe the only kind thing he ever did for me—was signing me into the psychiatric unit. He literally saved my life.”

  “We’re all grateful for that.”

  “Bix isn’t to blame for anything I did. Everybody has to understand that, too. I made my own choices just like he made his. Our marriage was a mistake, but two good things came out of it. . .”

  “Mary Nelle and Button.”

  I looked away.

  “Well, all that’s water under the bridge now. You and Button have a home on the ranch, and you know we’re all behind you, whatever you decide to do.”

  “I have to stay on the ranch for awhile, because I’m in no shape to hold down a job yet or be out on my own with Button. But that day will come, and when it does, we’re going to have our own place in town, and I’m going to earn our living.”

  “I saw Phil Fordham briefly this morning. He said to tell you that he and Pam would bring your car whenever you’re ready for it, and that Bix isn’t taking anything from the house. He said Pam’ll get whatever you want and take care of shipping or storing it.”

  “That’s more than I can deal with right now,” I said.

  “I just wanted to pass it on.” He signaled the waitress to refill our cups. “You ready to order supper now?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Well, I am, and I don’t like eating alone. So pick something, and let’s eat.”

  It was still daylight when the ranch house came into view. On the front steps, clutching Dimples and Grampa Bear and wrapped in a sweater that I recognized as mine, sat Button. She didn’t move as the car stopped, or as Tank got out.

  “Brought you a present, kitten.”

  She looked up.

  I opened the door and swung my legs out. “Button. . .”

  Her head moved slightly.

  “Button, come to Mother, baby.”

  She got up slowly and came down the steps. I knew she didn’t recognize me. “You missed supper, Uncle Tank. We had bread pudding with sentimum.”

  “Well, I had chocolate pie, so there!” He picked her up and brought her to the car. “And look who’s here.” He squatted down with Button on his knee.

  “Oh, baby. . .”

  She looked at me strangely, and then recognition lit her face. In a second she had her arms around my neck. “Mother! Oh, Mother!” She covered my face with kisses. “Oh, Mother, are you home?”

  “I’m home, baby,” I murmured holding her as close to me as I could. “We both are.”

  There was no one in sight as Tank carried my suitcases through the kitchen and down the ramp to the new bedroom. Button, clutching my hand, danced along beside me. “I helped with your new room, Mother,” she said happily. “Aunt Valerie let me help fix things.”

  The drapes were open in the picture window, and the last of the sun was reflected on the tops of the mountains beyond the north pasture. As soon as I sank down in the cheerful flowered armchair, Button climbed into my lap. We sat there holding onto each other until I heard Miss Grace’s voice from the door.

  “Welcome home, Marian.”

  “Thank you, Miss Grace.”

  She came into the room. “Button, go get Mother a glass of lemonade from the kitchen, there’s a good girl.”

  Button hopped down obediently and scurried off, but then she stopped. “Don’t go away, Mother.”

  “No, I won’t, baby. Never again.”

  She smiled and kept going.

  I couldn’t look at Miss Grace. “I messed up,” I said.

  “Didn’t we all?” She pulled the ottoman close to the chair and took my hands between hers. “We didn’t know how to help you.”

  “You couldn’t No one could because I didn’t want any help. I just wanted to wallow. . .and to die.”

  “What do you want now?”

  “I want my baby back. I want to be her mother again. I want to live, Miss Grace. For the first time I can remember, I want to live.”

  She squeezed my hands.

  “I’m not a hundred percent yet, Miss Grace, but I will be in time.”

  “Of course, you will.”

  I looked around the room. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Valerie did the decorating. She knew what you liked.”

  “It has her touch.”

  “She telephoned earlier. She’ll come out whenever you want to see her.”

  “I’ll call her tomorrow.”

  Button came back then with my lemonade. “What a good helper you are, Button,” Miss Grace said as she rose.

  Button glowed.

  “Thank you, precious,” I said as I took the glass and noted, with some excitement, that my hands were reasonably steady.

  “Would you like for Peggy to come help you get ready for bed later?”

  “Yes, thank you, Miss Grace.”

  She rested her hand lightly on my shoulder. “We’re glad to have you back. You’ve made our family complete again.” She went to the door, then paused without turning around. “I’ll ring the bell for breakfast.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said automatically.

  “Six-thirty.”

  “Six-thirty.”

  Button curled up on the ottoman. “Are you all well now, Mother?”

  “I’m much better,” I said. “And now that I have you again, I’ll be even more better.”

  She giggled, sounding for all the world like Peggy.

  “I’ll be more better, too,” she said.

  “Where do you sleep, Button?”

  “In Grace Ann’s room. Guess what, Mother? I can read ‘most good as she can! Ruthie taught Grace Ann and me out of her book!”

  “Well!”

  “Jake helps me with my numbers sometimes.”

  “I see.”

  “And guess what else, Mother?”

  “I can’t guess, Button.”

  She leaned forward and put a small hand on each side of my face. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too, precious.”

  “You won’t get sick and go away again, will you?”

  “I promise.”

  “And we can stay here always?”

  “Right here. Maybe sometime we’ll have our own house in town. Would you like that?”

  She chewed her lip. “Ned could come and play with me.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Can I have purple curtains?”

  “Yes.”

  “And will you make Dimples and Grampa Bear a basket to sleep in?”

  “I think Dimples and Grampa Bear definitely need a basket. Purple?”

  Her bottom lip curled, reminding me of myself. “No, Mother, green!”

  “Oh, well, of course, green.”

  “And you won’t make oatmeal for breakfast?”

  “Oh, yes, I remember Miss Grace makes oatmeal two times a week.”

  She sighed. “I don’t like it, but I have to eat two spoons.”

  “And then what?”

  “I get sentimum toast or a ginger-muffin.”

  “I see. Well, I don’t like oatmeal much either.”

  “You don’t?” Her face brightened.

  “Not much.”

  “We’re going to be so happy, Mother.”

  “Yes, we are.”

  “Can I sleep here with you tonight?”

  “If you want to.”

  “I ‘splained it to Grace Ann, how I was going to be with you now all the time.”

  I leaned my head back and closed my eyes as Button chattered on happily. I was home. Home to stay.

  “Peaches?”

  Peggy stood in the doorway. “May I come in?”

  I held out my hand. “Thank you for taking care of my baby.”

  “Thank you for letting us share her.”

  “I was a good girl, wasn’t I, Aunt Peggy?”

  “Of course, you were!”

  “Aunt Francie only spanked me once,” she said proudly.

  The tip of Peggy’s nose got pink. “It wasn’t actually a spanking,” she said.

  “Yes, it was,” Button interrupted, nodding vigorously.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “You got caught sliding down the bannister.”

  She shook her head sadly. “Aunt Francie says it’s a no-no.”

  “You better listen to Aunt Francie then and stay away from the stairs.” I watched Peggy hide her amusement behind her hand.

  Button’s face grew solemn. “My father never spanked me. . .did he?”

  Peggy and I exchanged glances. “I don’t believe so,” I said, thinking how she must have relished some loving discipline after Bix’s cold indifference.

  “Go get your jammies if you’re going to sleep in here tonight,” Peggy said. “I’ll help your mother find hers.”

  Button hopped out of my lap. “I’ll be right back, Mother!”

  Peggy embraced me warmly as soon as Button was out the door. “Oh, Peaches, we’re all so glad you’re home.”

  “I am home, Peggy. Home to stay.” I fished in my purse for the pain pills and sleeping pills Al Comer had tucked into it. “Keep these for me. I’ll let you know if I need them.”

  She slipped them into her pocket. “Don’t try to tough things out.”

  “I won’t, but I don’t want them around.”

  “Do you have your other meds?”

  “I can handle those.”

  She pointed to the alarm clock on the night stand beside the bed. “You’d better handle setting that alarm while I unpack a few things for you. Miss Grace…”

  “Will ring the bell for breakfast at six-thirty sharp.” I said.

  Our laughter blended.

  I settled in seamlessly—never late to breakfast—and Miss Grace put me to work in the kitchen immediately. Button tended to cling to me the first few days, but I could always convince her to go outside and play with the others. School, schedule to start in just over a month, would be a good diversion.

  Peggy obligingly brought home an auburn coloring for my hair, but it took three of us to get me over the kitchen sink to use it. “There’s a beauty shop in town,” she said. “I could drive you in.”

  “I know how to do this.”

  “Well, in the future, go to town,” Francie said. “My hands are permanently red.”

  I glared at her. “Hush up, Francie.”

  With the white hair well-covered, I looked and felt more like myself, and Button capered around clapping her hands and singing, “Mother’s hair is back, Mother’s hair is back.”

  Valerie helped me unpack and put things away, and we spent time in the swing on the front porch talking about the future. Her business was doing well both here and in San Angelo, and she renewed her offer for me to live with Ned and her.

  “I’ll enjoy working with you, but Button and I need a home of our own. Dutch said he’d help me look at what’s available when I’m ready.”

  “I understand.”

  “And I want to get a full-time job.”

  “Are you ready for that?”

  “I will be. I’m not going to be out wrestling steers or hauling rocks.”

  She laughed. “What do you have in mind?”

“I’d like to work in the school again. I thought I’d ride into town with Peggy next week and talk to the new superintendent. I had a good record with them before.”

  “It’s none of my business, but…”

  “I’m all right financially, and of course, it’s your business because you care.”

  She hugged me. “I’m so glad we’re sisters, Marian. Edward was always so glad we loved each other.”

  My day of reckoning came when Sunday rolled around. Button piled into the station wagon with the other children for the ride to Sunday School. I started back to my room with the intention of sketching out what I might like in a house of my own.

Dutch caught me in the hall. “We’ll all head to town for church in about an hour and a half.”

  “I’m not going,” I said, more sharply than I intended.

  He gazed at me with those faded brown eyes. “When you get thrown, you get back on the horse,” he observed.

  “I don’t ride anymore.”

  He moved on toward the kitchen.

  Shamed, I managed to find a dress that didn’t hang on me too badly, took extra care with my makeup, and presented myself grudgingly at the front door with the others. Dutch’s brief nod of approval said it all.

  In the foyer of the church, he lined everyone up in pecking order as Vic called it. First, Vic with Robbie in his arms, Peggy, Rosie, Randy, and Jake. Then came Tank and Francie, Will, Ruthie, John Gordon, and Grace Ann. I realized Valerie and Ned had filled in the next space, and then Dutch took my arm and positioned Button and me behind them. With Miss Grace and him bringing up the rear, we went in, all the way to the front. I could almost see him smiling the way he did when he surveyed his prized longhorns.

  I felt everyone staring as I limped down the aisle. For a moment, panic almost overwhelmed me, and I thought of turning around to flee. Then I lifted my chin in the old haughty manner that Francie hated. Yes, I’m back. Take a good look. Your tongues will wag after church, I’m sure. But get used to it. I’m back to stay.

Chapter 32

      I hadn’t had anything to drink in almost eight months, but I hadn’t let go of the pain pills. When I got back to Houston, overwhelmed anew by Edward’s death and the loss of another opportunity to live a relatively happy life, my nightly bottle of Scotch again became my best friend. If Bix knew it, he didn’t mention it. He had moved permanently into the guest room now, so once Button was tucked away for the night, I was free to socialize with the Scotch until I passed out.

     Jessie, our first nanny, came back to live in and take over the household duties I was unable to do myself. I had a feeling she knew everything, but she remained silent, too.

     Button went to preschool in the fall. I dreaded the reaction of the other children to her missing hand, but to my relief, she was accepted without question. Later she told me that for “Show and Tell”, she’d shown everyone her arm and explained that “I was born this way, but I can do everything you can do!” According to her teacher, she became the star of the class immediately.

     For a year, I managed to maintain my social obligations to Bix’s satisfaction until the night I forgot the opening of the Symphony to be followed by a reception with all the elites in attendance. When he exploded, Jessie rushed Button out of earshot.

     “You’re drunk again!” Screaming at me would have been preferable to his cold condemnation. “I won’t tolerate any more. I’m going to put you away and send Button to boarding school next year.” Then he stormed out.

     “Why do you take that from him?” Jessie asked me the next morning when I was sobering up with a pot of fresh coffee.

     I shrugged.

     “I know you drink, Mrs. Matthews, and I sort of understand why. But you’re hurting yourself and Button, too.” In contrast to Bix, her voice sounded soothingly kind. “Maybe you should get away.”

     “Where?”

     “Don’t you have family in Danford? I’ve heard Button talk about the ranch.”

     “He’d come after me. He’d take Button, and I’d never see her again.”

     “He said he was going to. What do you have to lose?”

       “It was just a threat. He won’t do anything that reflects badly on him.”

     But that night I dreamed that Bix was carrying Button away while she screamed and held out her arms to all of us standing on the porch at the ranch. The next morning, having not quite slept off the effects of the previous night’s binge, I packed a suitcase, retrieved Button from preschool, and drove out of Houston.

     Just out of Tomball, I hit a driving rain and skidded out of control. We went airborne and came down with a sickening thud. Some time later, I woke up in the familiar setting of a hospital.

     Pam materialized out of nowhere. “Button’s all right, just scared for her mother,” she said, answering my unspoken question. “Jessie has her, and Bix is in court, but I expect he’ll be along.” She leaned over me. “Why, Marian? Is there anything I can do to keep you from destroying yourself?”

     Bix came that night, full of disgust and loathing. “Please,” I begged from a haze of pain, “don’t take my baby.”

     He hovered over me. “Give me one reason I shouldn’t.”

     Finally, I understood what I had to do. Gathering my strength, I said, “She’s not yours.”

     He whirled and strode out.

     The next morning, having been cleared medically except for minor cuts and bruises, an orderly wheeled my bed into an elevator. A nurse unlocked a door a few feet away where a slightly built man wearing a white coat stepped into view. “Hello, Mrs. Matthews. My name is Al Comer. I’m a psychiatrist, and you’ve been admitted to this unit for treatment. A nurse will get you settled in a room, and then I’ll be in to see you.”

     The bare room contained a hospital bed, a single dresser, a straight-backed chair, a bare window facing the side of another building, and nothing else. The nurse put me to bed in silence, unpacked a small suitcase which I assumed Pam had brought, and left the door open when she finished. Without my brace, though, I wasn’t going anywhere. I wondered where it was. More to the point, I wondered where Button was.

     Panic was setting in when Dr. Al Comer showed up. “Hello again,” he said, moving the chair closer to my bed. “I expect you have a lot of questions.”

     “Where’s my daughter?”

     He smiled. “A Mrs. Fordham, who brought your suitcase, said she was taking Button to Danford. She said you’d understand.”

     Relief flooded me. Bless Pam. Button would be safe there forever no matter what happened to me. And with a single lie, I’d fixed things so that Bix wouldn’t touch her.

     “Your husband signed the commitment papers for psychiatric evaluation and treatment.”

     “Of course, he did.”

     “Do you know why?”

     “Other than the fact that I’m a drunk and addicted to two dozen pain pills, I couldn’t guess.”

  He smiled again. “Drying out isn’t going to be fun, but my hope is that we can work things out so you won’t be in this position again.”

    “How do you plan to do that?”

     “We talk.”

  I turned my face away. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before I talk to you or anyone else about anything.”

  For the first week, Dr. Comer showed up regularly and sat with me for a silent half hour. My meals were brought, but I had no appetite. A nurse doled out medication on a strict schedule, and another one helped me in the bathroom and asked each morning if I wanted to get dressed. I didn’t speak to her either.

  At the beginning of the second week, Dr. Comer poked his head around the open door and said, “I understand you’re something of an artist. Would you like to go to the art class this morning?”

  “And weave baskets and string beads?” I snapped. My voice sounded husky from disuse.

 He laughed. “Doesn’t sound appealing to me either. What would you like to do?”

 I thought for a moment. “I’d like a sketch book and some art pencils. None of the cheap stuff though. Bix Matthews can afford the best.”

 Everything I’d asked for appeared after lunch. It wasn’t easy to hold a pencil in my shaking fingers, but by dinnertime I’d turned out a credible sketch of the ranch house with Dutch’s longhorns grazing in the background.

 “That’s amazing,” said the nurse who brought my dinner.

 I shrugged. “It’ll do.”

 She taped it to my wall. “Everyone should see this.”

 I actually ate every bite of my dinner, and for the rest of the evening, a steady stream of nurses and other employees filed in to see my sketch.

 Al Comer came back the next morning. “I heard about this,” he said, stepping closer to inspect the drawing. “You’re very talented. Have you had art training?”

 “No.”

 “Just a natural talent?”

  “I suppose.”

  “What else do you do?”

 “Paint. Play the piano.”

 “Music lessons?”

 “A few. Mostly I play by ear, although I do read music.”

 “I take it this sketch is of the ranch where Button is.”

 I nodded.

 “Who else lives there? Besides the longhorns, I mean?”

 It took two days to explain Tank, Francie, Vic, Peggy, Miss Grace, Dutch, and eight assorted children. “Dutch collects people like he collects longhorns,” I added.

 “What about you? Did he collect you?”

 “I suppose he tried.”

 “And Button?”

 “She thinks they’re her family.”

 “What about you?”

 “They’re all I’ve got. Well, there’s Valerie and Ned, but…”

 He seemed to be thinking. “They’re mentioned in your information. Your sister-in-law and nephew, right?”

 I burst into tears. “Edward’s dead! My brother’s dead! I should be the one who died, not him!”

Only a sedative plunged into my hip stopped the wild sobbing I couldn’t control.

 I began to talk to Dr. Comer daily while I sketched. Soon, he knew almost all my dirty little secrets, and the walls of my room were a virtual art gallery. I told him about Tom, how I’d seduced him against his will that night, and how God—if there was a God—had punished me by taking him in the accident. I relived Mary Nelle’s death and the loss of my tiny baby boy. “I don’t deserve to be alive when they aren’t,” I finished.

 “I could tell you that none of it was your fault, but you wouldn’t believe me,” Dr. Comer said gently.

 “Button’s hand was my fault.” I told him about trying to abort her.

 “How far along were you?”

 “Eight weeks, maybe a little more.”

 “Where does her arm end?”

 “About where her wrist would be.”

 He got up. “That’s all for today. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

 The next morning he brought me pictures of a baby at various stages of development. “You weren’t responsible for Button’s hand,” he said, pointing to the clearly defined hands and fingers of an eight-week-old fetus. “Something else happened. We’ll never know what, but the pills you took had nothing to do with her being born without a hand.”

 He left the pictures with me, and I stared at them for hours. Was it possible? I’d stopped drinking when I decided to try and get pregnant again, and at that point, I only took medicine for my blood pressure. Could I really be blameless? I wasn’t sure I could ever believe that, but the pictures were reassuring.

 I refused to go to the dining room for meals, but I did dress every morning, and one day the nurse gave me back my brace. I asked her if she’d call Pam and give her a list of the makeup products I wanted.

 “Of course, Mrs. Matthews. Is there anything else you want to put on the list?”

 I checked it over. “Soap. Good soap. This hospital issue is about to turn me into a prune.”

 She laughed. “It will do that.”

 Fully put together—and dried out—I graduated from the sketch book to pastels and finally to an easel, canvases, and oil paints.

 I knew Dr. Comer was getting everything he wanted out of me despite that I’d vowed not to do—talk to him. But he was good company while I painted anyway.

 We talked about my high school years, how it was to live at home with parents who openly disliked me, and how Dan Kroll had almost killed me with whatever pills he kept bringing home. “At least they kept me out of the way,” I said.

 Dr. Comer was silent a moment. “Is that all he did?”

 “The pills, you mean?”

 “What else did he do?”

 “Nothing.”

 He fell silent again.

 “He didn’t do anything. He just…” And then it all came rushing back. I threw down my brush so violently that paint splattered on the linoleum. It all came out—the clandestine visits to my room at night before I had polio...and finally his last visit when I was in high school. I’d made a new dress to wear to a picnic at the ranch and draped it across the foot board of my bed. He stood there looking at me, and something inside of me screamed no more!

 “Don’t touch me! I swear to God, if you ever touch me again, I’ll cut my throat on the steps of the bank and leave a note with Chief Hatcher telling people why I did it!”

 He’d stared at me and left. Immediately, I was violently sick to my stomach all over my new dress. That night after dark, I found my way to the burn barrel in the back, stuffed it inside,struck two dozen matches, and threw them in on top.

 The voice telling the sordid story didn’t sound like mine, but the screams and the foul words that followed did. I began to throw whatever I could get my hands on until Dr. Comer rescued the easel and the paints.

 I was aware of two nurses materializing out of nowhere and heard him say, “No. No sedative. She’s got to get all this out. It’s been poisoning her soul all her life.”

 When I was limp from the outburst, the nurses came back, undressed me, and put me to bed. One told me later that I’d slept for twenty-four hours. I couldn’t prove it, but I did know that I felt oddly different when I woke up.

 When Dr. Comer came in again, he didn’t mention what I’d told him, but he did ask if I wanted to talk about anything else. I told him about Rosie.

 “Any regrets?”

 “It wasn’t easy living with Peggy and her during the war, but I always knew I’d done the right thing.”

 “I take it no one knows what you did.”

 “No.”

 “For what it’s worth, I believe you did the right thing, too.”

 I looked up from the adding bluebonnets to the portrait of Mary Nelle sitting in the field beyond the barn at the ranch. “Thank you for that. And for what it's worth, Button is Bix's child, too. I lied to him, and I think he knew it, but he never wanted her anyway."

 “By your own admission, you’ve tried three or four times to kill yourself. Do you still want to.”

 “No. I want to be a mother to Button. I want us to make a good life together.”

 “Where will that be?”

 I could almost smell the fresh-cut feed in the field by Dutch’s longhorn pasture. “The ranch. I want to go home.”

 He smiled and rose. “I’ll have one of the nurses bring a phone.”

 I waited until just after supper at the ranch. Dutch answered the phone. “I want to come home,” I said. “To stay this time.”

 “We’re ready for you, gal. Let me know when to send Tank to Houston.”

Chapter 31

     When I told Bix I was staying, he agreed that I should. I tried to read relief into his words, but there was none. “Will you telephone Pam tonight and ask if she’ll bring Button?”

     “Of course.” He sat down on the edge of the bed. “I knew what your fa...what Dan Kroll had done.”

     “How? How did you know?”

     “When Mother died, I found a private investigator’s report in her safe deposit box. One of the bank auditors had suspected that my father had been framed, and after he died, he pursued it.”

     “Why did your mother not clear your father’s name then?”

     “I don’t know. But it’s cleared now, and my moment of vengeance has been paid for at a terrible cost.”

     “Edward was a dying man long before this.” I could hardly speak the words, but I saw no reason to let Bix bear any guilt for the unbelievable chain of circumstances.

     “Mother should have told me. In a way, I feel she betrayed me.”

     About eight-thirty he brought two glasses of wine into the bedroom. “I’m leaving you a book of checks as well as some cash, and I’ll send whatever you need from the house if you’ll let me know.”

     “I’ll make a list next week.” I began to relax for the first time in weeks. “Isn’t it strange, Bix, that this is the first real conversation we’ve had in months?”

     “I never know what to say to you, Mari.”

     “Nor I to you. But I appreciate everything you’ve done for me these past few days. . .no matter what the motivation.”

     Something in his eyes told me I’d hurt him. “Well,” he said after a pause, “I tried.”

     Edward Prentice Tankersley Kroll was born just at dusk on a cool evening in late September. Valerie was exhausted after the thirty-hour labor for which she’d refused all medication. “I can’t risk anything happening to Edward’s son,” she kept saying. Even Peggy hadn’t been able to persuade her that taking something for the grinding pain wouldn’t hurt the baby.

     I stayed at the hospital the entire time, dozing on the hard sofa in the waiting room whenever I couldn’t sit up anymore. By the time Valerie’s pain was over, mine was just beginning. Vic and Peggy took me forcibly to the ranch, hauled me upstairs, and put me to bed. I slept immediately but woke at least twice with leg cramps and muscle spasms in my back and no one to take care of them.

     Still, I managed to paste a smile on my face to visit Valerie the next afternoon. She was radiant. “Isn’t he the most beautiful baby you’ve ever seen?”

     “Of course, he is. He’s got Edward’s dimple in his little chin and your blue eyes.”

     She grasped my hand. “Thank you for staying with me all that time. You must be exhausted.”

“You’re the one who did all the work.”

     She bit her lip. “It was hard. There were times I thought I wouldn’t have the strength to refuse any medication.”

     “You didn’t have to suffer, Valerie.”

     “I couldn’t take any chances,” she said softly. “And it’s over now, and my baby’s perfect. Edward’s son is perfect.”

     My eyes filled with tears. “I’d have died in his place,” I said. “He should have lived to see his son!”

     “Don’t, Marian dear! He knows. I’m sure he knows.”

     I wasn’t sure at all, but I didn’t say anymore.

     When Aaron let Valerie come home to the ranch, Miss Grace took over as she had with me. “Your only duty is to feed that baby,” she said when Valerie protested that she couldn’t just lie around all day.

     Button spent a lot of time watching her do just that. She loved babies and talked constantly about Ned, as Valerie decided to call him.

     “Who’s next?” Dutch joked at supper one evening.

     “Four is quite enough, thank you,” Francie said, tossing her head. “I’ve made my contribution to this family.”

     Vic winked at her. “I guess we’re through, too. Every time you get on the nest, Peg and I get a new chick.”

     Miss Grace pursed her lips. “Inappropriate,” she said tightly.

     “Don’t look at me,” I said quickly. “Aaron put me out of business.”

     Miss Grace turned her attention to me. “Ladies don’t discuss such things in mixed company.”

     “I’m no lady,” I said. “You know that.”

     “Stop it,” Peggy said. “You all know better.”

     Francie’s black eyes glinted wickedly. “Lucky we have the krolik to remind us of our manners.”

     The tip of Peggy’s nose turned pink. “At least I know mine!” she retorted.

     “Well, one out of three of us isn’t bad,” I said.

     Dutch cleared his throat. “Gracie, your girls are naughty tonight.”

     “Why are they mine when they’re naughty?” she asked, but she laughed.

     Valerie leaned around Ned who was dozing on her shoulder, and took another bite the dinner he’d interrupted earlier. “I’ll never fit back into my clothes if I keep eating like this.”

     “Of course, you will,” Francie said firmly. “I was twice as big as you ever were, and I did.”

     “You were a little on the plump side,” Tank said.

     She swatted at him. “Thanks to you.”

     “I never even looked expectant until the last couple of months,” I said.

     “I thought you just had a pillow stuffed in your waistband for effect,” Vic said.

     Miss Grace pushed back from the table. “Dinner is now over, and all I can say is, it’s a good thing the children were excused earlier!”

     Dutch chuckled and got up, too. “I’m going out to smoke,” he said.

     “You’ll catch your death in this damp weather,” Miss Grace said.

     “Grown men banished from the shelter of their own roof,” Tank said, winking at his mother.

     That night as I was tucking Button in, she settled Grampa Bear and Dimples beside her and smiled with satisfaction. “All home now,” she said.

     “Dream nice,” I whispered. I turned off the light and undressed in the dark. Ned was almost six weeks old, and Aaron had told Valerie that she could travel then. When she did, I’d have no excuse to stay at the ranch.

     “Marian?” Valerie tapped softly on the door. “The parlor’s empty, and I’d like to talk to you while I nurse Ned.”

     Noticing that Button had gone to sleep immediately, I tied my robe and went to the door. “I’m coming.”
     Valerie sat in Miss Grace’s chair beside the window with the curtains open to the starry night. She unbuttoned her blouse and positioned the baby. When he was nursing contentedly, she said, “You know I’m going to Atlanta soon to see my family and friends.

     “Yes. I don’t see how your mother has stood it with you being so far away.”

     “She understood, and of course, she made a nice long visit right after Ned was born. Miss Grace always seems to have room for one more under her roof.”

     “Have you made any definite plans?”

     “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I’m going back to San Angelo first to put the house on the market, and then I’m coming back here. I want Ned to grow up where his father did. . .in the house where his father was born.”

     “Why would you want to do that?” I blurted.

     “Edward loved that house. Not the things that went on in it, you understand, but the house itself. He looked up the abstract once. It was built in 1875, though it’s been added onto and remodeled since.” She smoothed Ned’s bald head with the tip of one finger. “Everything was left to Edward, of course, and then it came to me.”

     “Of course. I didn’t want anything from them.”

     She hesitated. “Edward made some provision for you and Button after she was born. He’d anticipated your staying on here, of course. He’d never used much of his trust from your grandmother, and after you repaid the money he’d advanced you while you were in college—though he gave that freely with no expectation of repayment, you understand—he invested all the money at a good yield. Then, as I said, when Button was born, he transferred it into a trust for the two of you.”

     “I’ll sign it back to you,” I said quickly.

     “No, no, you don’t understand. Ned and I are provided for. I have the decorating business in San Angelo and let Dierdre run it for me and share the profits. I put my share away for a rainy day. And Edward invested wisely and left things in order. His attorney in San Angelo has been setting your parents’. . .the estate here. What I propose to do is live upstairs and turn the downstairs into a showroom for a branch of my business. I can work when I want to and still be a full time mother to Ned, you see.”

     “I do see,” I said, becoming interested.

     “I know you don’t have good memories of the house,” she went on smoothly, but once I’ve made the changes I anticipate, it won’t seem like the same place. I thought perhaps you’d consider living there with me and helping me in the business.”

     I opened my mouth to say that it was impossible, but she cut me off. “You know I’ve kept Mrs. Flowers on salary to look after the house, and Grover likes to think he can still do the gardening, though he’s slowing down every year. He’s almost eighty, you know.”

     “I don’t suppose I knew that. I’ve rarely seen either of them since I left.”

     “I spoke with Mrs. Flowers just last week, and she’d like to leave as soon as things are settled. She has a sister in Michigan. Grover said emphatically that hes going to stay and look after Ned and me. The carriage house is home to him. Edward made some improvements about ten years ago. Grover’s quite comfortable and has all the comforts Edward could think to add, and I did some decorating according to his wishes."

     “Against Dan Kroll’s wishes I imagine.”

     “Edward knew how to get around him,” Valerie said vaguely. “Anyway, I told Grover that we wouldn’t hear of him leaving. He has no family, you see. I know he’d be pleased to have you and Button come back. He’s always asked about you.” She leaned over to kiss Ned. “Before you say no, Marian, at least think it over. I’m not doing this for Edward, though I know he’d be pleased. I’m doing it for Ned and me. You’d be a link to his father. He and Button would grow up like brother and sister. And, your artistic talents aren’t to be discounted when we begin to think about building a clientele.”

     “Bix would never agree to a divorce.”

     She leaned forward a little. “Marian, are you afraid he’ll take Button away from you?”

     “Why do you ask?” I averted my eyes.

     “Bix is an excellent attorney, but Edward’s attorney is older and more experienced—and he would fight to the death to keep any part of Edward from harm.” She sat back, noticing that Ned had fallen asleep. “Just think about it, please, Marian. Don’t consider the obstacles. We can overcome those.”

     I was still considering her proposal when she left for San Angelo. But on the day after she left, Bix telephoned, sounding like his old haughty self, and said that he wanted me to come back to Houston. “People are beginning to talk,” he said. “It’s been seven months.”

     The night he called, I was in the worst pain I’d experienced in months. All the children, including Button, had colds and were feverish and cranky. Aaron had made a house call in the afternoon, saying he was glad to be able to kill nine birds with one stone if he had to drive twenty miles to do it. After he’d tended to his nine chicks as he called them, much to the chagrin of the three oldest, he took me into the parlor and gave me the third degree.

    “Your blood pressure’s staying way too high,” he said. “I’m changing the dosage on your medication. And you need to gain at least ten pounds.”

     “I eat well.”

  “You need to get a place of your own in town. Get yourself settled down once and for all. Button will go to school in a few more years. She needs some roots.”

     “I know what she needs. And you’re assuming a great deal.”

     He walked to the window and looked out at the late afternoon sun. “It’s no secret in Danford that your marriage is a sham,” he said. “When something doesn’t work, leave it and go on. Divorce Bix, Marian. After a decent interval, you and I could get married.” His voice dropped. “I’ve loved you since I came back here after the war. I’d be good to you and Button.”

     “What are you saying?” Shock ran through me like a current.

     Silence choked the room like a fog. Finally, without turning around, Aaron said, “It hasn’t been easy watching you suffer physically and emotionally since the war. . .knowing I couldn’t do anything except as your doctor whenever you were here. When Mary Nelle died. . .and the baby. . .it was almost like losing part of myself. I made up my mind to move heaven and earth to see that you kept Button, and you did, but then we almost lost you. I’ve never gotten over thinking that I should’ve seen the problem coming. I missed something somewhere, or it wouldn’t have happened.”

     I struggled to my feet. “Aaron, please, I can’t talk about this right now.”

     He turned back into the doctor. “Make sure Button gets plenty of fluids, and keep her quiet if you can. This time of year, colds are turning into bronchitis.”

     He picked up his bag and walked past me. I followed him to the front door.

     “Aaron, thank you for coming out. Thank you for caring.”

     “Sure,” he said, not looking at me. “Anytime.”

     Then Bix called, and I told him I’d let him know my plans. I knew though, that Valerie’s plans couldn’t include me. I’d considered the possibility of fighting Bix and winning, but after Aaron had said those things this afternoon. . .I couldn’t come back to Danford. I couldn’t fight him, too. At least I could fulfill my obligations to Bix, but Aaron would want a wife. Most of the time, I didn’t even feel like a woman anymore.