Lilia turned her mind to other deaths, some recent, some in the remote past. That emptiness could be as fatal as a heart attack, and she had trained herself, faster than the most experienced first responders. Enough people had died on Lilia. But they were more or less in the right order, and the pains they left were the tolerable kind, losing their sharp edges with each month and each year passing. Her grandparents, her parents, some of her siblings, her husbands. And Roland. She didn’t count Roland as dead dead, but he, like the others, let Lilia move her fingers around until they could feel the outline of that heart. Yes, back here again, sturdy, almost stone-hard. Oh, that heart. It did play the vanishing trick on her once in a while.
A FEW MONTHS BEFORE THE DEATH of Lilia’s mother, Lilia’s father had joined Mr. Williamson in an investment. The idea of combining their ranch with the Williamson Inn as an attraction had been Mr. Williamson’s. With the return from war of sailors and soldiers, he had reasoned, and with the guests for the international peace conference in San Francisco, they could start a business of lodging and horseback riding for those who needed a break. Once established, they could advertise it to the locals as a place for weekend outings and family gatherings.
The inn and the ranch were close enough to the city, yet far enough to claim the idyllic-ness of the countryside. Both had been established early enough to claim being historical; both families had been in the state long enough to be called true Californians. The prospect, no doubt dangled by Mr. Williamson as bait in front of Lilia’s father, was presented to the family at supper. California is the future, but exactly for that reason, a ranch that brought back the past would be appealing. When everything changes around us, Lilia’s father said, we can make a fortune from not changing. The words must have been fed to him by Mr. Williamson.
Why is that, Hayes asked, not questioning but giving their father an opportunity to go on talking. A few months short of turning fifteen, Hayes had already begun to think of the ranch as his. Nothing had been said in the family, but Lilia suspected that their father had made some sort of promise to Hayes in private.
People have fancies about the old time, Lilia’s father said. And we can make money out of their fancies.
Mr. Williamson’s sales pitch, Lilia thought, word for word.
Sounds like a great idea, Hayes said. What do you think, Ma?
The children turned to her. They knew their father didn’t need anything from her but to say it was a good idea. They knew, too, that Hayes had spoken twice because of her silence. With a shrewder mind than their father, Hayes was on good terms with both his parents and his siblings. Lilia respected him for his calculation.
Their mother shrugged, cutting a potato into two perfect halves.
People go in for that kind of recreation, Lilia’s father said, raising his voice. That you don’t know how to enjoy life doesn’t mean others don’t. After years of marriage, Lilia’s mother still held some power over her father in her expressionless face, which made Lilia pity him. He still did not understand that the more provoked he appeared, the more powerless he would look in front of his wife and children.
Lilia knew that her mother would not bother to voice her objection. We’re doing fine, Lilia said. Why do we have to change just to help the Williamsons out?
The inn, which once bore the majestic name of the Empire Inn, had been built by Mr. Williamson’s great-grandfather, and it had served well the travelers between San Francisco and the mining towns up north. But by then it had more stories to boast of than prosperity. An inn did not renew itself every year like livestock or vegetables.
Young lady, nobody is asking your opinion, Lilia’s father said. He could’ve said something nastier, but Lilia had turned sixteen the month before, and he felt it necessary to give her some respect as a grown-up woman.
You know what’s best, Lilia’s mother said placidly, looking around the table at each of her children, pausing just long enough, Lilia thought, to register their names and ages. She would have given them the same look had there been an earthquake that had destroyed everything but spared her children’s lives. So you’re all here—that look would have said—and I still have to find a way to mother you till we are freed from each other one day.
Lilia’s mother had married the wrong man. It was like boarding a train that never takes you in the right direction, let alone to the destination you have in mind. The farther it travels, the less point there is in going on, and the lesser in getting off. What was unforgivable, though, was that she was the kind of woman for whom any husband would be the wrong husband. Why marry, then?
Lilia’s mother had hoped that Lilia would go into nursing, but she had had no interest in alleviating other people’s suffering. Her beauty would have been a waste in a hospital ward, as her mother’s was a waste on the ranch. Instead, Lilia had set her heart on enrolling at a secretarial school in the city. When she saved enough money for a place to live she would leave the ranch, and once she finished her training she would wear heels and lipstick every day to work, living in a room paid for by her own wages and going to movies with men who knew the world like the backs of their hands.
The Williamson-Liska venture turned out to be more than just a retreat for innocent souls, though Lilia’s father refused to admit that he had assisted the immoral sailors and soldiers and their girls, who were temporary and interchangeable to those rowdy young men. The reputation of the place must have traveled fast. Some of the girls had become returning customers, bringing different men with them and calling themselves by different names.
Lilia and her siblings had much more to say to one another now. The dinner conversation, supervised by their parents, was drab as ever. But promiscuousness penetrated like mold, its spores in the air, its odor in every room—except it was not mold, but something more captivating. Even Kenny absorbed the excitement like a greedy sponge. They were resourceful children, and they competed to make anything out of what little they had access to. Their father’s misjudgment and the regret he would not voice only added to their pleasure.
The most salacious encounters happened over at the inn. Other than Lilia, the children were forbidden to go near it. She observed the girls walking up the staircase and studying themselves in the mirror on the second-floor landing. Some looked more experienced, others only a year or two older than Lilia. None was as pretty as she was. You could see that in the young men’s eyes, but Lilia did not need their confirmation. The mirror was her truest friend.
Where were these girls from? What kind of lives did they have before arriving at the inn? One afternoon when she was saddling Dee Dee for a girl named Betsy—the young man who had come with her was sleeping—Lilia asked Betsy about her life. It was her third visit to the inn, and she seemed eager to talk. She said that she did not have parents. She was raised by her grandparents in Butte, Montana, and after they died she had sold everything and boarded the train for California. Did they tell you who your parents were? Lilia asked. Betsy said, Not really. In fact, she wasn’t sure if they were her mother’s parents or her father’s. Do you have siblings? Lilia asked, and Betsy said no, she was left to her grandparents as an infant. The thought of being an only child fascinated Lilia, like being the only horse or the only cow on a ranch. How do you fight for anything if you are the only one? Betsy, who was not pretty but sweet, did not return after that day. Lilia imagined her falling in love with a soldier and getting married. But would that be it? Lilia wasn’t sure. She made up a second story, in which Betsy was murdered because a girl like that, without anyone to watch out for her and without the upbringing to teach her how to fight, could end up badly.