Questions flew across the room—“Who’s the father?” “Are you getting married?” “What about your music?”
“It doesn’t matter who the father is, it’s my baby. So no, I’m not getting married. And I can work on my music here while I wait for the baby to arrive.”
“Here?” Raney almost choked on the word.
“Yes! It’ll be fun! Just like when we were growing up!”
Coralee understood Raney’s panic. No doubt she was remembering all the broken rules, missed curfews, forgotten promises, and general chaos that followed her little sister like a trail of dust.
“And after?” Raney asked Joss. “If you go back to touring with Crystal, do you plan on leaving the baby here?”
“Of course not! I know it won’t be easy, but I won’t leave my baby behind. And I don’t want to go through this alone. Mama, promise me you’ll come back.”
“Yes, promise!” Raney insisted with a steely-eyed look.
Coralee smiled. “I promise I’ll try.”
“Wonderful! Mark it down, everyone! We’ll all meet here in September to welcome the new baby and hear all about Mama’s grand adventure! It’ll be such fun!”
* * *
* * *
His mother came out onto the porch as Dalton came up the weed-choked gravel walk. “Sonny,” she said.
“Hi, Mom.” Dalton climbed the stairs and gave her a hug. She felt so small and fragile in his arms he was afraid if he squeezed too hard he might break something. “It’s good to see you.”
Always uncomfortable with displays of affection, even with her own family, his mother pulled back first. “Sorry we didn’t come get you.”
“That’s okay. It’s a long drive. Where’s Dad?”
“Inside.”
Something in her face alerted him. “Is he sick?”
She shook her head, sending wisps of gray hair fanning her wrinkled cheeks. “Tired, mostly. And ashamed.”
She looked tired, too, Dalton thought. And a lot older than when he left. Was his absence allowing him to see changes that had been coming a long time? Or had something happened while he was gone?
“Ashamed, why?” he asked. Surely not about what happened a year and a half ago? Dalton thought they’d gotten past all that.
“For selling the place. And for not talking to you before he did.”
“Why didn’t he?” Dalton tried to keep an edge from his voice.
She shrugged her thin shoulders. Looked past him into the distance. “He had no choice, sonny. Selling was the right thing to do.”
Dalton thought of the smirk on Langers’s face when he said this might not be his home for long. “You weren’t being pressured, were you?” He hoped the county commissioner’s fury at him hadn’t spilled over onto his parents.
“Commissioner Adkins has been a bother, but that’s not the main reason for selling. Dad will explain it all.” There was a pause, then she said, “You heard Karla moved to Fort Worth?”
“I know.” Surely that wasn’t the biggest news in his absence. “She wrote me.”
“Never figured she’d stay in Rough Creek.”
“I didn’t, either.” And he was tired of talking about it.
“All right, then.” She motioned toward the sagging structure behind the house. “Timmy’s in the barn, unloading bales off the harrow bed. Give him your hellos while I fix some iced tea. Then you and Dad can talk.”
His parents had been in their late thirties when Dalton was born. Mom had given up on having children and often called him her miracle baby. Then eleven years later, Timmy had come along. Another miracle, since it was a difficult birth with complications for both her and the baby. Timmy had a long recovery and seemed slow to flourish. By the time he was four and barely beginning to talk or walk, they knew he would remain childlike forever. The doctor said that sometimes happened with difficult, late-in-life pregnancies. Mom didn’t care. Even if Timmy’s intellect never rose above the early-elementary-school level, Mom still saw him as another miracle baby.
Dalton didn’t care, either. Timmy was easy to love, and the most joyful, playful, kindhearted person he had ever known. But his brother was over twenty now, and almost as big as Dalton at six-two and close to two hundred pounds. He might be too much for his aging parents to handle.
“Dalton!” Timmy shouted when he saw his big brother coming down the center aisle of the barn. “You came back!”
“I did.”
After a vigorous reunion that involved a lot of hugging, laughing, arm-punching, and more hugging, Dalton was able to hold his brother at bay long enough to take a full breath. “I missed you too, buddy. But no more hitting. Even between us. Remember, we talked about that.”
“Yeah. Okay. No more hitting. I remember. No hitting.”
“Good man.” Dalton gave his brother’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “I see Dad’s letting you run the harrow bed.” He eyed the crooked alfalfa bales leaning at an angle against the log support posts that were intended to keep the stack from tipping over.
“But not on the road,” Timmy stated with firm emphasis as he shook his head. “Dad says not to go on the road. I have to stay in the pasture or the field. Not on the road.”
“He’s right. You listen to Dad.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
Dalton reminded himself to check the tractor later to make sure the fuel and hydraulic levels were where they should be. “You like working the harrow bed?”
“Yeah.” More nodding. “Dad says I do good, maybe I can run the tractor again. But not on the road. I can’t go on the road.”
They talked for a few minutes longer, then Timmy said, “I have to go now, Dalton. I have work to do. Important work, Dad says. Maybe now you came home, you can work with me. Okay?”
“We’ll see.”
His parents were waiting for him in the front room they called the parlor, which served as both the den and living room in their small, century-old, wood-sided farmhouse. At Mom’s insistence, Dad had added on a laundry room and second bathroom a decade earlier, but when she pushed for a den and porch across the back, he said he had neither the time nor money to invest in “beautification projects” and that put an end to it. Now it didn’t matter anymore. The new owners would likely bulldoze the house and build something bigger and more modern. Rich city folks, probably. Looking to play at cattle ranching while earning a fat tax write-off on a fancy weekend home. Poor people couldn’t afford to work a place smaller than a half section anymore. The only way his folks had lasted so long was because they owned the land and everything on it free and clear.