Cars pulled in and out of the driveway as if by appointment. I wondered if the town had gotten together and scheduled when they would visit, knowing old Ray’s house wasn’t big enough for everyone all at once, and it was too damn hot to stand outside. Now Irma, you go at three forty-five and I’ll come at four fifteen.
Chickens squawked and flapped away as I walked to the barn. The familiar scent of hay and motor oil leveled me like a freight train.
Ray’s old John Deere was parked on one side of the barn, next to the shredder and a few old tires. A jumble of farm equipment that didn’t work, but Ray refused to get rid of, blocked access to the hayloft ladder. Three empty stalls and the tack room lined the opposite wall. I went to the tack room door and stopped. I stared at the latch, jagged wood, worn smooth with age and use. I hadn’t thought of it in years, and all this time it had been here, waiting for me to return, twist it, and steal my father’s stash one more time.
There it was, half empty, dusty and covered with cobwebs, tucked behind the sawhorse holding Ray’s saddle. The label was dry and brittle with age. I paused before opening it. Surely this wasn’t the same bottle I drank from in high school. I shook the thought away and poured a healthy shot into my cup. The ice cracked and popped when the warm Old Crow hit it. I shook the glass, cooling the whiskey and melting the ice into small shards before taking a long drink. I closed my eyes and put the cold cup to my forehead. Sweat trickled down my back and temple. It was mid-June, and the heat in the tack room was oppressive. It was nothing like the heat at Mortaritaville, but I’d been at a desk for too long and had lost my acclimation to heat.
“Nora?”
I opened my eyes and saw her outlined in the doorway, the bright light behind throwing her in shadow. For a moment, I believed it was 1995, and she was waiting for me to nick the bottle, climb into the hayloft and get loaded together. My throat constricted. Or was it my heart?
“I saw you come out here when I drove up.”
I lifted the bottle. “Ray was nothing if not a creature of habit.”
“As are you, apparently.”
I chuckled. “I can’t believe it took me a whole day to remember it.”
“That bottle looks pretty old. Hope it doesn’t give you ptomaine poisoning.”
I laughed. Ptomaine poisoning had been Ray’s go-to threat, next to getting lockjaw from kissing my horse’s muzzle. With Ray’s cooking, the risk of food poisoning had been real. It was why we ate most meals at Emmadean’s house.
Sophie stepped out of the doorway, and I left the tack room, closing the door slowly as if it would crack into a million pieces unless I was careful.
I wish I could say it was as if no time had passed, that I felt the same affection for her as before. But, I was a different person. She was a different person. How could we not be? The Sophie I’d been imagining was a seventeen-year-old beauty, the life of the party, full of impossible dreams, by Lynchfield standards, not the nervous woman on the downhill slide to forty in front of me.
We’d had it all planned out: attend Texas Tech together, Sophie would get a degree in public relations, me in journalism, and we would set out for New York City, maybe Chicago. Anywhere that wasn’t small-town Texas. I would have been happy with Dallas or Houston, but not Sophie. She wanted out of Texas, as far away as possible. I didn’t care as long as we did it together. We’d done everything together since we were ten years old. I couldn’t imagine life any other way. I’d never wanted to imagine life any other way.
Then, my life went sideways all at once, and it took years for me to straighten it out. The army, language school, night school to get my degree, officer training school, assigned to Army Intelligence right before September 11. I survived nine months at Balad Air Force Base, affectionately known as Mortaritaville for the daily bombings, only to have my convoy run over an IED two days before my tour was over.
After being released from the hospital, I’d asked for and received a discharge, but the government didn’t write off their investments that easily, especially a former officer who spoke multiple languages. I’d lived a good life, an exciting life. I was living a version of the life Sophie and I envisioned, and I was happy.
For the first time, I realized maybe Sophie did me a favor by betraying me.
“How are you, NoNo?” she said.
Charlie had used the nickname the day before, but hearing Sophie use it... “Don’t call me that.” I shook my head. “Not that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yes, I know.” I waved it away with the hand holding the cup. I drank and offered her the bottle.
Sophie licked her lips and said, “No, thanks.”
I poured more into my cup, melting the ice completely, and drank again. I watched Sophie over the rim. “Did you come to gawp at me like everyone else? Digger says I’m the main attraction, which is why I’m hiding in the barn with a musty bottle of Old Crow.”
“That’s not why I’m here.” She stepped forward. “Logan wasn’t lying. You look fantastic.”
“I don’t have a husband and child to age me.”
She grimaced, knowing me well enough all these years later to recognize the veiled insult. She’d been the brash one; I’d been circumspect. I’d never been cruel, though.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“No, it’s true. You look happy.”
“Yes, well, my father’s dead. I hear yours is, as well.”
She nodded. “Mother told me she saw you.”
“I’m sure she did. How are you feeling?”
“What?”
“Logan said you had a headache yesterday?”
“Oh, right. I wasn’t sick. I couldn’t face you.”
I wasn’t sure if the admission gratified me or saddened me. “What changed?”
“I had to see you.” Sophie twisted her wedding ring around and around her finger, pulled it off partway, shoved it back on and continued turning it. I went still at the sight of a thin silver band on her right ring finger. When I found my voice, it was brusquer than I intended.
“Why? To ask my forgiveness?”
She glanced away and shook her head. “I lost hope of that years ago.”
I stared into my empty cup. A pleasant warmth had spread throughout my body, but it was not enough. I wanted another drink but didn’t want to look weak.
“I like Logan.” I glanced up at Sophie, who couldn’t hide her pride in her daughter. “She reminds me of you.”
Her smile slipped a little before she laughed and said, “Oh, don’t let her hear you say that. I’m pretty much the most embarrassing mom ever.”