Gracie closed her eyes, letting their song of the prairie fill her. She felt battered and sore, like she'd been in a fight. Her spirit was down—really down, and listening to the coyotes took her back to the good times, when Daddy had still been alive, and Mama had known their names.
Finally, the coyotes moved on, and when they did, Gracie got up and walked out into the yard, grateful for the gentle breeze against her clean skin. She looked up at the night sky, then out across the dark prairie. She'd never felt so small, or so alone. She needed to be heard. She needed people to know she was still here, thinking God needed a reminder, too, that she was still alive—still dreaming.
And so she tilted her head back and thrust a fist into the air, shouting aloud into the night.
"I, Gracie, am not the Dunham who died. Life did not beat me. Mama couldn't kill me. The war is over, and I'm still standing."
Then she turned around, grabbed her dirty dishes, and went inside. The ritual of putting the house to sleep was as familiar as putting her mama to bed. She began going through each room, locking all the windows and doors.
She was so tired, she was numb. She hadn't slept more than an hour at a time in the past thirty-six hours and wasn't sure she could unwind enough now to relax.
She kept thinking Mama needed her, and then would remember Delia had no need of anything on this earth again. Gracie was sad, but she was not going to cry because Mama was gone. She'd prayed too many nights for God to come get her.
She accepted that the tears would come when the need arose. She opened the windows beside her bed and turned the box fan toward her face. She sat down on the side of the mattress, pulled her long hair over her shoulder, and slowly braided it to keep it off her neck as she slept. And when she was through, she turned out the lamp, crawled between the freshly washed sheets and rolled over onto her side toward the open window, feeling the cool spot on the pillow against her face.
It would be heaven if the central air conditioner still worked. Even at night, summer in Texas was brutal. But she wouldn't be here much longer, and it didn't matter anymore.
She was just about to close her eyes when she remembered she hadn’t notified her sister-in-law, Darlene. So she sent her a text, with the same info she’d given her siblings and then hit Send, and waited for an answer. It came within moments.
I’m sorry about Mama D. But I will not grieve her passing. It is a blessing for her and for you. You already know how much I loved her. And you know how much I love you. I just sent money via Venmo, as usual. Don't argue. The kids and I are fine. I don't want anything from James Dunham, and wherever you're going, you are going to need it. Love you.
Gracie sent a text through a veil of tears.
Love you, more. Thank you for saving us. You will always be my sister of the heart. Don't lose touch with me. You're all the family I have left.
She hit Send, put the phone back on the charger, found another cool spot on the pillow, and settled in.
As she shifted her shoulder, a pain shot through the muscles all the way to her neck, and for a moment, the memories that flooded put a knot in her stomach. Then she sighed and let it go. It wasn't anything but a remnant from living with Mama.
The last thing she remembered was the moonlight on her face as she closed her eyes.
Brother Harp always said his bedtime prayers on his knees at the side of the bed, but tonight, he was struggling with a heart full of guilt. He could hear Ramona banging around in the bathroom. The ceiling fan over their bed was circulating the flow of cool air from their HVAC system, and his belly was full from their evening meal of fried ham and biscuits with gravy.
It was one of his favorite meals, but it hadn't set well with him tonight. Probably that third biscuit he'd eaten.
He kept thinking of how hot the old Dunham house had been, and how worn out everything looked—including Gracie. She was at least twenty pounds thinner than he remembered her, and he'd been shocked when she'd let them into the house last night.
He hadn't seen the dust on everything, or the circles beneath her eyes, until the next morning. She'd obviously devoted the majority of her time to the care of her mother, but he'd had no idea of how sparse their existence had become until sunrise. And he had no one to blame but himself.
Gracie Dunham had shamed him today, and he deserved it. But there was no way to fix his sin of omission, other than to ask the Good Lord to forgive him because he feared Gracie would not. So, down on his knees he went and spilled his guts to God.
By the time Ramona came to bed, he was lying on his side, pretending to be asleep. He did not want sex. He did not want to talk. He did not want to listen to her complain. He just wanted to forget what a pitiful excuse for a preacher he had become.
Mamie received Daphne's text about the services while she was still at lunch with her friends and went straight to the mall after lunch to buy herself a new black dress.
Once she got home, she'd amped up enough tears to call Joel, telling him about her mama's passing, soaking up all of his sympathy and basking in his promises that he would be on the next plane out of Portland.
That night as she was getting ready for bed, she decided to take the tags off her new dress. Joel didn't need to know how much it had cost, and she'd make it up to him with some good hot sex anyway, so it didn't really matter. Tomorrow, she would make an appointment to get her hair done, and then make a reservation for a Thursday arrival at the La Quinta Inn and Suites by Wyndham in Sweetwater. It had a pool.
It was going to be dicey, explaining to him why they were no longer welcome at the old house, but one lie at a time was how Mamie rolled.
Being a realtor, Daphne had the freedom to take time off when she needed, although she rarely did, because living as a single woman meant she was also the only one bringing in a paycheck.
She did well for herself, and her fancy Dallas townhouse was evidence of that. She'd notified the other realtors in the office about the death of her mother to make them aware of her upcoming absence for a couple of days. They were instantly sympathetic and loving, which made her guilt about Gracie even worse. She had a horrible feeling that no one was hugging and loving on her baby sister in her time of grief, and that made Daphne feel like throwing up.
She couldn't believe it was only this morning when Gracie had called. It felt like forever. After she'd heard her sister's voice and the news she'd imparted, a part of her had kept trying to turn back time.
She needed a do-over, but God wasn't about that. What He did teach was redemption, but she didn't know how to go about redeeming herself in her sister's eyes. What she'd done from the free will He had given her had turned into selfish choices, a horrific level of betrayal with a huge dose of shame to go with it.
She kept thinking about the times right after that Easter revelation when Mama had told them of her diagnosis. It had been a shock, but the reality of it had not set in until Christmas. That first one had been strange. Mama kept calling her by the wrong name, and then hadn't known what the foods were she’d been eating. She hadn't remembered she had grandchildren and kept asking who they were. But it was the second Christmas that had ended it for Daphne.