JAKE
John slid his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and rocked back on his heels. He stared up at the house and the peak over the grand front doors with their iron handles and horse-head door knockers. “Shit,” he breathed. “I didn’t expect it to feel like this.”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Me neither.”
My eyes scanned the old shingles of the roof. They needed replacing. They were sun-bleached and weather worn. Some of the window shutters were falling off their hinges. One of the upstairs windows was cracked. That room had been our mother’s studio, back in the day. She hadn’t had much talent for painting or drawing, but she’d enjoyed it nonetheless, and sometimes she and I would spend days throwing paint on canvases, making messes.
It had probably been a decade since anyone set foot in that room.
I’d sworn for ages that I would never set foot on this soil again. I swore I’d never breathe in the manure or hear the sounds of the chickens in the coop, the horses in the barn, or the cattle grazing the fields. But here I was, standing in front of the house that had built me into a man I hated more than I hated my father.
That had been a shitty realization the night before last after I yelled at Gabi and she ran out of my office crying. I’d known I fucked up and knew with even more resounding clarity that I couldn’t go to her.
I had to come here, straight to the source.
I had to settle this once and for all.
John sighed. “Are you ready for this?”
“No. You?”
“Nope. But fuck it, we’re here, right?”
“Fuck it,” I breathed.
Together, we climbed the steps to the wraparound porch. To the right of the door was a bench swing. The iron chains were rusted. A gentle breeze blew it slowly back and forth. The chains squeaked, in desperate need of oil. Our mother had loved that swing. She’d drag her blanket outside in the evenings with a cup of tea and a book, and she’d read out here for hours. From my bedroom up above, I could sometimes hear her humming lullabies to herself, and I’d fall asleep to the sound.
The porch boards creaked under our shoes. We stopped in front of the door, and John raised his hand to use one of the iron knockers.
He exhaled and looked around. “Told you the place was falling apart.”
I peered around at the dilapidated fences around the corral, the broken barn doors, the hole in the bunkhouse roof, the potholes in the gravel drive. “The old man thought he could do it all alone. This is what he gets.”
The door swung open.
A woman in her mid-seventies blinked out at us. She wore her silver hair up in a thin bun on top of her head. Her clothes were simple, plain khakis with a white polo shirt and sneakers. Her eyes flicked from John to me, over and over.
“Boys?”
“Hey, Anna,” John said.
“Boys!” Our old housekeeper threw herself over the threshold and fell into my brother’s arms. She cried happy tears as she touched his face before moving to me to do the same. She held my face in her hands, clicked her tongue, and scolded me for being gone so long. Then she told me I needed to shave.
I chuckled. “It’s good to see you, too.”
Dad had hired her after our mother left. He couldn’t run the ranch and take care of us—not that he gave a shit about us—so she had come to the ranch to fill our missing mother’s shoes. At first, John and I had made her life here a living hell. We’d run away from her all the time and hide on the property where she’d never find us. She used to catch hell from our father. When we realized she was on our side—an ally, not an enemy—we warmed up to her.
“Come in, come in,” Anna said, ushering us inside with a wave of her hand. “Can I get you something? Lemonade? Iced tea? Water? I can bake some cookies. You remember the ones you liked with the little caramels in them?”
John rubbed his stomach. “That sounds good.”
I swatted at him. “We don’t want to put you out, Anna. We can’t stay long. We’re here to talk to him.”
She nodded knowingly. “I always thought you’d come back someday, Jake. Come sit in the living room. I’ll get your father from his study.”
AKA his liquor cart.
We moved into the living room. Before retrieving our father, Anna brought out a pitcher of lemonade and poured us each a glass. While we waited for our father, I moved through the living room and picked up old picture frames on the stone fireplace mantel. Several had pictures of our mother in them. A handful were of her and our father’s wedding day.