Texas Gothic

29



mrs. McCulloch was in full-on hostess mode as she greeted me near the corner of the marquee tent. “Amy, you look so cute! That little sundress is so Audrey Hepburn. And I swear, you have the prettiest hair.” She fluffed one of the locks hanging over my shoulder in a fondly maternal way. “I’m so glad you and Phin came to the party. Did you hear Ben play with the band?”

“Yes. I had no idea he could play the guitar.” That was a very understated synopsis of my infatuated, infuriated feelings when I saw him onstage.

“His dad taught him.” She gestured for Phin and me to walk with her. “We’re excited for Ray that the band is taking off. And Ben is enjoying playing with them for the afternoon.”

The set had been going for a while. It would probably wrap soon, and Mrs. McCulloch wasn’t moving in a hurry. I knew Ben wouldn’t be nuts to see me talking to his grandpa. But on the other hand, Mac had asked to see me.

“How is Mr. McCulloch today?” I asked.

“Call him Grandpa Mac,” she said. “Everyone does. He’s feeling pretty well, though he does better away from the crowds.” She’d led us past the buffet and the swimming pool, toward the tree-shaded courtyard between the buildings. “Did Hyacinth tell you girls anything about the last year? About Ben’s dad?”

Jessica had told me only a little, and I hadn’t shared with Phin. “I just know he passed away not long ago. I’m so sorry.”

She nodded, accepting my sympathy, but moving on with a determined sort of cheer. “Dan was in an accident and Ben came home from school to help out. Then Dan passed away about a month later and I’m afraid—well, it was a bit of a blessing. He was hurt real bad.”

There was an eloquence of understatement in that, more evocative than any pitiful details. I could only imagine how it would feel if something happened to my dad. And we weren’t even close.

I spotted Grandpa Mac under the giant live oak tree. Its trunk must have been ten feet in diameter, and some of its branches were propped up on posts so they wouldn’t touch the ground.

“Hey!” he called when he saw me. “Goodnight girl, right?”

I waved, and Mrs. McCulloch looked surprised. Grandpa Mac had asked for me, but maybe she didn’t expect him to recognize my face.

“Hey, Mac,” she said, in that too-chipper way people do with the aged and infirm. “Are you having a good time?”

Mac McCulloch flashed her an annoyed glance and said, “Jim-dandy. I’d enjoy it better if knitting Nelly over here would let me have a beer.”

He’d jerked a thumb toward a middle-aged Hispanic lady sitting across the table, who didn’t interrupt the rhythm of her flying knitting needles as she replied, “It interferes with your medicine, Grandpa Mac.”

Mrs. McCulloch gestured to the woman. “This is Mrs. Alvarez. She helps look after Grandpa Mac.”

Grandpa Mac snorted. “Keeps me on a leash.”

Not a very tight one, apparently, since he’d been able to visit me. On a horse.

His hand, as gnarled and weathered as the oak tree, tapped along with the band. “Are you enjoying the party? The music is decent. My boy Dan plays a mean guitar.”

Ben’s mom stiffened slightly and corrected him. “That’s not Dan, Mac. Those are Ben’s friends.”

Confusion passed over his face, quickly replaced by annoyance and embarrassment. “I know that.”

Phin, who’d been oddly quiet until then, smoothly redirected the conversation away from his slip. “We’re Ben’s friends, too. You know Amy, and I’m Phin Goodnight.”

He chuckled, his mood changing quickly. “Always liked that name. Easy to remember.” He started to hum, and then sing in a pleasant baritone, weathered like old leather. “On the Goodnight Trail, on the Loving Trail …”

Mac sang the verse and the chorus of an old song about the cattle trail with my family’s name. A coincidence, but the serenade was nice. Mrs. McCulloch looked like she would interrupt, but Phin pulled up a chair and sat down to listen, so I did, too.

He finished on a poignant note that drifted off to be absorbed by the band. He sat for a moment, with a smile that slowly slipped away. “Why the hell can I remember all the words to that song, and not what I had for breakfast this morning?”

I glanced over at Phin, who didn’t have an answer, either. For an unguarded moment, I saw fear and compassion mingle on her face. We all had our own personal nightmares.

Grandpa Mac changed direction again. “So! How is your aunt?” he asked Phin gleefully. “Is she still giving old Burt fits? Did he ever get her to marry him?”

Phin answered the question smoothly. “Yes, he did. They’ve been happy for thirty-something years.”

“I’m glad.” He nodded at obviously happy memories. “Burt and I were in school together, you know.”

“No, really?” She sounded genuinely interested.

“Yes, really. Little school in Barnett. Couple of rooms, teacher with a face like a lemon.”

He gave a devilish laugh clearly enjoying talking about the past. “We used to race our horses from his house to mine. We weren’t supposed to, because it meant going over the Kelly place.”

I startled at the synchronicity of the reference to their property. “Why not?” I asked, hoping my luck would continue with a mention of the ghost.

“Rumrunners. The lot of them. Store their hooch in the caves in the hills. They wouldn’t hesitate to shoot a McCulloch for trespassing. They shot my brother, you know.”

I looked at Mrs. McCulloch in alarm. She tsked and said firmly, “Mac, your brother died in Korea. He was shot by the North Koreans, not by John Kelly.”

“I know that,” said Grandpa Mac, but this time he was clearly humoring her. Leaning forward, he whispered loudly, “Grandpa Kelly …” He made a drinking motion. “That rotgut they brewed ate his brain. Never trust a Kelly.”

Mrs. McCulloch gave an exasperated sigh, as if this was a frequent topic. “That’s the past, Mac. Jim Kelly is a deputy. His son Joe was friends in school with Ben.”

Mac brayed a laugh. “No, he wasn’t! I may not remember what I had for breakfast this morning, but I remember my grandson’s first black eye.” He sounded rather proud of it, actually, then looked back and forth between Phin and me, archly. “Which of you is dating him?”

“Amy is,” said Phin.

“I am not!”

Grandpa Mac laughed. “I should tell you about the time when Ben was a kid and he wanted to be an astronaut.”

“That wasn’t Ben, Mac. That was Dan.”

“Don’t interrupt!” His face flushed with anger, and I wasn’t quite sure what to do. It subsided, but he lost the clear-eyed sharpness of a moment before, seeming … fuzzier somehow, as he took back up the thread of the conversation.

“You could do worse,” he said, his voice going sort of fuzzy, too, as he leaned over and patted my knee. “I know he’s a serious boy, and maybe kind of grumpy. But I remember when he came home from that dance you went to. What was it? The one at your college … the pie social …”

In confusion, I glanced up at Mrs. McCulloch. She had her hand pressed to her lips, and the tip of her nose was turning red. “The Alpha Delta Pi Christmas social,” she said.

“That’s right.” Mac chuckled, lost in the past. “Dan came home and said, ‘Dad, I met the girl I’m going to marry.’ And I told him he was crazy to marry a college girl. She’d never want to spend her days on a ranch, slopping for ranch hands and washing the manure out of his socks. But he did what he wanted. He always did.”

Mrs. McCulloch’s eyes were brimming with memories, and bittersweet affection for her father-in-law. She settled her hand on his shoulder and said, “I was very happy with your son, too.”

He smiled with paternal fondness that made my own heart ache. Then the past tense seemed to catch up with him, and the moment crumbled into grief, as tangibly fresh and sharp as if I’d only just told him the news of his son’s death.

I didn’t know what to do, and looked in panic to Phin, who’d handled him so well at the start.

“Grandpa Mac.” Her voice was assertive and kind. “Can I call you that?”

He looked at her without recognition, his gray-blue eyes brimming. “Who do you think you are, missy?”

“I’m Phin Goodnight. My sister Amy told me about you, and I brought you a present.” She unfastened a macramé hemp bracelet, knotted and beaded in very specific stones, from around her wrist. Our cousin Violet had given it to her for graduation.

Grandpa Mac watched her wrap it around his arm. “And what the hell is this?”

“This is geomancy. Rock magic. For clarity of thought and better memory. I happen to be a genius, so it’s wasted on me.”

“Hmph.” He touched the lapis and hematite beads. “If you’re such a genius, you wouldn’t believe in magic.”

“If you weren’t such an old coot, you wouldn’t need it.”

Mrs. McCulloch gasped. Mrs. Alvarez, who had risen from her chair when Grandpa Mac became upset, made a choked sort of sound.

And then he laughed. “All right, Miss Goodnight.” He shook his wrist at her. “See? ‘Goodnight’ like the song. This piece of string must be working.”

Ben’s voice cut in from behind me. “Is everything okay, Grandpa?”

Hell. I’d been too intent on the discussion to notice the band had stopped playing. His words were concerned, but his tone was a knot of controlled anger.

As Ben stepped into my line of sight, Grandpa Mac looked up and grinned. “Ben! I’ve been talking to your girlfriend.”

Shock swept the ire from his face, and color, pleased color, flushed his cheeks. I wondered, my heart twisting in sympathy, how long it had been since Ben’s grandfather had recognized him on sight.

Mrs. McCulloch knew a good exit strategy when she saw it. “I think it’s time for Grandpa Mac to have some rest. Mrs. Alvarez?”

The old man made a grumbling protest, but as they helped him from the chair, he didn’t fight them. Ben recovered himself before they left. “See you in a little while, Grandpa.”

Mac grumped something about the prison warden as he went off with the two women.

Ben turned to me and I braced myself for an explosion. I didn’t even dredge up an excuse. I knew he hadn’t wanted me to talk to his family about ghosts, or the past, and I had. I deserved whatever he threw at me.

Finally he put his anger away, shelving it for later. “I thought you might like to know there’s someone looking for you.”

I was so surprised that he hadn’t yelled at me, that it took Phin’s reaction to make me realize what he’d said.

“Here comes the cavalry,” she sighed. I followed her gaze to the marquee tent, where Mark was talking to a familiar tall redhead in a short black skirt and combat boots. Cousin Daisy had arrived.