“We’ll be there soon, baby.”
The woman doctor had said it was all right to be nervous, to even be scared. She hadn’t ridden in a car in a very long time, and everything would look new and different. When she got too nervous and scared, she could just close her eyes and think of something that made her happy.
Sitting outside her quiet house and watching the sunset made her happy. So she closed her eyes and pictured it.
But when the road went from smooth to bumpy, she cried out.
“It’s okay. We’re on the ranch road now.”
She didn’t want to look, didn’t want to see, but she couldn’t help it. She saw fields and trees, snow melting away under the sun. Cows—not rib-racked, but … cattle—she remembered the word. Big, healthy, cropping through the snowmelt to eat.
The road would turn in a minute, to the right. Was that a dream?
When it did, her breathing came fast. She saw in her head, a pretty young girl—oh, so pretty!—with bright red streaks in her hair, driving a truck and singing along with the radio.
“‘I see you driving by just like a Phantom jet.’”
She heard the voice, not just in her head, but coming out of her mouth now. It jolted her, and the mother’s hand tightened on hers.
The sister looked at her through the mirror, and sang back at her.
“‘With your arm around some little brunette.’”
A laugh, small and strange and rusty with it, broke out of her. The fields, the sky—oh God, so big—the mountains that didn’t look the same as from her little house stopped scaring her so much as she sang the next words. As the sister sang the ones after that.
And they sang the chorus together.
Beside her, the mother made a little sound, and Alice looked, saw her crying.
She trembled again. “I did bad. I was bad. I’m bad.”
“No, no, no.” The mother kissed Alice’s hand, her cheek. “These are from happiness. I always loved hearing my girls sing together. My girls have such beautiful voices.”
“I’m not a girl. And a woman is—”
“You’re always my girl, Alice. Just like Reenie.”
The road rose and she saw the house. She made a garbled sound as her mind slammed between memories and a quarter century of enforced denial.
“It’s a little different than it was,” the mother said. “We’ve added on some rooms, and opened up a couple of them on the inside. Different paints,” she continued as the sister stopped the car. “Some new furniture. Kitchen’s changed most I’d say. But it has the same bones.” As she spoke, the mother put an arm around her, rubbed at the chill. “Still the barn in the back, and the stables, the paddocks. The chickens, and we added pigs some time back.”
Dogs raced up to the car, and Alice cringed.
“Dogs! They growl, they bite.”
“Not these two. They’re Chester and Clyde, and they won’t bite.”
“Tail-waggers, both of them.” To Alice’s shock, the grandmother hopped right out. The dogs circled her, but didn’t growl, didn’t bite. They wagged all over as the grandmother touched them.
“Tail-waggers,” Alice repeated.
“Do you want to pet them?” the mother asked. Alice could only hunch her shoulders. “You don’t have to, but they won’t bite, and they won’t growl at you.”
The mother opened the door of the car, slipped out. Panic spewed into Alice’s throat, but the mother held out a hand. “Come on, Alice, I’m right here.”
Taking the mother’s hand, she inched her way across the seat. Cringed back when one of the dogs poked his nose in and sniffed at her.
“Sit down, Chester,” the sister ordered. And to Alice’s surprise—and something she didn’t recognize as delight—the dog plopped his hind end down. It seemed like his eyes smiled. His eyes weren’t mean. They looked happy. He had happy eyes.
She inched out a little more, and the dog’s butt wriggled, but stayed down.
She put a foot on the ground. It wore a pink tennis shoe with white laces. For a minute she stared at it, transfixed, moved her foot to assure herself it was hers.
She put the other pink tennis shoe on the ground, breathed in, stood up.
The world wanted to spin, but the mother held her hand.
Clinging to it, she put one foot in front of the other.
She wore a denim skirt—she hadn’t been able to put on any of the pants or jeans the women bought for her. But the skirt covered most of her legs, as modesty decreed. And the white blouse could be buttoned to the neck. The coat provided warmth that the old shawl she’d worn at her house hadn’t. Everything on her felt so soft, smelled so clean. And still she trembled as she stepped up on the porch.
She stared at a pair of rocking chairs, shook her head.
“We painted those just last year,” the sister told her. “I like the blue. Like the summer sky.”
Now Alice stared at the open door, took a step back.
The grandmother slid an arm around her waist. “I know you’re afraid, Alice. But we’re all here with you. Just us girls for now.”
“Two cookies after chores,” Alice mumbled.
“That’s right, my lamb. I always had two cookies for my girls after chores. No chores today,” the grandmother added. “But we’ll have some cookies. How about some tea and cookies?”
“Is Sir inside?”
“No.” Now the grandmother’s voice had anger in it. “He’ll never be inside this house.”
“Ma—”
“You hush a minute, Cora.” The grandmother turned to face Alice. “This is your home, and we’re your family. Standing here, we’re three generations of women who can take anything that’s dished out. You’re strong, Alice, and we’re here to stand with you until you remember how strong you are. Now, let’s go inside.”
“Will you stay with me, too? Will you stay in the home like the mother?”
“You’re damn right I will.”
Alice thought of stepping out of the door left unlocked, and stepped through the open one.
There were flowers in a vase, and tables, and there were chairs and couches and pictures. A fire—not a campfire, not a stove. A fire … place. A fireplace where flames simmered.
Windows.
Compelled, she walked, on her own, from window to window to window, marveling. Everything was so big, so far, so near. And not as frightening from inside. Inside seemed safe again.
“Do you want to see the rest?” the sister asked.
How could there be more? So much, so big, so far, so near.
But.
“A room with bright pink walls and white curtains.”
“Your room? It’s upstairs.” The sister walked toward a staircase—so many steps, so much space. “Grammy remembered how you’d wanted pink walls, so I had my boys paint them like they were. As close as we could remember. Come up, see what you think.”
“Let’s take your coat off first.”
Alice hunched inside it. “Can I keep it?”
“Of course you can keep it, honey.” Gently, Cora slipped the coat away. “It’s yours, but you don’t need your coat inside. It’s nice and warm in here, isn’t it?”