What did that mean for Shannon? Lydia leaned forward on the toilet seat and laced her fingers into a web. She spoke to her palms. “I had you right after I turned fifteen, the poor little rich girl who’d never made a decision in her life. Pregnancy doesn’t give you instant maturity. It just makes you fat.”
She raised her hands to her face, thumbs on cheekbones, and looked at me through the web. “I’m sorry I did such a shitty job raising you.”
Maybe she meant it. Maybe not. I like to think she did. Either way, I’d gotten what I came for.
“I’m sorry I lied about the rape. I’m sorry I didn’t bake cookies and sing lullabies to you in your crib. I’m sorry you did the laundry. I’m sorry I let you stay out all night—what was the other thing?”
“Homework.”
“I’m sorry I never made you do homework.” She dropped her hands. “Anything else?”
“I guess not.”
“Can you get on with your life now?”
“Yes, I can get on with my life.”
“’Bout damn time.”
We celebrated with a conciliatory cup of coffee at the kitchen table. It’s a wonderful old table Lydia found at the estate sale of an old dude ranch where Owen Wister was supposed to have written
Lydia held the cup with both hands and blew steam from the surface. Ever since I can remember, Lydia’s held her coffee cup with both hands. She said, “Did you ever wonder what I did that pissed Caspar off so much he sent us west?”
“Only twice a day for twenty years.”
Lydia glanced at me, then back at her coffee. “Right after you turned twelve, I started seeing Skip.”
“Seeing?”
Her lips flattened in disgust at my stupid question. “Okay, fucking.”
Someday I meant to price lie detector tests. “Funny he didn’t mention it,” I said.
“Skip didn’t know who I was. We had to sneak around on account of his bitchy little wife and my father, so Skip never saw the house. He’d forgotten my name by then, if he ever knew it.”
Lydia with Skip and me with Skip’s wife made for a number of abstract equations.
“Whoever invented the term
“Don’t I know it. I only saw him to upset Caspar.” Lydia smiled into her cup. “Upsetting Daddy was the prime directive of my childhood. I can’t tell you how many jerks I did nasty with trying to get his attention.”
“Caspar knew about my fathers?”
“I told him the rape story first, but he threatened to cane them in public, so I had to come clean.”
“You told your father the truth, but not me?”
“I already said that, Sam. Repeating it won’t change the facts.”
When I was young I had this strange feeling everyone around me knew something I didn’t know. Turns out I was right.
“So you screwed Skip, again, and Caspar found out—”
“Caspar always found out.”
“And he shipped us as far away as he could imagine.”
She nodded. “This house. Now that I’m leaving, I think I’ll miss it.”
“C’mon, Lydia. The bureaucrat in charge of dog gifts will open the FedEx packet, throw the toy in the trash, and that will be the end of it.”
Lydia looked dubious. Outside, a truck door slammed. Lydia clicked down her cup.
“Hank’s back,” she said. “Are we done with accusations and recriminations, because I have to hit the trail?”
“I guess so. Shouldn’t we break some glass or scream at each other first? That’s how I was brought up.”
Lydia carried her coffee dregs to the sink. “I’m tired of breaking glass. Cleaning up afterward is undignified.”
“Is this literal or metaphoric?”
Lydia looked at me a long time, then she sighed. “Sam, all your life I’ve never been able to decide if you walk around with your head in the clouds or up your ass.”
Hank balanced on the truck’s back bumper to strap a blue tarp over the amassed possessions. Even though Lydia’s saddle purse and bottle of water were already in place in the front seat, ready to take to the highway, this driving into the sunset thing still didn’t seem real to me, I guess because it’s hard to conceive of your mother as a fugitive from justice.
“Wait a day so you don’t miss Pete’s funeral,” I said.
Lydia had found a blue-and-yellow necktie left over from her Annie Hall phase. She held the folded tie up to my neck to check the color coordination between it and my skin. “I never was much for funerals,” she said. “Tell Maurey and Chet we’re sorry we couldn’t be there.”
I appealed to Hank. “What’s a day going to matter?”
Hank grunted from the strain of tightening the rope around the tarp.
Lydia said, “Women’s prisons are grossly underfunded. They must be avoided at all costs.” She stuffed the necktie into my coat pocket. “Have Maurey tie it, you’ll botch the job if you do it yourself.”
This was happening too fast. It seemed wrong to have finally made up with my mother, sort of, anyway, and fifteen minutes later lose her for God knows how long. We should be bonding or interfacing or whatever being nice is called these days.
She said, “Leaving you in charge of the house doesn’t mean some woman can waltz in here and change everything. I want the walls where I left them.”
“I’m done with women.”
“I’ll believe that when moose fly.”
Then Lydia did something completely uncharacteristic. She hugged me. I felt her head on my shoulder and her arms on my back. She was thinner than I’d imagined, and she smelled a bit like ink.
“Take care of yourself out there in the underground,” I said.
She leaned back with her hands on my elbows and looked into my face. “I’ll be fine. The government’s not big enough to touch women like me. You take care of my granddaughter.”
“I will.”
“Promise me you won’t raise her the way I raised you.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
After Lydia got into the truck, Hank came around and hugged me too. It didn’t feel a bit weird.
“Feed the horses while I’m gone,” he said.
“Maurey’s not going to be happy,” I said.
“You’ll have to take my place.”
“Yeah, right.”
Hank grinned.
“What’s that?”
“Blackfoot for ‘Keep your nose clean.’”
I stood in the snow, watching Hank’s truck slowly drive away. Just before he turned west onto the Yellowstone Highway, an arm came from the passenger’s window, fingers fluttered a good-bye wave, then they were gone.
