Thinking about all this made my stomach hurt. No wonder we never talked about the Websters. “Let’s not talk about it any longer,” I said. “I don’t like thinking about all that.”
“I’m sorry. Not another word.”
“Do you remember Thom Richards?” I asked. “The football coach that all the moms used to swoon over?”
“Yes, I remember. The hunky one with the rich family.”
“He’s running for governor. They’re saying it’ll be a landslide after his success as mayor of Boise.”
“He has the hair for it.” I could almost see my mother rolling her eyes.
I chuckled. “Yeah. I don’t remember him that well, but Luke always looked up to him.”
“Thom Richards defended Luke. Do you remember that? At Beth’s funeral?”
“Not at all.” I didn’t remember him even being there. All I could think of that day was Carlie.
“Your brother won him a lot of football games,” Mom said. “Otherwise I’m sure he would have joined the angry mob. He was only twenty-two when he came home to teach. Grown women twice his age fawned all over him. Frankly, it was a little embarrassing.”
“I never thought about how young he was.” He’d seemed like a grown-up back then. “When you’re sixteen, a man in his twenties seems like an adult.”
“I suppose so. When you’re in your forties, a man in his twenties seems like a child. It’s all relative. Anyway, I should go, honey. It was good to hear your voice.”
“You too, Mom. Love you.”
“Love you more.”
We said our goodbyes and I hung up the phone. Moonshine and Duke had found a new spot in the sun.
“Let’s go, gang,” I said to them.
They sprang to their feet and charged out to the yard. I grabbed my hat and followed them across the yard toward the barn. The chickens were in their outside pen, pecking in the dirt for bugs. My chestnut horses grazed in the pasture. A hummingbird drank the sugar water from the feeder hanging over the barn doors.
My mother had gotten this property in the divorce. At the time, she thought of the land as a good investment and held on to it, even though she said it would be a cold day in hell before she came back to the town that had betrayed her and her boys. Once she’d married Dom, she’d no longer had to worry about money, so when I begged her to hang on to the property, she’d agreed. I promised to buy it from her as soon as I could put together the money.
I could still see the look she gave me when I asked her, a mixture of concern and horror. However, my mother isn’t the type to question motives that are purely emotional. After all, she’d stayed married to my abusive, alcoholic father for almost twenty years when everything on God’s green earth had told her to leave. A witch hunt finally woke her to the harsh reality of what had become of her life and family. She and her boys couldn’t survive under the drunken dictatorship of Kenneth Paisley. Not when a whole town was against us.
In no hurry, a puffy cloud floated in the blue sky. Bursts of colors from my roses and flower beds contrasted nicely with mountains that looked almost purple this time of day. Countless shades of green grasses swayed gently in the meadow, creating the music I thought of as Idaho. My land. The place where I belonged.
I’d bought the land as soon as I could afford it, just a few years after I’d gotten my contractor license and started flipping houses. Given the property’s location by the river and the view of Logan Mountain to the north and Blue Mountain to the south, I’d never have been able to afford it if my mother hadn’t insisted on selling it to me for the same amount they’d purchased it for in the late seventies. Five thousand dollars wouldn’t buy a used car these days, but it had bought me paradise.
For almost three decades, ten acres sat here empty of life other than the wild critters and the fish that swam in the river that snaked through the property. When I’d felt financially solvent, I sold my house in LA and moved back to the land that had lived for years in my dreams. The run-down trailer had sunken in upon itself like the cheeks of an elderly, toothless woman. Not a tear was shed as the tow truck hauled away the home my father had made so miserable. I’d bought a plan for a modern farmhouse from an architecture firm and hired a team of guys to help me. Six months later, I moved into the house of my dreams.
Given how everything ended for us here in Logan Bend, neither Drew nor Luke wanted anything to do with the land. I’d offered them both the opportunity to take a parcel, but they had no interest. Luke said he didn’t want anything to do with the town or our land and that if I expected to see him for holidays I’d have to come to Malibu.
I still held out hope that at some point in his life Drew might like to move back here. Thus far, he was content working as a stunt double in Hollywood. As had always been the case, he had a bevy of women vying for his attention. He never dated any of them for more than a few weeks.
I gathered eggs from inside the barn where the
