'Because in Kingdom City, where Cole grew up, that name is a curse. For as long as anyone can remember, the Harrisons have been wild and worthless. They're drunkards and cheats and hell-raisers, the whole worthless lot of 'em, and Cole grew up with that stigma. When Cole's mama eloped with Tom Harrison, my brother cried. He couldn't believe his baby girl had done it. Turned out Tom had gotten her pregnant, and in that day and age, in these parts, girls who got pregnant had to get married. No two ways about it.'
Diana watched him bend down and straighten magazines and generally stall; then he straightened and said, 'Cole's two brothers got killed the year after Cole went away to college. They were in Amarillo, and they were drunk, and they wanted to get even drunker, but they didn't have any money. So they beat an old lady half to death for her purse; then they jumped in their car and took off. They ran a red light, and the cops went after them. They were going over a hundred miles an hour when their car hit a lamppost. Good riddance to 'em, I said then and I say it now, too.
'Cole's daddy liked those two boys of his, though. They were chips off the old block.'
When he paused, Diana said flatly, 'But Cole wasn't.'
'Never was. Never could be. He was smarter than all three of them put together, and they knew it. They hated him for it. About the only friends Cole had in those days were his dogs. Dogs and horses and cats—Animals just loved that boy and he loved them right back. They understood each other. Guess maybe it was because they all knew how it felt to be helpless with no one to turn to.'
'So Cole was the only one who went to college,' Diana said aloud.
Cal gave a mirthless laugh. 'He was the only one to make it past the tenth grade.' Tipping his head back, he said, 'You know the collie that was with Cole in the picture?'
'Yes.'
'About a week before Cole left for college, his brothers gave him a little going-away present.'
Diana knew it wasn't going to be good, but she wasn't prepared for what she heard.
'They hung the dog in the barn.'
Diana moaned and clamped her hand over her mouth, half rising from her seat; then she made herself sit back down.
'They disappeared afterward and didn't come back until after Cole left. If they had, I think he'd have killed them.'
'Wasn't there somewhere else he could live?'
'He could have lived here, but his pa wanted him right there, doing a man's work. He said a thousand times that if Cole moved away from home, Cole's mama would pay for it. And Cole's mama—poor, weak soul that she was— wouldn't leave that bastard. By the time Cole left for college, she was so sick she didn't know where she was half the time, and she wasn't worth abusing for Tom.'
Diana was still a little sick from the thought of the collie. 'And what about Cole's father. How long ago did he die?'
'Last week.'
Diana slowly made the connection between the conversation at breakfast and this piece of information.
'I told Cole he has to go back to the old place in case there's something of his mama's there for him. Truth is, I wanted him to see it as a man. In one of my books, it said that when adults confront the 'evils of their childhood,' they often feel better. I think, whether he's there or not, it would be a good idea if he knew you'd seen the place and it didn't matter. Personally, I think he'll go there.'
'Will you draw me a map?' she said, pressing a kiss on his cheek and startling him. 'I'll run up to the house and get the keys to the truck.'
Cal started to offer her Letty's car since Cole had his, but Letty had left to do the grocery shopping.
Chapter 50
Cole stood near the front yard of the place of his birth, a four-room shack with rotting boards for a floor—an ugly scab on a piece of barren earth.
His birthplace. His heritage.
He wasn't certain why he had come. His mother hadn't survived this place, so there was no reason to think anything of hers would be here for him. Perhaps he'd come to confront its ghosts and then to burn it down,
There were no happy memories to preserve here; the only bearable ones were of his mother. She had died just after her forty-second birthday, while he was in his first year of college. He'd been with her for the birthday before that, though. He'd hitched a ride to town to buy her a birthday present, and he was late getting back. The house had been quiet, and for a minute, he'd harbored the false hope that his father was drunk in the barn or preferably further away than that. He'd almost reached his mother's room when his father's voice had uncoiled like a bullwhip from a darkened corner of the front room. 'Where the hell you been, boy?'
He had reached for a light switch to dispel the gloom while mentally gauging his father's mood as ugly but not physically brutal. He'd been an expert at gauging his father's moods, because any mistakes in that regard would have dire results, not just for Cole, but for his mother.
'I had to go to town.'
'You're a fucking liar. You've been over to Jeffersonville with your asshole uncle, lettin' him fill your head with all his fancy notions. I told you what I'd do to you if I caught you hangin' around with him again. You're just askin' for a lesson, boy!' Cole downgraded his mood to potentially brutal. As a child, he'd thrown up from sheer terror at moments like these. Later, his primary fear was that someday, he'd kill the man and spend his life in prison for it.
His father's attention was diverted by the flower-printed gift wrap on the box Cole was holding. 'What the hell is that?'
'It's a present for Ma. It's her birthday.'
Amused by the sentiment, his father reached for it. 'What'd you get her?'
Cole held it back, out of his reach. 'Nothing you'd want—a fancy brush and mirror.'
'You bought her a fancy brush and mirror?' he taunted. 'A fancy brush and mirror for that skinny old crow? That's even funnier than you thinkin' you're gonna become a fancy fucking college boy.' His disposition improved by that, he picked up the bottle of whiskey from the table beside him, and Cole went into his mother's room.
She was dozing, propped up on pillows, her face turned away from him. On the scarred table beside her was a plate with a half-eaten sandwich. Cole turned on the lamp and sat down beside her hip. 'Is this all you had for dinner?'
She twisted her head on the pillows and looked at him, blinking her eyes to adjust to the light. She smiled, but even her smile was somber. 'I wasn't hungry. Was that your father yelling a few minutes ago, or did I dream it?'
'He was yelling.'
'You shouldn't upset your father, Cole.'
Her continual, lifelong submissiveness to his father's ugly disposition and vile temper was something that Cole had never understood. He hated the fact that she continually tried to placate the man, to make excuses for him. Sometimes he had to stop himself from berating her for not standing up for herself and defying him. She wouldn't leave him, and Cole wouldn't leave her there.
'I brought you a birthday present.'
She brightened, and for a moment he could almost imagine the dark beauty that his Uncle Cal said had once been hers. She lifted the present and shook it a little, prolonging the excitement; then she carefully removed the wrapping paper and opened the box. 'It's so beautiful!' Her gaze flew to his face. 'How did you pay for it?'
'Why should I pay for it when I can steal it?'
'Oh, Cole, no!'
'I was joking! C'mon, Ma, if I stole it, do you think I'd wait around to get it gift-wrapped?'
She relaxed back onto the pillows and held the mirror up to study her face. With girlish embarrassment, she confessed, 'I used to be very proud of how pretty I was, did you know that?'
'You're still pretty. Listen, Ma. Things are going to get a whole lot better in a couple years after I get out of
