* *
DURING ALMOST A decade in prison, Arch had never once thought he’d come home to Marker Ranch. But here he was, standing in the gravel driveway in front of the saggy farmhouse, apprehension thickening the air and memories creeping across his skin.
There was the old wicker chair, still on the porch, where his dad used to sit in the evenings. He’d nurse the bottle of JD in his hands and deliver slurred lectures to Arch and his brother Blake, schooling them in the finer points of running a con, stealing a car, manufacturing meth.
Most parents taught their kids right from wrong. What kind of father groomed his sons to be criminals? Anger simmered and Arch exhaled, trying to let it go. It was old poison. And he couldn’t pass on all the blame. His dad might have offered him a toxic brew, but he’d chosen to drink it down.
“It’s weird coming back, isn’t it?”
Arch jumped straight out of his thought and turned to see Nora walking toward him. “You startled me. I didn’t see you pull up.”
“Sorry. I parked by the barn. I wanted to take a look at the cattle.” She walked past him and plopped down on the porch steps. She looked a lot more like the sister he remembered, with her party dress replaced by faded jeans and a dark blue sweatshirt.
She pointed to the duffel bag on the ground next to him. The sum total of all his possessions. He’d stashed it in the bushes outside Mandy’s ranch today, to avoid looking like the vagrant he really was. “Have you gone inside yet?”
He shook his head. “I took my time walking over. Then I went to see the horses and cattle. You and Wade have done a lot with this place.”
“The ranch, yes. This house, not so much,” Nora said. “Wade’s bedroom is the nicest. Lori made him fix it up when they were first together. The rest of it is still pretty shabby.”
“I was just standing here remembering it all. Growing up with Dad. How he’d sit on the porch and bully. He was a mean drunk.”
“And he was almost always drunk.” Nora glared at their dad’s old chair with narrowed eyes. “I should’ve burned that thing when Wade and I first moved back.”
“Maybe we can do it together.”
The glance she shot him was skeptical. “Were you telling the truth earlier? That you left him and Blake?”
“You think I made it all up?” He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and handed her his parole officer’s card. “Steve’s a good guy. You can call him if you want. He’d actually really like to talk with a family member.”
She took the card, and he watched her eyes flick quickly over the words. “Can I keep this?”
He nodded. “You can trust me on this one thing, if nothing else—I haven’t heard a word from Dad or Blake since I walked away. I figure they’re in Mexico, if they’re even still alive.”
“And now that you’re out, are you going to contact them?”
“No!” The thought had a foul taste. “I’m not going near them. And I’m not making their kinds of choices.”
“I want to believe you,” Nora said quietly. “But I don’t know you.”
“I get it. You know me as a bully. Someone who made your life miserable. I tried to pull you down with me. To get you to deal drugs at school.”
She nodded. “I’m not gonna lie, Arch. You were mean. You scared me.”
It was hard to speak through the mass of remorse rising in his throat. “It’s not an excuse, but I thought that was how a man was meant to be. Showing how tough I was and how little I cared. But now I know I was just weak.” He studied the fall of her long hair, half covering her face as she looked out over the driveway. “You were the strong one, Nora. You kept your head above it all. How did you do it? How did you stay out of Dad’s grip?”
She didn’t look at him. “I just knew I hated how he was. How you and Blake were. I didn’t want anything to do with any of it.”
“I wish I’d seen it like you did. After Mom ran off, I turned to Dad. I didn’t question that he was teaching me to hate, or guiding me to break the law. I became his puppet.”
“I’m glad you broke away from him.” Her voice was barely audible—like she felt all the emotion, too. She picked at the paint peeling off the step with a fingernail. “Ever since you showed up today, I’ve been trying to remember something good between us. Something that would make me feel okay about you coming home. And I actually remembered something.”
“You did?” He couldn’t think of anything he’d ever done that didn’t fill him with guilt.
“Remember how Dad would steal cattle on occasion?”
“I used to help him do it.” One more regret on his long list.
“Well, I remembered one time when Dad grabbed a couple of cows with young calves. He wanted to just shoot the little ones, because they were a hassle. I was really upset, and you stood up to him. You told him he shouldn’t do it. And then you helped me make a separate pen for them, way off in the corner of the ranch where Dad wouldn’t see them.”
There it was, one memory lit up in gold, while the rest were shrouded in gray gloom. “I remember that. I went out and got bottles so we could feed them.”
She finally looked at him and he could see her wistful smile, even in the deepening dusk. “And you and I fed them together, until they were bigger. And then one night, you borrowed a trailer and we drove three hours to take them back to the ranch they’d come from. You cut the wires and put them back in the pasture. And we mended the fence back up again and went home.”
“I remember,” he said, staring at her in wonder. “But I’d totally forgotten.”
“It’s nice to know there was something good between us.”
“I wish we had more memories like that. Believe me, I’ve gone over and over every wrong move I made. Everything I wish I’d done differently. I don’t know how many apologies to give, but they’re there if you want them.”
She was silent. Because what could apologies do to unravel all the hurt he’d caused? The weight of it was a boulder on his back.
Finally she spoke. “I don’t know if there’s much of a future between you and me. Maybe we can find some more memories like those calves, but there are some things I’m not sure can be repaired. I want you to know, though, that I think you were brave to turn yourself in. I realize it couldn’t have been an easy decision.”
“It was the only choice I had if I ever wanted to be free.” It was almost fully dark now. He pointed to the sky. “The first stars. One of the things I missed most in jail.”
“Ten years of no stars.” She looked up, too. “It’s hard to imagine.”
“Don’t try. It’s depressing. Life went on for everyone else. You and Wade did well for yourselves.”
Warmth and pride softened her tone. “I can’t believe he’s off on his honeymoon.”
