Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 70566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
“Denver,” I said. “I’m heading back to grab our lunch. You can…do what you need to do.”
My mother screeched at that. “You will not leave! We have things to discuss.”
I gently pulled the reins to my left and led Skylark back to the barn.
I had no plans of grabbing lunch, but I’d wait for Denver to do whatever it was that he was going to do.
“I called the cops,” Margery said. “She’ll be escorted off soon enough.”
I looked over at Margery on her golf cart.
“Some days I wonder why I was given a mother like her,” I lamented. “I question what God was thinking. And then when my dad was diagnosed, I cursed him a thousand times over because not only was I given a woman like her for a mom, but I was given a dad that was the best in the world, only to have him taken away.”
Margery looked up at me, the sunlight causing her to squint as she looked up.
“Sometimes we have to make do. It’s not fair. It’s not easy. It’s not even logical sometimes. But what you make of your life despite the hardships becomes a thousand times more worth it,” she said softly. “Your dad loved you so much. And when you grew up to look exactly like your mother, he loved you even though his heart broke every time he looked at you.”
I didn’t get affronted by what she said.
I knew that seeing me caused my dad to hurt.
I was the spitting image of her.
“Sometimes,” Margery said, “I think your mother hated you toward the end because you were young and beautiful. Had your whole life ahead of you. And she was on the downward slide. She left because she wanted people to look at her like she was beautiful again. To only focus on her. If she stayed, she would always have you as a reminder that she wasn’t as young and pretty as she used to be.”
I snorted. “I think that’s why she always belittled me. She had to find a way to tear me down.”
“Your mother is a tool,” she said as she smiled. “There he is.”
A sheriff’s department SUV pulled up across the pasture, and my mother whirled around, pointing her finger and stomping those high-heeled feet.
“Maybe she’ll break the heel,” Margery mused.
“She would die,” I snorted. “Those shoes are her favorites. And like she used to say, ‘this stupid land has taken way too much from me.’ That’d be just one more thing it’s ‘taken’ from her.”
“Your mother spouts so much bullshit that it’s coming out of her ears.” Margery sighed. “You may look like your mama, but your personality is all your daddy. He did a great job raising you.”
That made my heart happy to hear.
“Her leaving was the best thing that ever happened to you,” she continued in that frail voice that most elderly had. “It may not have seemed like it. But when I tell you that she was the worst kind of cancer, even worse than the kind that took your daddy from this earth, you need to trust in what I say. If she’d stayed, if she’d raised you, you’d be just like her right now. You’d be mean and obnoxious, think you’re better than everyone else. She comes to this town twice a year since she left, and she expects everyone and their brother to fawn over her like she’s God’s gift to Bear Pass. When, in reality, she was a washed-up has-been that peaked in the eighties.” Margery looked my way. “Did you see the last thing she did was a commercial for the female version of erectile dysfunction?”
I giggled.
Margery placed her hand on mine. “Not to switch topics here but…be careful with his heart.”
I blinked and turned, studying the woman’s face.
“I may be old, but my eyesight is better than a forty-year-old’s, thanks to a laser doctor in Bozeman.” She smiled softly. “I know when my boy, my precious baby boy, is falling in love. And he’s halfway gone with you already.”
My cheeks flushed. “Do you think that’s bad? Our age difference…”
“The only time age matters is when you’re in grade school.” She smiled again. “My Sol and I were twenty-four years apart. And other than losing him way sooner than I ever wanted to, he was the best thing that ever happened to me. And he was virile. My god.”
I covered my ears and started to laugh.
A poke in the thigh had me turning to see Denver had arrived on his horse, a look of wonder on his face. “What’s so funny?”
I looked over to Margery.
Margery beamed and said, “I was telling Holly how virile your father was, even at fifty-five.”
Denver shook his head. “My god. Please don’t.”
TWENTY
I want you to know someone cares. Not me, but someone.
—Holly to Denver