The event went from morning to night, and to be honest, she had never enjoyed it more than this year, and when it was all over and the day was done, she and Dallas walked up the spongy road to their cabin. “I saw you talking to Myrtle Michaelian,” Vivi Ann said.
“She held on to her purse the whole time. I think she was worried I’d steal it.”
Smiling, she opened the door and went inside.
The cabin smelled like Christmas. Dallas had set up a small, perfect tree in the corner near the fireplace and draped several of the leftover boughs along the mantel. “Merry Christmas,” he said.
Vivi Ann was surprised by him yet again. All her life men had lined up to give her things; they’d wowed her with presents wrapped by sales-people and paid for by credit cards. But this, a simple, sparsely decorated tree, meant more to her than any of that because she knew her husband didn’t care about Christmas. He’d done this for her because she cared.
“That friend of yours—Trayna at the drugstore—helped me pick out ornaments.”
Vivi Ann laughed at the image of scary-looking Dallas following Trayna around, picking out angels and elves. She loved him so much she couldn’t stand it.
“What’s so funny? Did I do something wrong?”
“No, Dallas Raintree. You did something right.” She took him by the hand and led him into the bedroom, and there she showed him in a dozen ways how much she loved him.
Afterward, they lay in bed, staring at each other. Through the open door, she could see their first Christmas tree, twinkling in the darkness.
“I thought you’d hate today,” she said.
“No.”
“Did you do corny stuff like that when you were a kid?”
“No,” he said, and this time his voice was quiet. She knew she’d struck a nerve.
“Is there anyone you want to invite for Christmas?”
“You keep asking the same question in different ways, Vivi,” he said. “There’s no one. Just you.”
She didn’t see how that was possible, how a person could be as alone as he implied. She angled onto one elbow and looked at him. “What happened Dallas?” It was the first time she’d ever asked the question directly.
“He killed her,” he said quietly. “I guess that’s what you want to know so bad. Beat her up for years and then shot her one night.”
“Were you—”
“Yeah. I was there.”
It all clicked into place for Vivi Ann then: the scars on his chest, the anger he sometimes couldn’t control, the trouble sleeping. She imagined him as a boy, listening to things no child should hear, seeing terrible images. No wonder he didn’t want to talk about his past. She scooted closer and took him in her arms, holding him with the whole of her body, her heart and soul, trying somehow to impart her childhood to him.
He was holding her so tightly she knew their conversation had reopened an old wound. The look he gave her was a terrible, beautiful combination of happiness and pain, and she wondered suddenly if that was what he lived with, that unbearable duo. She kissed his lips, then his cheek, and then, at his ear, she whispered, “We’re going to have a baby.”
He said nothing, just pulled her more tightly into his arms and held her.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
He drew back just enough to look at her, and the love in his eyes was all the answer she needed.
If Winona had been keeping her memories in manila file folders, she would have labeled the Christmas of 1992 as the second worst in Grey family history; only the year their mom died had been worse.
She’d tried to pretend that everything was okay. She’d shown up at the farmhouse to decorate for the holidays. She’d schlepped up and down the attic stairs, carrying down the dusty ornament boxes until she was sweaty and tired. Working alongside her sisters, she’d said all the right things. Look, Vivi, it’s the Life Savers clown you made at Bible camp in fourth grade . . . and here’s Aurora’s favorite angel with the broken wing.
But none of it had felt right. Aurora and Vivi Ann had laughed and joked and fought over what Christmas album to play, while Winona felt increasingly distant. She knew it was wrong of her, that she needed to put aside the old grudges, the bitterness, and go on with their everyday life. She couldn’t seem to do that, though.
The problem was Dallas. He was like a tumor in the body of their family, and only she detected the malignancy.
It didn’t matter that he acted like he loved Vivi Ann (acted was the key word, to Winona’s mind) or that he was doing a great job at the ranch. What mattered was that he couldn’t be trusted. The police reports on his past were proof positive. He would hurt her family somehow.
Anyone sitting at this table for Christmas dinner should have seen that. Everything was in its usual place, looking sparkling and perfect. Daddy was dressed up in new dark blue Wrangler jeans and a crisp white shirt, buttoned all the way to the throat. Aurora and Richard and the kids looked like they’d just stepped out of the Nordstrom catalog, and Vivi Ann was an image of golden beauty in her green velvet dress.
And then there was Dallas, sitting beside his wife, looking uncomfortable and vaguely irritated by the goings-on. Winona watched him from beneath lowered lashes. His long hair and pale blue shirt didn’t soften him at all; quite the contrary. Getting dressed up only made him look more dangerous.
If Winona could have thought of a way to reveal this truth, she would have, but Dallas was smart. He didn’t push his way into things; he didn’t demand his share. He waited on the sidelines, pretending to be willing to work for whatever he got. The cowboys had accepted him and the women in town had begun lately to talk about the “great love” of Vivi Ann and Dallas. Even Aurora refused to hear about his criminal past and told Winona to let it go.
Vivi Ann clinked her fork against her wineglass, drawing everyone’s attention.
Winona looked down the table toward her sister, as she was supposed to, and several facts registered, clicked into place like the firing sequence in a handgun: Vivi Ann was even more beautiful than usual, radiant, even, and she was drinking water.
“We’re pregnant,” Vivi Ann said, and her smile lit up the room.
Winona experienced the announcement in a strange, slowed-down way, as if she were underwater or behind a wall comprised of wavy glass block. She saw everyone except her father leap to congratulate Vivi Ann; she heard the squeals and cries, saw Aurora hug Vivi Ann and start to cry.
Winona knew she needed to move, to join in, but she couldn’t. She just sat there. Once, when she was little, she’d tried barrel racing. Bathed in the rare glow of her dad’s encouragement, she’d climbed onto Clem’s big back and kicked hard. She’d barely hung on around the first barrel, and on the second she’d lost her grip. She still remembered how that felt: the letting go, the sliding sideways in the saddle, losing her stirrup. For a second before she’d fallen, she’d known it was coming, and the fear of that moment was how she felt. From now on, no matter what, Dallas would be a part of this family. The cancer of his presence had just metastasized.
She glanced sideways and found Dallas looking at her. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair and lifted her wineglass in a toast. “Here’s to Vivi Ann . . . who now will have a baby . . .” Too. She tried not to think about her own loneliness, but it was impossible to ignore. Here she was, the oldest sister and the only one unmarried and childless.
After that, the evening passed for Winona like a movie without sound. She did all the things that were expected of her—she cleared the table and washed the dishes with her sisters, she put on their favorite Elvis Christmas album and danced in the kitchen, she read “The Night Before Christmas” to her niece and nephew—but none of it felt real.
“You’re not very good at pretending to be happy.”
Winona hadn’t even heard him approach. It seemed that sneaking up on people was a particular skill of his. She turned slightly, found Dallas beside her, sipping his beer. “I’ve never been good at pretend
ing to be anything,” she answered. “And you don’t fool me for a second. I’ve seen your record.”
“She’s happy, you know,” he said.
“What about you? I wouldn’t peg you as the daddy type.”
“You don’t care how I feel about anything.”
It was a relief to be understood, not to have to pretend. “You’re right.”
“And why is that?”
“This family was happy before you got here.”
Dallas glanced around the room; his gaze stopped on Aurora and Richard arguing quietly by the tree, and then moved on to Dad, who was well into his third bourbon and staring at an old picture of Mom. “Was it?” he asked. “So you were happy that Vivi was dating your boyfriend.”
“He wasn’t my boyfriend.”
Dallas gave her a knowing smile. “That was the problem all along, wasn’t it?”
“Fuck you.”
He laughed. “Is that a traditional holiday greeting?”
She pushed past him and walked away. For the rest of the evening, she tried to be her old self, surrounded by the people she loved, but he was always there, on the fringes, watching them, watching her.
Winona counted the days until Luke returned from his Montana vacation. They had spoken on the phone on Christmas Day, and he’d sounded better. Finally. Their friendship still felt fragile these days, not quite healed, but Winona was trying to be patient. He needed time, that was all. He’d come around. For Luke, she would be patient.
The evening he got home, she made a date for them to go see a movie.
In these winter months night came early, so that by the time she left work, got dressed, and drove to his house it was already dark out. When he opened the door, she threw herself into his arms and hugged him tightly. “I’m so glad you’re back.”
He eased out of her embrace and led her into the living room, where a fire glowed in the hearth and Christmas lights still twinkled on the tree she’d helped him decorate. While she sat down, he went into the kitchen and came back with two glasses of wine.
“Booze. Thank God,” she said, taking her glass and scooting sideways to make room for him. Kicking off her slouchy ankle boots, she put her stockinged feet up on the coffee table. As was usual lately, he said little. It fell to her to keep up the conversation. “You have no idea how weird these holidays have been. Dallas ruined everything and no one can see that. I keep wanting to grab Vivi by the shoulders and shake her until she sees what I see. Maybe I can figure out a way to mail her his criminal record. That should wake her up.”
“Really, Win,” Luke said, sighing. “Do we have to have this conversation every time we’re together? It’s getting old. They’re married.”
“And now they’re going to have a baby.”
“She’s pregnant?”
“Already. Even I’m surprised, and I usually expect the worst.”
Luke got to his feet and walked over to the fire, staring down at it.
“A baby,” he said, in a sad, soft voice.
Winona could have kicked herself. It was one of her worst traits, the way she could focus so much on the minutiae that she completely missed the big picture. She kept thinking he’d be over Vivi Ann by now. She got up and went to him. “I’m sorry, Luke. I wasn’t thinking. I shouldn’t have told you about it like that.”
He glanced away from her, looked past the tree to the rainy black night beyond the window. “I can’t do it.”
“Do what?”
“I thought I could stick around and watch Vivi Ann love someone else, but I can’t.”
“But . . .” Winona didn’t know what to say, how to frame her sudden fear into a cogent appeal. “You can’t leave . . .”
“What else can I do, Win?”
She felt like one of those old Eskimo women who’d been set out on an ice floe. She knew that if she didn’t reach out, grab for him, she would float away, alone. “Luke, please . . .”
“Please what?”
She swallowed hard, battling her own fear. It was terrifying to tell him the truth—she wasn’t ready; he wasn’t ready—but there was no choice anymore. She dared to touch him, take hold of his wrist. “I know you’re not ready to hear this, Luke, but . . . I love you. If you’d just try, we could be happy together.”
She saw his answer before he spoke. In the silence, with a fire crackling beside them, she saw his surprise. Then came the pity.
Her stomach twisted in on itself. She had handed her assassin a knife and bared her chest. If there were any way to stop him from speaking the words aloud, she would have done it, but the wheel was already turning.
“I love you, too,” he said, lowering his voice to add, “as a friend.”
She pulled away from him and turned her back. “That’s what I meant,” she said dully, though they both knew it was a lie.
“I think I’ll go back to Kalispell,” he said, staying by the fire.
“Maybe you can find a nice skinny girl there,” she said, reaching down for her coat.
He came to her then, took her by the shoulders, and turned her around. “Winona, you know it’s not about that. It’s just . . .”
Try as she might to control her tears, they came anyway, stung her eyes. Pathetic. And in that instant, she was the fat girl begging for her mother’s horse all over again. “I get it, Luke. Believe me. I get it.”
The following Monday, she heard from Aurora, who’d heard from Julie: Luke had moved back to Montana.
Chapter Twelve
On the water, time passed in currents, rippling closer and closer to the shore. In winter, the waves were bolder, angrier, tipped in white; wind whipped them into a frenzy and rain fell almost daily. Color faded the landscape. Even the evergreens lost some of their rich hue, appearing black against the gray sky, gray clouds, and gray water.
Sunlight changed all that, and in May, when the rains paused, bright pink and purple azaleas bloomed overnight, and everywhere was lime-green new growth—on the lawns, in the shoots of fragile leaves along the roadsides. At night the sound of frogs croaking to one another was so loud that all through town, people got up in the middle of the night to shut their windows.
In June, the summer people came back. Along the banks of the canal, docks began to reappear, as did the boats that were tied alongside them. The diner extended its hours and added a few trendy vegetarian sandwiches to the menu, and the seasonal shops reopened. Hanging baskets of purple lobelias and red geraniums were returned to their hooks on the streetlamps.
Vivi Ann noticed every change. For years, it seemed, she’d taken all that for granted, seen each alteration in the seasons as nothing more than the passing of time.
Her pregnancy had changed her perspective. Now she marked time in the smallest increments—a day, a week, sometimes even an hour. It wasn’t just her body that was changing, either. Everything felt different lately. She had never been as excited for anything as she was for the arrival of this baby. She was equally terrified. On a daily basis she missed her mother, and not in the ephemeral, little-girl way that she’d always missed her. That ache had turned into a hot, sharp pain. She had so many questions and no way to get the answers she needed.
Her fear—a new thing—ran deep and dark. At night, when she lay in bed with Dallas, listening to him sleep, she worried that she was too selfish to be a good mother, too immature to guide another human being through life. She worried, too, about his or her Native American heritage and how she would help her child to feel accepted by both worlds. In the ten months since her marriage, she’d learned very little about the man she loved. He loved her—that was obvious—but the rest of his emotions he kept in close check. Anger was the only thing that sometimes came to the surface, and on the rare occasions when she saw that side of him, she was afraid.
Remember, he’d told her once when they were fighting, abuse can make an animal mean. I tried to warn you. He’d wanted to push her away; she saw that now. The only thing in the world that scared him was their love
.
He didn’t understand, really, that she didn’t just love him. She lived for him. He was still the addiction she couldn’t shake.
“You’re zoning out again,” Aurora said, taking a french fry from Vivi Ann’s plate. “Hot sex this morning?”
Vivi Ann laughed, and rubbed her swollen belly. “You were the one who told me that passion faded.”
“Yeah, well. Then you met Tattoo Boy.”
“I can’t believe how much I love him. You know that, right?”
“The surprising thing is how much he seems to love you. He watches you like a hawk. Sometimes I think he can’t stand to be away from you.”
Vivi Ann heard the wistfulness in her sister’s voice, and realized how familiar that tone had become. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“About what?”
“Richard. What’s wrong?”
Aurora’s well-made-up face crumpled at that. “I thought I was hiding it.”
“That must be lonely.”
Aurora’s eyes filled with tears. “I like him. And he likes me. Maybe that’s okay, enough. But I’ve seen what you and Dallas have and now I don’t know. Should I just . . . walk through life? And there are the kids to think about. I don’t want them to grow up like we did, with this hole in the family where someone should be.”
Vivi Ann reached across the table and laid her hand on top of Aurora’s. “Everyone thinks Winona’s the smart one of us, but it’s you, Aurora. You . . . see things, you pay attention. You’ll make the right choice.”
“Maybe I don’t want to choose.”
Vivi Ann knew all too well how seductive that idea was. “Not doing anything is a choice, too. Not a good one. Trust me. Winona’s still pissed at me for hurting Luke. And she’s right. It’s the only time in my life I’ve ever been purposely cruel.”
“No one can hold a grudge like Winona, that’s for sure.”
“Sometimes I think she hates me.”
“Believe me, Vivi, the person Winona hates is herself. She’s spent her whole life trying to get blood from a stone and because she doesn’t know how to give up, she can’t stop. She keeps waiting for something from Dad that she’ll never get.”