44

“GRANDMA,” JODY SAID, after she finished telling about her day, three months later. “I need to ask you something.” They were in her kitchen in the big stone house in Rose, and not at the ranch, because her uncles and their children were in town and some of them were staying with her. Even in Jody’s house, it was Annabelle who was doing the cooking on this night, which was a wonderful luxury for a young schoolteacher coming home from a full day of teaching.

On this early winter evening, Jody felt exhausted and exhilarated, all at the same time. One of her shyest students had shown courage in raising her hand and answering a question that afternoon.

Jody felt inspired to speak up, too.

“Do you remember what you advised me about Collin Crosby?”

Annabelle was peeling potatoes, but she stopped and looked over at Jody.

Jody could tell that she didn’t remember.

“You told me to be kind to him.”

“Oh.” Her grandmother went back to peeling, but slower than before. The burden of guilt she and Hugh felt for wrongly accusing Billy, and for Red’s death, and for harboring their son’s killer in the family was almost unbearable sometimes. It had aged and humbled them, given them new nightmares, turned them softer and sadder, made them more forgiving of other people, if not of themselves yet. Sometimes Hugh Senior had forgetful moments when he still thought Billy had done it all and hated him for all of it, and then later he’d remember with a shock that was brand new again.

Jody sensed she couldn’t do anything for them except love them.

Gently, she asked, “How do you feel about him now?”

Annabelle laid down the peeler and stared out the window above her sink.

“I feel… I feel so guilty about him, honey.”

“Anything else?”

“Grateful. He saved your life by calling us when a lesser man might have let us reap the whirlwind that we sowed.”

“Maybe we should invite him to supper some evening.”

“What?” Annabelle turned so fast that she brushed a potato off the counter. It bounced once, then rolled toward Jody’s feet. She picked it up, sniffed at the raw freshness of it, and then put it down on the table where she sat. Before Christmas, she’d painted the table and chairs bright blue.

“Jody, we can’t do that. It would be so awkward for everybody. Worse than awkward, it would be awful. He wouldn’t come anyway, and I don’t blame him. I’m sure he doesn’t want anything to do with us.”

Jody swallowed, and then plunged into the deep end.

“He wants something to do with me, Grandma.”

Annabelle looked for a moment as if her knees would give out, and Jody started to get up to go to her, but then her grandmother gripped the sink and straightened into her usual good posture. “No, that’s not a good idea. Sweetheart, it just can’t be a good idea. There’s so much, too much-”

Chase was visiting, and he picked that moment to walk into the kitchen.

“What’s not a good idea?”

“Collin Crosby,” her grandmother said in a stunned voice.

“And me,” Jody finished for her.

Chase got very still for a moment, still enough to remind Jody of how Aunt Belle had been when she saw the silver horse. Her heart pounded as she waited to see what harsh judgment he would make on this dramatic announcement of hers.

“Have you been seeing him?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Every chance we get, Uncle Chase.”

“Where?”

“Any place we can find.”

“Those weekend trips you take to see friends…?”

“Right. Those.”

He stared at her without speaking for a long moment. “When did this start?”

“When we were children, I think. We’ve always felt drawn to each other.” Jody looked at her uncle and then at her grandmother. They didn’t know how she and Collin talked and talked and talked, examining their strangely intertwined lives from both of their points of view, seeking and finding understanding in each other that they’d never found in anybody else. She took a deep breath. “He’s the happiness that follows all the sadness. I never used to think that was possible for me-or for anybody, not really-and I know it’s still no fairy tale. I know bad things will come into our lives, as they do in everybody else’s life, but-” She was near tears, wanting so much to convince them. “In the tough times, it’s his hand I want to hold. I have to tell you one of the reasons he worked so hard to get his father out of prison. Yes, it was for the principle of justice. Yes, it was because he knew Billy didn’t do it. Yes, it was for his mother. But he also did it because he believed it was the only way to force a new investigation. And the real reason Collin wanted a new investigation was because he thought that otherwise I’d never know what happened to my mother.”

When she saw them frowning as if they didn’t quite understand what she was saying, Jody took another deep breath as if she were on a horse and lining up to jump a final fence.

“He did it for me,” she said, making it absolutely clear.

Chase looked over at his mother, who stared back at him.

“Well,” he began, while Jody crossed her fingers. “I don’t see why he shouldn’t come to supper, provided he can stand to be in the same room with the rest of us.”

She could hardly believe what she was hearing.

“He’s probably the only man in Kansas who’s crazy for the exact same reasons you are. It’s either a match made in heaven or in hell, but it sounds like a match to me,” Chase said. Annabelle stared a little open-mouthed at him. “Chicken,” he said next, suggesting the menu for their first supper together. “If the boy doesn’t like your fried chicken, Mom, then he’s not fit for this family. And if he does like it, then next time maybe I’ll grill some steaks if I’m in town.”

Chase walked out of the room, taking Jody’s gratitude with him.

But then he walked back in and said quietly, “If he doesn’t want me around, I will stay away.”

Jody thought it was the most thoughtful thing he’d ever said to her.

“We’ll all get used to each other,” she suggested.

“I expect he hates us.”

“He’s not like that, Uncle Chase.”

He squinted at her, as if gauging her capacity to decide such things.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” he said as he left the room again, but then he came back again, this time to say something else to his mother. “We need a new lawyer in the family, you know.”

It was nearly a joke. A grim and unfunny one, but almost a joke anyway.

Annabelle was looking as if she might cry, too, and she said to Jody, “I suppose you’ll end up moving to Topeka.”

“I’m just suggesting supper, Grandma, we’re not getting married!”

“Yet,” she said as she picked up her paring knife again.

“And I have a whole school year to get through, remember?”

“There are schools in Topeka,” Chase said, unhelpfully.

“Which is not that far away,” Jody said quickly.

She got up and went to her grandmother, wrapping her in a hug. The two women stood together like that until Chase left the room and the water for the potatoes began to boil.