LITMIR.BIZ

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      “How about thanking me?” Ginny muttered. “If it wasn’t for me, you could be dead by now.”

      Walt made a disgusted sound. “If I’d known you were going to nag like this, death would’ve been a blessing.”

Three

      “It’s probably the biggest, most beautiful home I’ve ever seen,” Molly told her boys wistfully as they sped along the two-lane highway. Eager to reach Sweetgrass, she drove fifteen miles above the speed limit. They hadn’t seen another car in more than half an hour, and she figured the state patrol had better things to do than worry about an old country road.

      “How many rooms does it have?” Clay asked.

      “More than I could count,” Molly said, smiling to herself. As a child, she’d considered her grandparents’ home a mansion. It had taken her two entire summers to explore all three floors. The original house had been built just after the turn of the century, a grand home for its time, with a turret dominating the right-hand side of the wooden structure. There was a wide sweeping porch along the front of the house, added in later years; it looked out over the rolling green paddock where the horses grazed. A narrow dirt drive snaked in from a marked entry off the highway.

      “I can have my own room, then?” Tom asked, showing some life for the first time since lunch.

      “There must be four, possibly five bedrooms not in use now.”

      “I’d sleep in the attic without electricity if it meant I wouldn’t have to share a room with Clay.”

      For Tom, that had been the most difficult aspect of their move into the apartment. He’d been tolerant about it for a while, but living in such close proximity to his younger brother had quickly become a problem.

      “My grandmother kept the house in meticulous condition,” Molly said. During her last visit, the month following her grandmother’s death, she’d marveled at how clean and neatly organized the house still was. Molly Wheaton had regularly waxed the wooden floors and washed the walls. She’d line-dried all the clothes, ironed and crisply folded almost everything. Even the dish towels.

      Out of respect for his wife, Gramps had removed his shoes before stepping into the house, to avoid tracking mud across the spotless floors. Every room had smelled of sunshine, with the faint underlying scent of lemon or pine. Molly could almost smell it now.

      “How big’s the barn?”

      “Huge.”

      “That’s what you said about the house.”

      “I named you right, son,” she said, reaching over and mussing his hair. “Doubting Thomas.”

      Tom slapped at her hand, and she laughed, in too good a mood to let his surly attitude distress her.

      They were within an hour of Sweetgrass, and Molly felt a keen sense of homecoming. It was an excitement that reminded her of childhood and warm summer days, a joy that wanted to burst forth. After the long hard months of Daniel’s trial, months of struggle and embarrassment while their names were dragged through the media, this was a new beginning for them all. At last they could set aside the troubles of the past and move forward.

      “There’s a weeping willow beside the house,” Molly said. “When I was a girl, I used to hide behind its branches. Gramps would come looking for me and pretend he couldn’t find me.” The remembrance made her laugh softly. Her grandfather might be crusty on the outside, but inside he was as kind and loving as a man could be. While her grandmother fussed over her only grandchild, coddled and pampered her, Gramps had growled and snorted about sparing the rod and spoiling the child.

      But it had been her grandfather who’d built her a dollhouse and hand-carved each small piece of furniture. It’d taken him a whole winter to complete the project. Instead of giving it to her, he’d placed it in the attic for her to find, letting her think it’d been there for years.

      Her grandmother had never allowed any of the dogs or cats in the house, but it was her grandfather who’d smuggled in a kitten to sleep with her the first night she was away from her parents, when she was six. Molly wasn’t supposed to have known, but she’d seen him tiptoe up the stairs, carting the kitten in a woven basket.

      All the memories wrapped themselves around her like the sun’s warmth, comforting and lovely beyond description.

      “Does Gramps have a dog?” Clay asked excitedly.

      “Three or four, I imagine.” Gramps had named his dogs after cartoon characters. Molly remembered Mr. McGoo and Mighty Mouse. Yogi and Boo Boo had been two of her favorites. She wondered if he’d continued the practice with more recent dogs.

      “That’s it!” she said, pointing at two tall timbers. A board with BROKEN ARROW RANCH burned in large capital letters swung from a chain between them. The brand was seared on either side of the ranch name.

      “I don’t see the house,” Clay muttered.

      “You will soon,” she promised. Molly took a deep breath. They’d been on the road for two days and it felt ten times that long. Her heart was ready for sight of the house, ready to absorb the wealth of emotion that stirred her whenever she remembered those childhood summers.

      Her ten-year-old Taurus crested the first hill, and she gazed intently ahead, knowing it was here that the house came into view for the first time. She could hardly wait for her sons’ reaction. Could hardly wait for them to suck in their breaths with awe and appreciation. Could hardly wait to show them the home that would now be theirs.

      It wasn’t Tom or Clay who gasped, but Molly herself. The house, at least the outside, was nothing like she remembered. It sat forlornly, revealing years of neglect and abuse. Most of the shutters were gone, and those that remained hung askew, dangling by a couple of nails. The paint had blistered and peeled, leaving behind large patches of sun-parched wood. Two of the posts along the porch had rotted away, and the railing around the front showed gaping holes as unsightly as missing teeth. A turquoise tarp was spread across the roof over what had once been her bedroom, presumably to stop a leak.

      “Are you sure this is the same house?” The question came from Tom.

      “This isn’t it...is it?” Clay’s words seemed to stick in his throat.

      “The Addams family would love this place,” Tom said sarcastically.

      Molly felt her sons’ scrutiny, but was speechless, not knowing what to say.

      “Are we just going to stay parked here?” Clay asked.

      Molly hadn’t realized she’d stopped. She squared her shoulders and forced herself to swallow the disappointment. All right, so the house wasn’t exactly the way she’d recalled it. She’d personally see to the repairs and the upkeep; it was her responsibility now. Her hands squeezed the steering wheel as a new thought struck her. If the outside was this bad, she could only imagine what had happened to the inside.

      “We need to remember Gramps is ill,” she said more for her own benefit than her children’s. “He hasn’t been able to take care of things. That’s why we’re here, remember?”

      “This place is a dump.”

      “Thomas, stop!” She would hear none of this. None of it! “This is our home.”

      “We were better off in the apartment.”

      Molly’s fingers ached from her death grip on the steering wheel. “It’ll be just as beautiful as ever in no time,” she said forcefully, defying the boys to contradict her.

      Either they recognized the determination in her voice or were too tired to argue.

      Molly had half expected Gramps to be on the porch waiting for her when she arrived and was disappointed when he wasn’t. She pulled the car around to the back of the house, close to the barn where Gramps

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