Chapter 29
CADE
Noelle held herself together until her parents’ taillights disappeared, then collapsed in my arms. She cried, and we didn’t say much. I held her, rubbed her back, and died a little while she hiccuped in my arms. Exhausted, she went to bed at the same time as Lily.
Now I sat at the table in the deep of night, alone. Paperwork, receipts, and hastily scrawled notes cluttered the table. My eyes burned from the late hour, and the thought of wrapping my brain around all these numbers made me want to tip the table over.
Someone had to look at them.
Even at midnight.
I shoved away, rubbed a hand over my face, and closed the empty folder that once held all of the receipts and statements that I studied now; a couple fluttered to the floor and the rest remained sprawled over the top, but I ignored it. I’d clean it up in . . . four hours when I had to wake up.
Four hours.
Good gravy.
A creaky bed awaited downstairs, but the basement still smelled like a burning mixture of bleach and mildew. The four close walls down there were suffocating. I threw myself onto the couch, tossed a hand over my eyes, and tried to relax my knotted shoulders.
They didn’t relax.
Although hours had passed since Noelle’s parents had surprised us, the fury of their visit remained with me. It definitely contributed to my late night and distraction. There was no way to remove the hurt her Dad gave. Not knowing what to say was also terrible.
With a start, I realized I hadn’t called Cora to tell her about the video call with Mom, and a flash of guilt moved through me. I’d forget again if I didn’t tell her right now. Something else in the ranch or house would swamp me in the morning, so I typed out a text message to assuage myself.
Cade: I forgot to mention it to you the other day, but Mom video called from Pastor Mike’s phone. She wasn’t coherent for much, but I did speak to her.
I hesitated, skimming the awkward words. I couldn’t write words if someone paid me. There had to be a better way to tell Cora. Yet, it was almost one in the morning, I had to get up in four hours, and so I sent it.
Sleep had started to pull me under when I startled awake again. My phone vibrated on my chest.
Cora: Why are you awake?
Cade: Why are YOU awake?
Cora: I accidentally took a nap this afternoon so I wasn’t very sleepy, and I got caught up in a painting. How was talking to Mom?
I hesitated. Despite having days to think it over, I still hadn’t come up with a good reply.
Cade: Weird.
Cora: About what I expected. You didn’t answer my first question. Why are you up so late?
Cade: I was reviewing bills.
Before she could offer to loan me money for the ranch—which she had done multiple times before—I quickly typed out another reply.
Cade: Everything is fine. I’m just trying to figure out the debts carrying over and the expected cash flow. There are . . . a lot of renovations and updates we need. In more than just the house.
A minute passed before her reply arrived.
Cora: Do you have any minutes in your day when you aren’t trying to save the world for everyone?
Yeah, I thought, when I hold Lily. Though her care required a lot, from bottles to binkies to booties, something about her tiny strength, her quiet yawns and petite sighs, captured me. It felt different, even though providing for her was just as much pressure as supporting anyone else.
Cade: Plenty of them. You’re not mad I forgot to tell you about Mom?
Cora: Not at all, because you just did. Doesn’t matter if it took a few days. I let her go long ago, Cade. She isn’t ours, and never really was. Maybe you should consider that, too?
Cade: I don’t know how.
Cora: You’ll figure it out.
Cade: Goodnight, Cora. Love you.
Cora: Love you.
Wyatt grunted, cheeks reddened and puffed with exertion, as the two of us waded through a half-trod snowbank and up the back porch stairs, a heavy set of drywall between us.
As we approached, Noelle swung the back door open and shivered against the cold burst of air.
Walking backward, I entered the house first.
The delicious smell of ham and buttery scalloped potatoes drifted to my nose. My mouth watered and my stomach growled in anticipation. Last week, she’d baked a loaf of sourdough in the cast-iron skillet. The boys and I devoured the loaf in a single sitting.
“Why did you buy green drywall?” Wyatt asked, his breath turning to smoky puffs as he followed me inside.
“Mold resistant for the bathroom upstairs, and when we fix the one downstairs.”
“We’re not ready to start drywalling downstairs.”
“Even so, we gotta store it inside. It’s too humid to leave it in the barn with another storm front moving in.”
He grunted again.
With a shiver, Noelle shut the door. “It’s getting cold out there! It’ll be dark soon, and then it’ll be really cold. I think I’ll grab some more firewood from the porch.”
“Thanks,” I said.
After descending the stairs with the drywall, we squatted, left it leaning against a wall. Wyatt leaned an elbow on top, squinting.
“I hate drywall, hoss.”
“It hates you.”
He nodded.
This was not the first time Wyatt would take drywall duty, and the task hadn’t gone well before. He was impatient, jittery. He’d rather ride an angry hog than calculate fractions. That sort of work was all Cody.
Cody should be an engineer. Maybe he would be, if I had anything to say about it.
New situations overwhelmed him, though, and the idea of going to college and leaving the ranch wasn’t worth it to him.
He’d fallen into life on the ranch and online homeschooling like a needle in an old groove.
I hadn’t given up on him attending college.
He just needed a friend, and a little motivation.
“Cody?” I called.
“Ten minutes,” he returned. “Then it’ll be ready.”
I tossed Wyatt the measuring tape with a smirk. “Get ready for your favorite part, while Cody and I finish hauling in the rest. You get to play with numbers and stuff. I need you to measure out the walls and make sure we have enough sheets.”
Wyatt slumped against the wall and feigned death. I couldn’t help but chortle. A knock sounded on the front door, distracting both of us. Wyatt straightened, immediately intrigued. “Who’s coming here at this time of day?”
“Maybe someone who smelled Noelle’s dinner,” Cody called from the top of the stairs. “The smell has been driving me to distraction for the last half hour. I can’t wait to eat everything.”
He wasn’t the only one.
But a strange silence overcame the house, so I ran upstairs to find a most unexpected sight. Noelle stood in the half-opened front door, talking to her mother, Ashley, who was outside.
Ashley wrung her hands in front of her, a distressed look on her face.
Her lips were thin and white, eyes scrunched as if she were about to cry.
I couldn’t see Noelle’s face, but the tightness in her shoulders spoke volumes.
After a pause, Noelle nodded, widened the door, and her mother stepped within.
Ashley stopped in the doorway when she caught sight of me peering around the corner.
Noelle spun around.
“She wants to see Lily.”
The stunned, single sentence spoke worlds. So did the lack of a husband at Ashley’s side. The same Jeep from the night before stood in the driveway, and I thought I saw the outline of someone in the driver’s seat.
“They’re leaving town tonight,” Noelle added, gesturing her mother farther inside.
“They’ve checked out of the hotel and have their bags packed in the car.
I told them yesterday that I’ve been sorting through all the stuff in the basement, and now Dad wants to go through a few boxes downstairs, if we’ll let him. Mom also wanted to hold Lily.”
Noelle didn’t seek permission from me on handling this situation, because by now, she would know she didn’t need it.
I could tell she had already made up her mind, but I did see a hesitation.
A seeking of affirmation from me, or a sense of community.
Noelle needed something right now, and I thought I knew what it was.
I turned to her mother. “Welcome, Ashley. I’m happy to take Richard downstairs. Noelle has a few piles that he may want to go through.”
Relief crossed Ashley’s expression, quick and flickering.
It vanished into her weepy facade. The woman looked .
. . terrified. Then again, according to what Noelle said, Ashley didn’t often go against her husband’s wishes.
I wondered how she managed to come inside and ask to hold her granddaughter when he was so against it.
“Thank you.” Ashley nodded a little, but kept her eyes averted.
“I’ll get your dad,” I said to Noelle as she led her mother down the hallway, toward Lily’s room. Noelle smiled, shot through with relief and appreciation.
I returned to the top of the stairs and called down. “Come on, boys. Wyatt, you’re off the hook for measuring. You’re going to help Cody haul in the last ten drywall sheets. Make sure none of them drop into the snow.”
Inviting Richard inside to look through Morgan’s old stuff would be less awkward than navigating around Noelle and her mom, so I tossed a few pieces of firewood into the fire, made sure the friendly flames snapped in the hearth, bright and crackling, and then stepped outside the back door and winged around the side of the house.
Richard sat in the Jeep’s driver’s seat, glaring out. The edge on his stare wasn’t as hard and mean as it had been last time, when he’d been intent with purpose. Was it possible for him to experience regret? Could the initial confrontation have softened him? I hoped so, for Noelle’s sake.
Richard rolled down the window as I approached, but didn’t quite meet my eyes. They had two suitcases stacked in the back. They must have a late flight out of Jackson City tonight, which meant they’d need to leave soon. Like Ashley mentioned to Noelle, this added up to a pretty quick visit.
“You’re welcome inside,” I said. “I’ll be happy to show you what needs sorting in the basement.”
With a pause, then a nod, Richard turned the Jeep off.
There wasn’t anything Richard could hurt in the basement, and he must know how to get there, but I led him down there all the same. The tense air between us felt kind of weird, so I tromped down the stairs ahead of him.
“I hope you’ll forgive the commotion as the boys bring more drywall in. We need to store it down here. They’ll stay out of your way.”
Richard glanced sidelong at me, but said nothing.
“Noelle has been through most of what you see there.” I gestured to boxes along the far wall.
She’d marked them with Sharpie, labeling them Old Documents and Pictures and Clothing.
“Noelle said something about making a quilt out of some of her grandma’s old dresses, and grandpa’s old shirts.
So, unless you want them, she may keep those.
She worked hard to sort and preserve paperwork, pictures, and knick-knacks. ”
Richard made a noise in his throat and reached for a box near him, not far from an old fireplace that I wanted to rebrick.
He began to riffle through a box marked Documents, checking the watch on his left wrist every now and then.
When he finished that box, he moved to the next.
He didn’t set aside any paperwork, and didn’t seem all that interested in .
. . anything. I stood there for a moment, but it didn’t take me long to decide he didn’t need me, and I certainly didn’t want to stay.
“There are a few more boxes in the closet, back room, on the right.” I edged backward, toward the stairs. “Feel free to take whatever you like from what you find, but talk to Noelle if there’s any clothing you want.”
My foot had just climbed the first stair when his reply stopped me.
“We had a falling out over a decade ago and I hadn’t spoken to my father since. Not much of this has value for me.”
I paused, unsure of what to say. His tone sounded frazzled and irritated, and a little lost.
“Being here,” he cried, running a hand through his hair, “it’s a .
. . a formality. The last time I came here, my girls were kids.
I watched them play in the fields that I grew up in and with the animals.
. . and now? It’s nothing to me. I couldn’t care less.
My brother wanted me to see if there were any important papers, but with you inheriting the place, there wouldn’t be anything for us to pay attention to. It’s yours, isn’t it?”
Definite bitterness lined those words, and he’d made this my business. Up until this point, I was willing to be open and civil, but he’d just brought the fight to my doorstep, and now I didn’t have to walk on eggshells.
Years of helping old man Morgan survive the depression and loss of his eldest son piled up behind me, and I had rage enough for both of us.
Somehow, I managed to lock it down and focus.
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Richard. Morgan was, I think, hoping to avoid dumping a big mess on the two of you. He spoke about you often, how busy you were at work. He never wanted to be a burden.”
Richard scoffed, shoved the box back, grabbed another. “It’s not about messes,” he muttered, pushing harder than necessary on each, “but what he didn’t do. He cut me off, gave everything he had to someone else. We may have had a falling out, but I thought . . .”
With a shake of his head, he finished with, “You inheriting the place clears the picture up pretty well, no matter what you have to say about it. My father made his feelings about us very clear.”
How did Noelle come from this monster? I couldn’t see her in him. Not even physically. Not a hint. She had heart and soul in spades. Courage, too. Richard was a spindly-souled man with little but bitterness to hold onto.
Old man Morgan had been better without him.
I continued up the stairs, not willing to listen to another word.
Men like Richard didn’t want anything that didn’t benefit them.
They steeped in their wrath like old coffee, spoiling the air for the rest of us.
Men like him were dangerous only because they didn’t see that in their own actions, they mirrored the pain dealt to them.
He focused so much on himself that he didn’t see he was doing the same thing to Noelle and Lily. Ignoring their wants and needs. Demanding Noelle’s return to work. Offering no support other than daycare for Lily.
And for what?
Differing opinions?
That’s what made Richard Morgan the most abominable man I had ever met.