25. JUSTICE
JUSTICE
Sunday morning I sat out on the back deck with my grandmother, drinking coffee, watching four men frame up a horse stable on my land.
It was a good sound. Hammers, a saw going, men calling out measurements to each other across the grass. The frame had gone up fast. By noon you could see the shape of the barn, the stalls, the tack room, the roofline against my tree line.
“That child is spoiled rotten,” Rita announced from her chair, not looking up from her crossword.
“I’m NOT spoiled!” Dream hollered from the deck rail, where she’d been posted since seven in the morning like a foreman.
“Baby, you got a stable being built in your backyard for a horse you been owning for eight days.”
“That’s not spoiled, Grandma Rita. That’s just having a horse. Plus I earned it, I’m a good girl.”
Rita laughed so hard she had to put the pen down. I sat there grinning into my coffee at both of them.
Truth is, I’d been watching the driveway more than the stable all morning.
Skye had not come back Saturday. She’d said she’d be home in the morning, then she’d texted early that she was staying at Aubrey’s another night.
Nothing wrong with that. Weekends were hers.
That’s the deal I made with her, that Friday evening to Sunday she was a free woman with no obligation to me or this house, and I’d meant it when I said it.
I’d just gotten used to her being here. Fixed my mouth to complain about it and then remembered I had no right to.
So I drank my coffee. I watched some men build a stable. Every so often my eyes went to that driveway like a fool.
The trailer came at one o’clock. Skye’s car came up the drive right behind it.
Dream lost her entire mind. She was down those deck steps before I could tell her to slow down, screaming Midnite’s name across the yard. By the time I caught up she had both arms wrapped around that horse’s neck like a long-lost relative.
Then she spotted Skye getting out of her car and switched targets.
“MISS SKYE! MISS SKYE, SHE’S HERE! SHE’S HERE FOR REAL!”
My baby grabbed her by the hand and dragged her across the grass without so much as a hello. Skye came stumbling along behind her, laughing, dressed down in a pair of leggings and a hoodie, purse swinging off her shoulder.
She looked tired. That was the first thing I noticed.
Something around her eyes, some straining thing she’d covered with makeup that wasn’t fully hidden.
She jumped when one of the workers dropped a length of board on the concrete, hand going to her chest. Then she laughed at herself and got right back to Dream.
I made a note of it. Filed it under ask her later, gently. Figured Aubrey’s family emergency had run her ragged all weekend.
Then she got to Midnite, and whatever was sitting on her went somewhere else for a while.
We spent the afternoon with that horse.
Dream showed Skye how to hold her hand out with the apple on the palm.
Skye let out a little shriek the first time Midnite lipped her fingers, and Dream nearly fell over laughing at her.
They took turns brushing her down. Dream narrated every single thing that horse did like a play-by-play announcer.
Then the handler got the saddle on and asked who was riding first.
Dream went first, obviously, walked around the ring on that mare with her back straight and her chin up like she was leading a parade. Then she demanded Skye go.
“Absolutely not,” Skye said. “I’m a grown woman. I don’t do heights and I don’t do animals bigger than a Buick.”
“Miss SKYE.”
“Baby, I will hold the fence and cheer.”
“Please please please please please.”
She got up on that horse. Of course she did. Nobody has ever told my daughter no successfully. So I stood at the rail watching Skye sit up on that mare, gripping the saddle horn with both hands, her face full of pure terror, hollering at me to make it stop moving.
I laughed until my chest hurt. I hadn’t done that in a long, long time.
Dream led that mare around the ring by the lead rope, slow and serious, calling instructions up to Skye like a little riding instructor. Skye hollered every time Midnite so much as shifted her weight.
Somewhere in there I stopped watching the horse and started watching her.
My land. My kid down there holding a lead rope with her tongue poked out in concentration.
And that woman up on my daughter’s horse, terrified, laughing at herself, sun full on her face, looking easier than I’d ever seen her look.
Three years I’d been running this house like a man holding his breath under water. That afternoon I came up for air.
When Dream finally brought them back around, I came over to help Skye down. She swung her leg over and misjudged the drop. I caught her by the waist, set her on her feet, and she came down closer to me than either of us planned.
Her hands ended up on my chest. Neither of us moved for a second.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Anytime.”
“HI STORIE! HI AUNT KIRA!”
Dream’s voice rang across the yard.
I looked up toward the deck to check on Rita.
They were standing at the deck rail. Both of them. Storie with her weekend bag still on her shoulder, Kira right beside her with her arms crossed. I don’t know how long they’d been up there. Long enough.
Kira’s face was something I’d never seen on her before. Not hurt. Not even angry, exactly. Something harder underneath both of those, and she was not bothering to hide one bit of it.
Dream took off running for the deck. She hit Storie at full speed, threw both arms around her sister’s waist, squeezed.
Storie stood there and let it happen. Her arms stayed at her sides.
She didn’t push my baby off, she just didn’t give her one thing back, and after a second Dream let go and stepped away with her smile faltering.
Then Storie turned and hugged Kira. Real one.
Both arms, head on her shoulder, holding on.
Kira wrapped her up and looked straight at me over the top of my daughter’s head.
Down by the ring, Skye lifted a hand and waved at them. Neither one waved back. She took Midnite’s lead from the handler without a word and started walking that horse toward the new stable, giving us the yard.
She’s good at reading a room.
“I thought she didn’t work on weekends,” Kira said when I came up the steps.
“Did that look like work to you?”
The air on that deck went to ice.
“Whew, chile.” Rita closed her crossword book with a snap. “Storie. Dream. Come on in here with me, we gon’ make some lemonade.”
“I’m good,” Storie said.
“I said come on.”
Storie sucked her teeth loud enough for the neighbors I don’t have to hear her, then peeled off Kira and followed my grandmother inside with Dream skipping along behind. The door shut.
Then it was just me and Kira.
“So are y’all a thing now?” she asked.
“That’s none of your business.”
“Those girls are my business.” Her voice was climbing. “You can’t be dating the help in the same house those children live in, Justice. Storie told me y’all been getting close. Late night talks. Sitting up out here by the fire when everybody else is sleep—”
“Storie told you that.”
“She notices things.”
I stood there a second and let that sit. My fifteen-year-old had been reporting my movements to this woman. I’d deal with that later, when I had my head right.
“Kira.” It took more than she’ll ever know to say it that calm. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for my girls. I mean that. But I think it’s time you take a little break from us. Aight? What goes on in my house ain’t your business. It never was.”
She rocked back like I’d slapped her.
“Wow.” Her eyes filled fast. “Monica was my best friend, Justice.”
“And she’s gone.” It came out harder than I meant but I didn’t take it back. “Those are my kids. Mine. I know what’s best for them, and I’m the only one who gets a vote in it.”
She stared at me. Then her face settled, went quiet, went somewhere I couldn’t follow.
“You better hope you’re right,” she said.
She snatched up her purse and went down my deck steps, then out around the side of the house without another word to anybody. A minute later I heard her car door slam hard enough to rattle. Then asphalt under her tires, going too fast down my drive.
I stood out there by myself a while after she was gone.
Down at the far end of the property, Skye was leading that black horse into a stable that still smelled like fresh-cut pine. Dream’s laugh came muffled through the kitchen window behind me.
It had been a perfect day. It had been the best day I’d had in three years.
Kira was hurt, that’s all. Hurt people say things. She’d cool off eventually and move on. Maybe in a few months, I’d let the girls resume a relationship with her — maybe.
I went on in the house to get some lemonade with my girls.