Epilogue #2
The string lights are coming on now as the sun drops. The crowd is seated under Earl's oak.
Pops at the arch in his cut. Spur beside him in a clean white shirt, Banshee at his shoulder.
Shiver puts my arm through his and we start to walk.
We don't speak for the first twenty feet.
Then I say, quietly, "Shiv."
"Yeah, Dak?"
"Have you heard from Mom? At all?"
He doesn't break stride. His jaw works once. "No, sis. I haven't. Wish I had."
"In how long?"
"I don’t know, Kota. It’s been a while now. Over a year, at least."
"Doesn't that feel weird to you?"
There’s a long moment of silence between us.
"Yeah. It does."
"I sent her a text this morning. Before the sun was up. Told her I was getting married. Told her about the dress."
"Kid, you know you won’t get a response. Her phone was shut off."
"Yeah, you’re right. I don’t know why I do it. Maybe… I just feel like it’s some way for me to get my feelings out."
We walk another ten feet. I can see Spur clearer now.
He's looking at me. His face is doing the thing his face does when he sees me—the soft thing, the thing I've watched for years, but I can't quite stop talking.
"Shiv."
"Yeah?"
"You need to find Mom."
He keeps walking. Doesn't look at me.
"Dak."
"Something isn't right, Shiv. Something hasn't been right for a long time. Pops's face goes funny when I bring her up. Marlena's face goes funny. Uncle Cash's face went funny when I spoke to him a few months ago. They all do the same thing."
He's quiet a for a few moments. "Yeah. They do."
"You need to find her, Shiver. I'm asking you. After today. I'll come help you. But you need to find her."
"After today, sis."
"After today."
"You're walking down an aisle right now, Dak."
"I know I am."
"Then walk."
We're twenty feet from the oak. Spur is twenty feet away.
The crowd is on its feet. Pops is at the arch with his Bible in his hand, and his face is the calmest I've ever seen it.
Shiver squeezes my arm against his side.
"After today, sis. I promise. We'll find out what happened."
"Thank you, Shiv."
"Now go get married."
We close the last twenty feet. Shiver stops me at the arch, kisses my cheek, and hands me to Spur.
Spur takes both my hands. "Hey, baby."
"Hey."
"You okay?"
"Yeah. I am now."
He squeezes my hands and looks at me the way he's been looking at me for years.
Pops opens the Bible.
The ceremony moves the way a ceremony moves when the man officiating it is your father and the man marrying you is the love of your life.
Pops reads from Corinthians.
Direct, unhurried, like the words mean what they say.
The crowd is quiet. Cal asleep on Marlena's shoulder.
Waylon in Grace's lap holding the small velvet pillow with the wedding band on it. He almost dropped it twice during the walk, and Grace caught it both times.
Spur and I exchange basic vows. Nothing fancy.
To love. To honor. To protect. In sickness and in health. Until I'm in the ground.
Spur slides the gold band onto my finger next to his grandmother's turquoise. I slide his band onto his.
Pops looks right at us. "By the authority vested in me by the State of Texas and by the family that raised this woman, I now pronounce you husband and wife."
He pauses and looks at Spur. "Spur, kiss your fucking wife."
Spur kisses me. Long. The crowd erupts. Banshee whistles loudly.
Uncle Holt yells something I don't catch.
Uncle Roan and Cash clap.
Presley's crying. Marlena's sobbing into a handkerchief.
Mr. Whitley's in the second row in his Sunday best with the smallest old-man smile I've ever seen.
Spur pulls back, forehead to mine. "Hi, wife."
"Hi, husband."
We walk back down the aisle together hand in hand under the string lights of Earl's oak.
* * *
The reception is at the clubhouse.
A live country band out of Brady. Brisket from a pit Banshee ran since dawn. Sweet tea and Lone Star and a single bottle of Crown Pops opens for the toast.
The string lights are on inside and out. The fire pit out back is going against the January cold, and half the brothers are gathered around it with their beers.
First dance. Spur and me, slow song, his hand on my back, my head on his shoulder. The crowd watching.
The father-daughter dance after. Pops, formal, the song he picked himself.
Uncle Holt's drunk and being a bully to everyone around him by ten.
Uncle Cash and Uncle Roan are at the back playing pool. Marlena's cutting cake. Bex and Banshee at a table near the fire. Grace and Shadow on the dance floor.
Presley sits with Uncle Roan at a table near the band for a long stretch. He gets her a drink twice. They both laugh at something more than once. Worth remembering.
Mr. Whitley comes over and takes my hand in both of his. "Margaret would be proud of you, Dakota."
"Thank you, Mr. Whitley."
"And of him. She always said he'd find the right one. She didn't get to see it but she'd have been proud."
"Thank you, sir."
He walks back to his chair near the fire pit.
Around eleven, Shiver finds me on the back porch of the clubhouse.
He hands me a bottle of Lone Star, frosty, condensation already running down the glass in the cold.
"Sis."
"Shiv."
We don't say much for a minute. The cold is sharp out here. The party noise is muffled through the door behind us. The pasture is black past the porch rail.
"I need to be honest with you. I started looking three months ago," he says, low. "Quiet. Didn't tell you because I didn't want to ruin anything if I didn't have anything yet."
I don't move.
"And?"
"Don't have much, Dak. Her phone went off and stayed off. Bank accounts have been frozen since. Last credit card charge was a tank of gas in Big Spring."
"Big Spring?"
"Big Spring."
"That doesn't make sense, Shiv. Mom didn't go to Big Spring."
"I know she didn't."
The cold of the porch comes up through the soles of my boots. The reception is loud through the door. Spur's inside dancing with Marlena.
"Shiv."
"Yeah?"
"Promise me you won't stop until you find her."
"I won't, sis."
"Promise me."
"I promise."
He clinks his bottle against mine and we drink.
He goes back inside.
I stand on the porch for a long minute alone. The country in January is dark in a way only winter is.
The cicadas are gone. The dogs at the kennel are quiet. The whole property is asleep except for the clubhouse, lit up gold against the black pasture.
Spur comes out a minute later, doesn't ask what I'm thinking about.
He puts his arms around me from behind.
"It’s cold out here, wife."
"Yeah, husband."
"Come dance with me."
"In a minute."
"Take your time." He kisses my temple and stands with me at the rail until I'm ready.
* * *
It’s like I blinked and now it’s two in the morning.
I'm in our bed at the cabin with my hair half out of its pins and the last of Bex's mascara still under my eyes.
The dress is on the back of the chair. The pearls are on the dresser. My boots are at the foot of the bed where I kicked them off. Spur's asleep beside me. His arm across my ribs. His breath even at my collarbone.
The phone is on the nightstand. I picked it up once in the bathroom while I was washing off my mascara.
The thread is still sitting there. My message at the bottom of nothing, no responses, not a damn thing.
Mom. I'm getting married today. He's a good man.
No three dots. No read receipt.
Big Spring.
I turn over, put my face against Spur's collarbone.
He stirs, doesn't wake, his arm tightening around me automatically.
The man I love is asleep with his arm around me. His grandmother's ring and a wedding band are on my left hand.
My family is asleep at the main house a hundred yards away.
I close my eyes. Spur breathes against my hair.
I'm now Dakota Lyle Holloway, and even though life is going good for me right now, I'm going to find out what happened to my mother.
No matter the cost.