Chapter 2
We order dinner, my mother holding her tongue when I ask for extra sour cream and butter on my baked potato.
Isabel keeps the conversation fun and civil.
Colbert is on his phone half the time, talking about surface leases and per-barrel crude prices, along with a long conversation with someone about buying a cutting horse that costs more than what most people make in five years.
“Now.” He lodges his cell phone into the front pocket of his jacket. It’s the kind of now that says, ‘This is serious, so listen up.’
He reaches over and grabs Isabel’s hand in one of his, then mine in the other, bringing the four of them together in the middle of the table as my mom sits up straight, arms crossed, and I feel an ambush coming on.
“I need to let you girls know that—” He clears his throat, tossing a look at Mom, then back to us.
“I knew this day would come, I just didn’t know when, but Cutter, my…
” He pauses, and I hate that he has to think about what to call him.
“…my son, as you both know, has been away paying his debt to society. Well, we got notice that he’s been approved for parole.
Now—” He releases our hands and holds his up, lowering his voice just in case, God forbid, anyone should overhear.
“He’ll be meeting me outside in about...
” He punches his fist forward, then twists it so the face of his Schaffhausen watch is visible. “Five minutes, actually.”
His demeanor darkens, and my mother throws back the last of her second martini.
From the corner of my eye I catch the movement of an enormous man in black jeans, a denim shirt, and a tan felt cowboy hat stepping into the traffic on Main Street, a car honking as he walks straight forward without stopping, stepping up on the curb just outside the club’s restaurant, and my heart feels like it’s going to break through my chest and shoot through the glass.
He’s here. Cutter.
He looks tired and so much older, I barely recognize him.
But that’s not all. He’s bigger. Thicker. He’s grown a lumberjack-style beard that covers his cheeks, chin, and under his nose. He’s changed so much since those early days, I wonder what else life in prison might have changed.
He’s… What? 34 now? And I’m nineteen. I’m sure I’ve changed a lot, too.
Colbert pushes his chair back. “You girls stay put. I’m doing what’s best for him. I’ll get him started, but he needs to figure out his life before I allow him back into ours.”
With that, he’s out the door, grabbing Cutter by the elbow to drag him somewhere more private, I’m sure. But Cutter jerks away, his eyes barely slits as the two Houser men square off right in the middle of downtown Bremmer, for God and everyone to see.
My mother’s face turns as white as her teeth, eyes darting around the dining room to check who might be watching the family shame standing outside the window.
Shame. If she only knew.
The snow is starting to blow sideways in a thick white curtain now, sticking to Cutter and Colbert’s hats and jackets.
“Girls—” My mom starts, but I’m already on my feet.
“I’m going to say hi to my brother,” I snap, all the years of them talking badly about him, when I knew the truth and never spoke up, coming to a head.
“Sadie! You will sit back down this instant.”
“Me too! I wanna meet him!” Isabel is on my heels as I stomp toward the door, jabbing my coat check ticket at the woman behind the half door.
I’m re-wrapped in my scarf and jamming my arms into my coat as I shoulder through the door, grabbing for Isabel’s hand, my mother flustering a few steps behind us.
Outside the door, the flakes bite at my cheeks as I tug Isabel next to me, watching my father shove a thick white envelope at Cutter. His voice is muffled by the wind, but I catch the tone and the words as I slow our approach. When Cutter’s eyes connect to mine, the whole scene feels surreal.
“Get yourself a place. A job. A car. There’s enough there for you to get on your feet, but you stay out of Bremmer.
I’ll send you more every month, you have my word, but it’s on the condition you stay away from us.
You get on that bus wherever it’s going and don’t come back until you’ve proven you can live a righteous life. ”
The diesel from the bus idling on the other side of the street drifts through the scent of pine and winter.
“Righteous?” Cutter scoffs. “I went to prison for stopping someone from hurting a child. Nothing more righteous than that, Colbert.”
My dad shakes his head. “You broke his neck with your bare hands, after you broke each of his fingers, and I won’t mention the other parts of him you kicked so hard they burst. That’s not justice, that was torture, and the law agreed.”
“Merry Christmas, Dad,” Cutter snaps his tongue against his teeth. His eyes are harder. Shoulders broader. Arms thicker. But that’s not all. Whatever softness I remember about him, it’s turned to stone.
I’m frozen to the sidewalk, Isabel stuck to my side as I clench her shoulder, hating myself for not stepping forward, for not saying all the things that should be said. For not being stronger.
But I know how this works. Colbert is all smiles and cowboy polite when you are toeing whatever line he’s drawn, but as soon as you cross it, especially to take the side of someone against him, well…
Let’s just say I’d be on a bus with an unpaid tuition bill and nowhere to live before you could say black gold.
Cutter’s eyes turn on mine, as one corner of his mouth tilts upward just a bit. Then he laughs, tips his hat my way, and my insides tumble and twist as he leaves my father standing there with the unaccepted envelope hovering in midair.
Cutter crosses, nearly getting hit this time from both directions, but miraculously, the cars go around him like he’s emanating an invisible force field.
He swings around a lamp post, ripping down the wrapped garland and flinging it into the muck at the curb, then disappears into the open doorway of the bus just as it hisses and the doors clunk closed.
It lurches out from the curb and down the street, as my lower lids burn and anger bubbles up from my belly.
“How? Why—?” I stutter as Colbert turns our way.
“I told you to stay inside.” His voice is hard and flat as my mother comes drifting out of the front door, a practiced smile on her lips, hugging the Burberry cashmere around her.
“I wanted to say welcome home to my brother,” I snap, and I catch the way Colbert’s pupils dilate. I back off, a gust of wind throwing my hair into my mouth.
My skin prickles with irrational heat as Mom drags Isabel away from me.
“Taking a hard line with your children is the greatest gift a parent can give,” Colbert growls, adjusting his hat before flicking his fingers for the valet to bring his truck around then points to my mother indicting to bring hers as well.
“That applies to your brother and to you, young lady. Thanks to some decisions made by his mother, it was too late for Cutter to take a different path by the time I came into his life. But I will not make the same mistake with you. If I seem harsh, I’m not sorry. Someday, you’ll thank me.”
Some decisions made by his mother.
Yes, like raising him on her own until he was fifteen.
She didn’t want or need Colbert in her life, and it drove him crazy.
Then her car was t-boned by a semi, and everything changed.
A weekend once a month turned into Colbert being a full-time single parent, and apparently, he took the job seriously.
Too seriously, if you ask me. But again, no one asks me anything.
After a tense standoff that feels like it lasts forever, the rumble of Colbert’s truck’s diesel engine breaks the silence, and my mother steps in front of me.
“We love you, dear. We do, that’s why we are doing this. You take the week to study and reflect. With this weather, we should get on to the airport sooner than we thought.”
“No!” Isabel cries on a pout. “I barely got to see her. You said we could go to Martin’s Candy Shoppe and ride the Merry Go Round at the Christmas carnival!”
“Sorry, baby.” Colbert rests his hand on her shoulder as she stomps her feet, but when my stepfather thinks he’s right about something, not even God could change his mind.
“Your mother is right. We should be off in case the roads get worse. And you,” He takes a long inhale through his nose, then exhales as the snowflakes melt on his ruddy cheeks.
“You get back to the ranch. Be good. There’s plenty of food and whatever you need at the house. We’ll see you after the new year.”
And with that, a fluttery kiss from my mother on my cheek, and a sobbing hug with Isabel, I’m behind the wheel of my mother’s car, inching my way back out of Bremmer, an eerie silence falling with the snow as I re-evaluate my priorities.