Epilogue
Hunter
The carburetor was shot.
I'd known it was shot three days ago when the John Deere coughed twice and died in the south paddock, but I'd been putting off the teardown because taking apart a carburetor required patience and clean hands and a quiet barn, and lately quiet was hard to come by.
"Uncle Hunt."
"Yeah."
"Is that the manifold?"
"Intake manifold. Yeah."
"And that twisty thing is the fuel line?"
"Fuel line. Right."
"And the thing you said a bad word about is the gasket?"
"I didn't say a bad word."
"You said the S word."
"I said shoot."
“No. You said the other one. But I won’t tell.”
I looked down at her. Maisie Blackwood — Maisie Blackwood , legally, officially, as of four months ago when the adoption went through and she'd informed everyone at Sunday dinner that her name was now Maisie Grace Blackwood and if anyone forgot she would remind them — was sitting cross-legged on the barn floor in her pink cowboy boots with a socket wrench in one hand and a look on her face that dared me to argue.
I didn't argue. Nobody argued with Maisie. She was seven years old, and she ran this ranch and every person on it knew it.
"Hand me the ten-mil," I said.
She looked at the row of sockets she'd laid out on the shop rag beside her.
She'd organized them by size — I'd taught her that, back when she first started showing up in the barn while I was working, planting herself on a bucket and asking questions until I either answered them or lost my mind.
I'd answered them. Turned out I liked answering them.
Turned out the kid who talked more than any human being I'd ever encountered was also the best company I'd had in years.
She picked up the ten-millimeter socket, checked the number stamped on the side the way I'd shown her, and handed it over.
"Good girl."
"I know." She wiped her hands on her jeans. Callie was going to kill me. "Uncle Hunt?"
"Yeah."
"Can I tell you something funny that happened?"
This was how it always went. I'd be elbow-deep in an engine, and Maisie would be beside me, handing me tools and telling me every single thing that had ever happened to her.
I'd heard about Oliver and the worm. I'd heard about the peninsula.
I'd heard about a girl named Sophie who was apparently Maisie's best friend and also her mortal enemy, depending on the day.
I'd heard about the chess tournament she was training for, which she described with the intensity of a prizefighter preparing for a title bout.
I heard all of it. Every word. And somewhere along the way, this chattering, fearless, boot-wearing kid had burrowed into the quietest part of me and made herself at home.
"Go ahead," I said.
“Okay, so." She took a breath. The way she always did before a big one. "Last night I heard a noise in Mommy and Daddy's room. Like a really weird noise. Like — " She scrunched her face, trying to replicate it. "Like someone was jumping on the bed but also maybe dying?"
I stopped working on the carburetor.
"So I went to investigate because I'm brave."
"Uh huh."
"And I knocked on the door and Daddy said, ‘Don’t come in,’ really loud and then there was a lot of whispering and then Mommy opened the door and her face was really red and her hair was all crazy."
I put the wrench down. I pressed my knuckle against my mouth.
"And I said, ‘What were you doing,’ and Daddy came out and he was all sweaty and he didn't have a shirt on and he said —" Maisie paused for dramatic effect. "He said he was teaching Mommy how to fight a bear."
I closed my eyes.
"He said there was a bear safety class on the TV, and he was showing Mommy the moves, and she had to practice so she could protect me if a bear came.
And I said, ‘Can I learn too,’ and Daddy said, ‘No, it's only for grown-ups,' and Mommy said I should go back to bed and she would teach me bear safety in the morning. "
My shoulders were shaking.
"And then this morning I asked Mommy to teach me bear safety and she got really red again and she said it was actually more of a nighttime activity and I should ask Daddy and I asked Daddy and he said Mommy was the expert now and I should ask her and they kept doing that, Uncle Hunt, just going back and forth, and nobody will teach me how to fight a bear. "
I lost it.
I sat on the barn floor with my back against the tractor wheel and laughed until my eyes streamed and my stomach ached and I couldn't breathe.
Full-body, silent, the kind of laughter that takes you apart from the inside.
Every time I almost got control of it, I pictured Clay standing in a doorway without a shirt, telling his daughter about bear safety, and it started again.
Maisie watched me with her arms crossed and her head tilted.
"Why is that funny?" she said. "Bears are serious, Uncle Hunt. They can run thirty miles an hour. I looked it up."
That made it worse.
I wiped my eyes. Took a breath. Wiped them again. ”You're right," I managed. "Bears are very serious."
"So why were you laughing?"
"Because your daddy is the funniest man alive."
"He's not funny. He makes bad jokes."
"He really does."
She studied me for another moment, clearly unsatisfied with this explanation, then decided I wasn't worth pursuing and went back to organizing the sockets.
I sat against the tractor wheel and let the last of it work through me and grinned at the barn ceiling and thought about Clay's face when I brought this up at dinner.
Mom appeared in the barn doorway just after five.
She was wearing the blue dress, which meant company. Mom wore the blue dress for birthdays, holidays, and people she was trying to impress, which was nobody, which meant she was up to something.
"Sunday dinner's nearly ready," she said. "You two need to clean up."
Maisie was off the floor before Mom finished the sentence. "Grammy Lou, did you make the rolls?"
"I made the rolls."
"The good ones? With the butter on top?"
"Is there another kind?"
Maisie grabbed her horse off the workbench — the horse went everywhere, even into the barn during tractor surgery — and headed for the door. She stopped beside Mom and looked up at her.
"Grammy Lou?"
"Yes, baby?"
"Can you teach me how to fight a bear?"
Mom looked at me. I shook my head. Don't ask .
"Go wash your hands, sweetheart," Momma said. Maisie ran.
I cleaned up at the barn sink. Scrubbed the grease off my hands and forearms, ran wet fingers through my hair, pulled on a clean shirt from the hook by the door. The hook had a clean shirt on it because Mom put one there every Sunday morning. I'd never asked her to. She just did. That was Mom.
I crossed the yard to the main house, and the kitchen was loud the way it always was on Sundays.
Wyatt was at the counter carving the roast while Ivy handed him the platter.
Maggie was arguing with Sophia about something that involved hand gestures.
Jack was setting the table. Liam and Stephanie were uncorking wine with the coordinated ease of two people who'd been doing this together long enough to stop talking about it.
Dad was in his chair at the head with a beer and the settled expression of a man who'd long ago accepted that his house would be full and noisy and that this was the price of everything he'd built.
Clay was at the stove stirring gravy with Maisie on his hip.
Callie was beside him, stealing a taste, and he pulled the spoon away, and she swatted his arm and Maisie said "Daddy, Mommy's not sharing" and Callie said "Daddy's not sharing with me " and the three of them had the easy, overlapping rhythm of a family that had been a family long before the paperwork made it official.
I walked past Clay toward the table. Stopped. Didn't look at him.
"Heard you've been teaching Callie bear safety," I said. Deadpan. Eyes forward.
The silence was beautiful.
Callie's face went from neutral to crimson in about half a second.
Her mouth opened. Closed. She pressed both hands over her eyes and made a sound like she was trying to disappear through the kitchen floor.
Clay — Clay, the bastard — didn't miss a beat.
The grin that spread across his face was the biggest, most shameless, shit-eating grin I'd ever seen on a grown man.
He looked like he'd won a championship all over again.
"Someone's got to keep the family safe," he said.
"From bears," I said.
"From bears."
Callie grabbed a dish towel and threw it at Clay's head without looking.
It hit Maisie instead, who said, “Hey!" and then, "What's bear safety?
" and Callie said, "Nothing, baby,” at the same time Clay said, "Ask Uncle Hunt.” Callie turned to Clay with a look that could have stripped paint and he just grinned wider and kissed her forehead.
She shoved him and he laughed and pulled her in.
I walked to my spot at the doorframe and watched them and felt the thing I always felt at Sunday dinner — the quiet satisfaction of being exactly where I belonged, surrounded by people I'd walk through fire for, none of whom required me to say it out loud.
“Everyone, sit down," Mom called. "It's ready."
Chairs scraped. The table filled. Maisie wedged herself between Clay and Dad, which was her spot, which nobody else was allowed to sit in, which she'd enforced with a ferocity that had once made Liam — Liam — relocate without protest. I pulled out my chair at the far end and was about to sit when the front door opened.
I heard the voice before I saw her.
It came from the hallway — loud, warm, a laugh already in it before the first word landed. A voice I hadn't heard in over a decade but that my body recognized before my brain caught up. The back of my neck prickled. My hand froze on the back of the chair.
"Louisa Blackwood, this house smells exactly the same. Like heaven decided to open a restaurant."