Pleased with her decision (it was so much better than watching TV alone), she headed down to Main Street.
Oyster Shores was set up like so many western Washington waterfront communities, in a T-bone pattern. The end of town was a four-block stretch of road that ran along the Canal’s gray shoreline. That was where the touristy shops were located—the kayak rental place, the ice-cream shop, the fish bar, and several souvenir-type stores. In the four-block by seven-block radius between the Canal and the highway lay the bulk of Winona’s childhood. She’d spent much of her youth in the library, reading Nancy Drew and Laura Ingalls Wilder; at Grey Park, she’d learned to play soccer and softball; on warm summer days, she and her sisters had often walked to King’s Market for Pop Rocks and Tabs.
Even though she’d seen it all a million times, she couldn’t help pausing at Shore Drive, drinking in the spectacular view. In other parts of the world, places more settled and less wild, a canal was a thin, lethargic strip of slow-moving water, a thing to be navigated at leisure in flat-bottomed boats. Not here; this was a wide and wild blue inlet of Puget Sound that ran inland for fifty miles, the only true fjord in the lower forty-eight states.
She turned left and walked out of town. As she passed the Waves Restaurant, the streetlamps came on, sent pretty golden patches panning out on the gray sidewalks and black pavement. In this cold season, when boats were scarce and tourists even scarcer, the street was still, maybe even a little forlorn. A mermaid wind sock hung limply from the flagpole in front of the Canal House Bed and Breakfast. In June the summer people would swarm these streets, taking over parking spots and cutting in line at the beach park boat launch, but for now it was quiet. The town belonged to the thirteen hundred people who called it home.
The ranch’s entrance was indicated by a rough-hewn wooden sign, carved by Winona’s great-grandfather in 1881. Passing it, she turned onto the long, rolling gravel driveway. On either side of her were green pastures lined in ragged four-rail fencing. Gullies of brown water bracketed the road. Dying black maple leaves lay stuck to the gravel, and potholes were everywhere, oozing gray rainwater. The place needed repairs.
Why wouldn’t her father see that she could help him? She was going over the humiliating meeting with him—again—when she noticed Luke’s truck.
She stopped and looked around.
There they were, on the porch, Luke and her father, talking together like old friends. She followed the wet, muddy driveway past the barn and down toward them.
As she approached, Luke laughed at something Dad had said.
Winona saw her dad smile and it actually brought her to a stop. It was like seeing the ocean turn suddenly red, or the moon go green. “Hey, guys,” she said, stepping up onto the porch’s bottom step. The old wood buckled beneath her weight, reminding her simultaneously that she was fat and the steps needed repair.
Luke reached out and put an arm around her, pulling her into a side embrace, out of which she stumbled a moment later feeling dazed. “If it weren’t for Winona here,” he said to Dad, “I never would have become a vet. She did most of my English homework in high school.”
“Yeah, she’s a brainy one, all right. Her latest big idea was for me to sell the land my family homesteaded.”
Winona couldn’t believe he’d bring that up in front of Luke. “I was just trying to protect your future.”
Dad ignored her and looked at Luke. “When Abelard left Wales he had fourteen dollars in his pocket.”
“Come on, Dad. No one wants to hear the old stories—”
“And Elijah lost his leg in the war and then came back to a dead wife and a dying son and land too wet to grow anything in, but he still managed to hang on to every acre through the Depression. He left his son every damned acre he’d inherited.”
“Those were different times, Dad. We know that. We don’t care if you leave us the same amount of land you inherited.”
“How did I know you’d say that?”
“I didn’t mean that. I just meant we want you to be comfortable. That’s what matters.”
“You can’t understand loving this land like Vivi and I do. It ain’t in you.”
How easily he culled her from the herd and set her aside.
“The place looks great, Henry,” Luke said into the awkward silence that followed. “Just like I remember. And I want to thank you for maintaining the fence. I’d like to pay you for that, by the way. Somehow Mom and I forgot to keep up on it.”
Dad nodded. “I wouldn’t take a dime from you, son. That’s what neighbors do.”
Son.
It was a tiny slice of pain, the way her father included Luke so easily, like sticking your hand in soapy water and finding a sharp knife blade. You didn’t even realize you’d been cut until you drew back and saw the bead of blood on your skin.
“It’s Vivi Ann who done most of it, anyway; her and whatever hand she’s found to help her around here. This land is her soul.” Dad looked at Winona when he said that.
“I hear she’s a fine barrel racer.”
“Best in the state,” Dad said.
“I’m hardly surprised. I don’t think I ever saw her when she wasn’t on that mare of Donna’s, riding at the speed of sound.”
“Yeah,” Dad said. “She and Clem are quite a team.”