True Colors

“Oh, damn it, okay. I promise. And I won’t say another word about it. Except I have a bad feeling about this. You’re making a mistake.”

“Thank God you didn’t say anything,” Winona said grimly. “Now let’s go home.”

In late February and March, rain pelted Oyster Shores. Mud oozed up through the pastures where the horses stood and pooled in brown bogs. Silver streams formed overnight, rushing in gullies on either side of the driveway. The poor purple crocuses that dared to peek up from the mud were soon pounded down by the rain.

The weather matched Winona’s mood. Not perfectly, of course. A precise reflection of her emotions would have been a bank of swollen charcoal clouds gathering for a coming storm, but still it was a mirror. So much so that in April, when the sky caught its breath for a few moments and the pale, watery sun came out from its hiding place, she found herself missing the rain. The golden sun pissed her off.

The beautiful plum trees on Viewcrest burst into bloom, and all throughout her garden she saw signs of new life. The velvet-green start of tulips, the first lime-green buds on the tree branches, a row of butter-yellow daffodils. It was a daily reminder that the seasons were changing, that the steel-gray winter was giving way to a bright and shiny spring. Usually Winona loved this season of flowers, when pink blossoms floated through her yard like cotton candy bits, layering the ground, but this year time was not her friend. This year time was measured by the days Vivi Ann spent with Luke.

They had been together for almost three months now, and sometimes, when Winona lay in her lonely bed at night, she found herself counting the days Vivi Ann had stolen from her. Saturday nights at the Outlaw Tavern, dancing with Luke; Sunday mornings after church; evenings around the house, while Dad was there. Winona wasn’t stupid, nor was she mentally ill. She knew these imagined moments had never belonged to her, that Vivi Ann had in fact stolen nothing, but still she felt cheated. Every day she woke thinking, This will be the day she dumps him, and she conjured scenarios in her mind to follow: how Winona would comfort him, hold his hand, and let him talk, how he’d finally turn to her and see the truth and be saved by it.

And every night she went to bed alone, thinking, Tomorrow, then.

One piece of knowledge, bone-deep and certain, kept her going: Vivi Ann didn’t love Luke. For her beautiful, reckless sister, dating Luke was a lark, a way to pass the time.

All Winona had to do was keep hiding her feelings and wait for the inevitable breakup.

Now, on this Saturday night, she dressed for the last of the barrel-racing series events with care: black jeans, a long white tunic top, layers of stone-bead necklaces in bright colors, and black cowboy boots. Curling her hair and spraying it to hold, she put on plenty of makeup and then drove over to the ranch.

The driveway was full of truck-and-trailer combinations. Yellow light spilled from the barn’s open end; she could see shadows moving back and forth across the light, breaking its beam. Vivi Ann’s final barrel-racing event appeared to be a success.

Finding an open spot, she went to the barn and looked in. The honey wooden plaid of the new roping chutes and return alley lined one wall of the arena and the suspended announcer’s booth was nearing completion. In the arena, there were at least twenty-two women and girls on horseback. One was racing around the first of three yellow barrels, the rider angled forward, kicking hard, yelling, Ha! loudly; the others were probably waiting their turn.

And Vivi Ann stood in the middle of it all, running the insanity like a beautiful, golden ringmaster. The women and girls hung on her every word, treating her like a movie star because she knew how to make a horse run around three barrels in under fourteen seconds.

Vivi Ann saw Winona and waved.

Winona waved back, even as she looked around for Luke. Assured that he wasn’t in the arena, she walked down to the farmhouse and let herself in, calling out, “Hey, Dad.”

“I’m in the study,” Luke answered.

Smiling, she went to see him.

“Hey, there,” he said, rising automatically. “You just missed your dad.”

She smiled brightly. Thank God. “That’s okay. I came by to get the bills.”

“It’s too late to be working,” Luke said. “And it’s a Saturday night. What do you say we have a beer?”

“You want to go to the Outlaw?”

“I told Vivi Ann I’d be here when she was done, so how about the Grey family back porch instead?”

“Of course,” she said, forcing her smile to stay steady.

She got the beers and a warmer coat and followed him outside. On this late April evening, the air was cool but not cold, and as crisp as a new sheet of paper. Down at the bulkhead, a rising tide slapped against the cement and splashed over, dampening the grass. Along the weathered white railing, a row of collected shells reminded her of all the beachcombing they’d done as children.

They sat side by side with the ease of childhood friends, talking about their days. Luke told her about the foal he’d delivered and the wound he’d stitched up; she relayed a funny story about a client who wanted to buy a wolf pup for his son and didn’t understand why an animal that lived around here could be considered exotic and therefore forbidden in town.

The more they talked, the more Winona felt that tightening in her belly ease. When she was with him it was easier to believe that there could be a future for them. Even her bitterness toward Vivi Ann softened to manageable proportions. In his presence she was like a stick of warm butter, slowly losing shape. “You said you came home because you were restless,” Winona said, her words coming a little hesitantly. She didn’t want to probe too deeply, but she’d been plagued by her desire to know everything about him. “What are you looking for?”

He shrugged. “My sister says I’m too romantic. That it’ll be the death of me. I don’t know. I just wanted something else. And all my life I heard stories about my dad and how he cleared this land by hand and found his place. I want to do something like that.”

“I hardly remember your dad,” Winona said. “Except that he was huge, and he had a voice like a grizzly bear. He used to scare me when he yelled.”

Luke leaned back. “Did I ever tell you I quit talking when he died?”

“No.”