Winona sighed. “It was ugly last night.”
“What happened?”
“Vivi’s been screwing Dallas Raintree.”
Aurora sat down in the chair by the window, sighing. “Jesus. I guess that explains a lot. How did Luke find out?”
Winona studied her ragged fingernails. She’d chewed them down to the quick last night. “When I got to the cabin, Luke was kicking the shit out of Dallas. He just stood there and took it, too, smiling the whole time like he liked it. I ran down and got Dad to stop them. But when Vivi Ann came back, he slapped her across the face and called her a disgrace.”
“He slapped her?” Aurora frowned.
Winona could see that her sister was fitting the pieces together. Before she could find a hole, Winona said, “It’s probably all for the best.”
“What do you mean?”
“Better that Luke finds out now that she doesn’t love him. And God knows she can’t go around screwing a guy like Dallas. She had to know she’d get caught. She should get caught. It’s disgraceful.”
Aurora went very still. “What did you do, Winona?”
“What do you mean?”
“You told Luke, didn’t you? I knew it was all going to go to crap when you wouldn’t tell Vivi Ann the truth.”
Winona got to her feet. “Don’t be ridiculous. Let’s go to the parade. Vivi Ann will be there. Dallas will be gone and everything will be fine. You’ll see.”
“You think Vivi Ann will show?”
“Where else would she go?”
“What if she doesn’t forgive you?”
Winona didn’t answer that. Instead, she shuffled Aurora out of the house and toward the sidewalk. As they walked to Grey Park, she tried not to think about last night, but Aurora’s words had brought it all back. Now she couldn’t forget anything . . . her agonizing jealousy, her desperate longing, the surge of bitterness . . .
She’d raced to the cabin after Luke, wanting to take back what she’d done, but when she’d gotten there, she’d seen him beating Dallas up, and she’d gone for help, pulling Dad out of bed.
Luke is beating Dallas up. You have to come.
Luke . . . beating up Dallas? Why?
Because Vivi has been screwing him.
That was the moment, of all of them, that played over and over in her mind. She could tell herself it had been a heat-of-passion decision, but she couldn’t quite believe it. She’d wanted her dad to know the truth.
When they turned the corner and came to the park her grandfather had donated to the town, she saw her father standing alongside Richard and the kids. They stood beneath a gorgeous madrona tree. For more than fifteen years they’d met here at the start of every town party or parade. It was a tradition their mother had begun, back when she’d had three small girls and a horseback 4-H group to corral. But today, as they stood there, all that mattered was who was missing.
Every minute that passed was an aftershock that rattled the foundation of their family, cracked it just a little more. Finally, at 11:55, Dad walked over to the trash can on the street, threw his empty plastic glass away, and turned to them. His face, always craggy and a little cold, looked older. “I guess she made up her mind, then. Let’s go.”
Aurora looked at Winona in confusion. She was chewing on her flag-painted acrylic fingernail like a rabbit with a carrot. “We can’t just leave. She’ll be here. Won’t she?”
Winona had to admit it: she was shaken by this. It wasn’t what she’d expected.
“Come on,” Dad said sharply. He was already to the corner, making the turn.
Winona didn’t know what else to do, so she followed.
She stood beside her dad for the next two hours, waiting every minute to see Vivi Ann move past her on some float or ride past on Clem.
But her sister never showed.