True Colors

“No.”

He said it so quietly she thought she’d imagined it. “Did you just say no?”

“You never shoulda married that Indian. Everyone knew that. And you never should have let him spend so much time at the Morgan place. It disgraced us.”

Vivi Ann listened in disbelief. “You don’t mean this.”

“I do.”

“Is that how you take care of Mom’s garden?”

He looked up at her. “What did you say?”

“All my life I made excuses for you, told Win and Aurora that Mom’s death broke you, but it isn’t true, is it? You’re not who I thought you were at all.”

“Yeah, well, neither are you.”

Vivi Ann got to her feet. “You told me the old stories a million times, made me proud to be a Grey. You should have warned me it was all a lie.”

“He’s not a Grey,” Dad said.

Vivi Ann was leaving, at the door, when she turned around to say, “Neither am I. Not anymore. I’m a Raintree.”

Vivi Ann walked up the hill toward her cabin. At the barn, she stopped, unable to keep moving. The ranch she loved so much was still and cold; winter-bare trees lined the driveway, looking stark and lonely against the gray skies and brown fields. She could see a few dying leaves still clinging stubbornly to their places on the branches, but soon they’d be gone, too, let go. One by one they’d tumble to the ground, where they would slowly fade to black and die.

She felt like one of those lonely leaves right now, realizing suddenly, fearfully, that there was no group around her. She’d clung to something that wasn’t solid after all.

Without her father, she didn’t even know who she was, who she was supposed to be. She walked into the cold, dark barn and turned on the lights. The horses immediately became restless, whinnying and stomping to get her attention. She didn’t pass the stalls slowly or with care. For once she walked straight to Clem’s stall and opened the door, slipping inside. The fresh layer of salmony-pink cedar shavings cushioned her steps, made her feel absurdly buoyant.

Clem nickered a greeting and moved toward her, rubbing her velvety nose up and down Vivi Ann’s thigh.

“It’s always been you and me, girl, hasn’t it?” she said, scratching the mare’s ears. She leaned forward, slung her arms around Clem’s big neck, and pressed her forehead against the warm, soft expanse of hair, loving the horsey smell of her.

Two years ago, maybe even last year, she would have reached for a bridle right now, would have jumped on Clem’s bare back and headed for the power lines trail. There, they would have run like the wind, fast enough to dry Vivi Ann’s tears before they fell, fast enough to outrun this emptiness spreading inside her.

But Clem was old now, with creaking joints and aching legs. Her days of riding like the wind were over. Unfortunately, her spirit was young and Vivi Ann knew the mare waited patiently to be ridden again.

“Too many changes,” Vivi Ann said, doing her best to sound strong, but halfway through the sentence, it hit her all at once—her father’s simple no; Winona’s refusal to help; Noah’s plaintive bedtime cry last night of Dada? and the kiss Dallas had given her just before they left for Cat’s funeral. She hadn’t known then it would be their last one for a long time, but he had. She remembered what he’d said so quietly that morning, dressed all in black, with his gray eyes so impossibly sad: I love you, Vivi. They can’t take that.

She’d laughed at him, said, “No one is trying to take it away. Trust me.”

Trust me.

She wondered now if she’d ever be able to laugh again, and then, in the stall with this horse that was somehow her childhood and her spirit and her mother all wrapped up in one, she cried.

This part of the county had been economically devastated by decreased logging and dwindling salmon runs. In the heart of downtown, several storefronts were empty, their blank, blackened windows a reminder of the people and revenue this community had lost. Dirty, dented pickup trucks, many with FOR SALE signs in the back window, lined the street, gathered in front of the taverns on this Thursday afternoon.

Vivi Ann stood on the sidewalk, staring up at the gray stone courthouse. Behind it, the lush green hills of the Olympic National Forest rose into a cloud-white sky. It wasn’t raining yet, but it would be any moment.

Tightening her hold on her purse, she headed up the stone steps toward the big double wooden doors.

Inside, the place was even more decrepit-looking. Tired wooden floors, peeling walls, people in cheap suits moving up the stairs to the courtrooms and down the hall to various closed doors. She walked over to a harried-looking receptionist and smiled. “I’m here to visit someone in jail,” she said, embarrassed.

The woman didn’t even look up. “Name?”

“Vivi Ann Raintree.”

“Not yours. The inmate’s.”