True Colors

Winona left them in her entryway and went upstairs to change her clothes. Five minutes later she came down dressed in old jeans tucked into ice-blue UGG boots, a heavy Irish cable-knit sweater, and her coat. Her purse (with the phone in it) was slung over her shoulder.

“Where’s Vivi Ann?” she asked Aurora when she was coming down the stairs.

“Bathroom.” Aurora waved her over, whispered, “Hurry.” At Winona’s arrival, she said, “Spill it. Now.”

“What?”

“You’ve been avoiding Vivi and me for weeks. I know you. That means you haven’t let it go.”

“It?” Winona said, stalling.

“Don’t make me hurt you.”

Winona took a deep breath. “I found some new evidence. I’m waiting to hear if it will matter.”

“If it does?”

“He could get out.”

“And if it doesn’t work, he stays put.” Aurora crossed her arms. “Thank God you didn’t tell her. She’s hanging on by a thread as it is. But don’t keep me out of the loop, damn it. I want to help.”

Winona hugged her sister. “Thanks.”

Vivi Ann returned just as they drew apart. “Okay,” she said, “let’s go.”

Winona followed them out to Aurora’s car and got into the passenger seat. Now that she was out of the house, it felt good. She couldn’t really remember the last time she’d gone somewhere for fun. “Where are we going?”

Aurora turned into the ranch’s driveway.

“This is our big outing with a thermos of caffeine and booze?”

Aurora pulled up into the driveway and parked. She got a blanket, two small boxes, and a boom box out of the trunk. Then the three of them started walking: past the ghost-and-witch-decorated barn, past the automatic walker draped in faux spiderwebs.

Winona knew immediately where they were going. It was a small rise beyond Renegade’s paddock, a grassy hillock positioned beneath a huge old madrona tree. From there, one could see almost all of the ranch, the flat waters of the Canal, and the distant mountains. A salmon stream ran alongside it, changing course with the seasons and changing strength, but like every aspect of Water’s Edge, its existence remained constant.

Aurora laid a blanket on the grass, and as they’d done so many times as girls, they sat down side by side. The madrona tree, stripped bare of leaves by the autumn cold, created a canopy over their heads; a network of black, spiky branches splayed like reaching hands across a starry lavender sky. Below them, huddled in the shadows, lay the small patch of ground that had once been their mother’s garden. None of them had ever had the courage to mow it down or replant it, and so it had simply grown wild.

“We haven’t come out here in a long time,” Vivi Ann said, pouring the hot spiked coffee into mugs and handing them out.

“We’re sisters,” Aurora said, and there was an unmistakable gravitas to her voice as she spoke. “Sometimes we have to be reminded of that.” She reached over for the two boxes she’d brought along. “These are for you two.”

Winona pulled the small, unwrapped box into her lap. Opening it, she stared down at the gift. It was crumpled, confused-looking, but she knew what it was, and the knowledge caused a tightening in her stomach. Slowly, she lifted the wind chime up from its resting place. It was a collection of stunningly beautiful opalescent shells, strung together with nearly invisible silver line. It made a sweet clattering sound as she held it.

Vivi Ann’s chimes were different, made of tiny, misshapen bits of jewel-toned blown glass. Even in the fading light, the colors shone as if with some inner brilliance.

“They’re beautiful,” Winona said, remembering her mother and that last time the three of them had stood around her bed, holding hands, taking strength from each other. Stay together, Mom had whispered, crying for the only time in all those months. My garden-girls . . .

“We’re sisters,” Aurora said again. “I just wanted to remind you. No matter what happens, what choices we make”—at this her gaze cut to Winona—“we stick together.”

Winona clanked cups with her sisters and took a drink. Then, reaching into her purse, she pulled out a photograph and showed it to her sisters. In it, her father was laughing and handsome, with his arm slung possessively around Mom.

Aurora and Vivi Ann huddled close, studying this picture as if it were a great archaeological find, which, in a way, it was. Pictures of Mom were few and far between. Winona often thought that Mom had edited herself from their family memories—taking away photos where she looked old or tired or heavy. She couldn’t have known that she had so little time with them.

But it wasn’t Mom that caught their attention in this picture. It was Dad. He looked vibrant and handsome.

Happy.

“I don’t remember him like that at all,” Winona said.