True Colors

Pulling up to the parking area, she turned off the truck’s engine and climbed out of the driver’s seat, then went around to open the trailer door.

“Hey, Clemmie,” she said, patting the mare’s big hindquarters. “Are you as tired as I am, girl?”

Clem turned and nuzzled her side, nickering quietly.

Vivi Ann snapped the lead rope onto Clem’s nylon halter and backed her out of the trailer. “No more stall for you,” she said, leading her horse to the pasture and unhooking the halter. After smacking the quarter horse’s butt, she watched Clem bolt away. Within seconds, the big mare was rolling in the grass.

Leaving the trailer to be swept out tomorrow, she closed the door and started toward the house, until she noticed that someone had left the barn door open.

She went inside, just to make sure everything was okay, and found a mess. The stalls were filthy and several horses were out of water.

Vivi Ann cursed beneath her breath and walked up the dirt and grass driveway toward her grandparents’ old cottage. For years it had been used as a bunkhouse—for the men they hired to help out around the place. She knocked several times and got no answer, so she opened the door.

Inside, she found an even bigger disaster than had been in the barn. The small kitchen was piled high with dirty dishes and pans layered with drying food. Empty pizza boxes and beer cans covered the tables, and clothes lay across the sofa and chair.

She could hear a man snoring in the bedroom. Charging through the small living area, she shoved open the bedroom door and turned on the light.

Travis lay sprawled across the brass bed, asleep in his clothes. He hadn’t even bothered to take off his cowboy boots, so there was dirt smeared on her grandmother’s chenille bedspread.

“Travis,” she snapped. “Wake up.”

She had to say his name several more times before he rolled over and looked at her through bleary, bloodshot eyes.

“Hey, Vivi.” He ran a hand through his close-cropped hair, making it stand up on end. His cheeks were chalky pale and dark shadows circled his eyes. There was no doubt in her mind that she was getting him at the tail end of a two-day drunk.

“The stalls are a mess, Travis, and the horses are out of water. Did you even feed them today?”

He struggled to sit up. “I’m sorry. I jus’ . . . Sally has a new boyfriend.” He looked as if he were going to start crying and Vivi Ann sat down on the bed beside him, unable to be angry. Travis and Sally had been in love since high school.

“Maybe you’ll work it out,” she said.

“I don’t think so. She just . . . don’t love me anymore.”

Vivi Ann didn’t know what to say. She didn’t really know about the kind of love that tore you in half; except that she believed in it. “We’re young, Travis. You’ll find someone.”

“Twenty-five ain’t young, Vivi. And I don’t want no one else. What am I gonna do?”

Vivi Ann’s heart went out to him. She knew what she should do right now, what Dad or Winona would do, but she wasn’t built that way. She couldn’t just tell him to suck it up and get back to work. She’d learned early in life that a broken heart had to be treated carefully. It was a lesson every motherless girl knew. “I’ll feed and water today but I want you to strip down every stall tomorrow, okay? There’s fresh shavings in the loafing shed. Can I count on you?”

“Sure, Vivi,” he said, already sliding back down to go to sleep. “Thanks.”

She knew she couldn’t count on him, but what else was there to do? With a sigh, she left the cottage, turning off the lights as she went. As she walked back down to the barn, fighting the wave of exhaustion that was trying to pull her under, it started to rain.

“Perfect.”

Flipping up the collar of her jacket, she ducked her head and ran the rest of the way.

On the first Sunday of every month the Grey family walked to church. It was a tradition begun generations ago; then it had been a necessity, a response to winter roads turned into muddy bogs by rain. Now it was a choice. Rain or shine they came together at the farmhouse in the midmorning and set out for town. It was important to their father, crucial even, that the Greys be respected in town, that their contribution to the creation of Oyster Shores be remembered. So they walked to church once a month to remind people that their family had been here when buggies couldn’t navigate sawdust-covered winter roads.

This first Sunday in February, Vivi Ann got up an hour early to feed the horses so that Dad wouldn’t know about Travis’s recent breakdown. On this of all days she didn’t want to listen to him complaining about her hiring skills, or lack thereof.

Not today, when she was going to surprise him with her perfect plan.

When she finished her chores, she returned to the house and showered and got ready for church. By the time she came downstairs, dressed in a white eyelet skirt and blouse with a wide belt and her good cowboy boots, the whole family was already on the porch.

Aurora and Richard were together, trying to keep the twins from breaking something, while Winona leaned against the porch rail, looking up at the pretty glass and driftwood wind chimes their mother had made.

Dad walked out into the yard and did his usual weather check. “Let’s go.”