tide me over for a while. Don’t say anything to Thad yet.”
“I won’t,” Kate promised. She could see that her sister looked shell-shocked. “Have you thought any more about contacting our mother?” Kate asked her.
“Not really. I’ve been going crazy trying to figure out what to get rid of, ever since I heard the show was canceled.” They were wrapping in a week. The end had come quickly. “We probably won’t have time this trip anyway. Maybe this summer?” Kate nodded. She half wanted to rush into it, and meet her and get the straight story, and she was half afraid to. Caroline still didn’t want to see their mother at all.
“Dad was an odd guy. I think he always had secrets. There was only so much he wanted anyone to know. He almost never talked about his youth in Texas, except that he grew up dirt poor, and came out here with nothing except three little girls and a truck full of diapers. It took him a year to tell us he was serious about Juliette, and he didn’t tell us she’d moved in with him till we came home for Christmas, so who knows what really happened between him and our mother. If we hadn’t found that envelope, we’d never have known. He probably intended to destroy it, and forgot to,” she said, and Kate agreed. He would have had a fit if he’d thought they were contemplating looking up their mother and meeting her, since he had claimed she’d been dead for the last thirty-nine years.
Gemma left a little while later, to go back to her cottage. The three of them met the next day at the main house. Juliette had strong coffee and homemade croissants waiting, and then she went to the office, to let them do what they wanted. She had already taken the things that were meaningful to her, and had given Kate a list of them, some books, two paintings she and Jimmy had bought together, an antique silver samovar Juliette had given him, the things she’d bought for the house, and the rack of cowboy hats he wore every day. Jimmy had no possessions of great value, except the ranch itself.
They went through his clothes, his desk, his papers. Kate boxed up what they needed to send to the office. They packed up his clothes for Juliette so she didn’t have to, and the girls took a few things they had given him or made for him, including the ceramics Caroline had made for him in camp. She was surprised that he still had them. They did the inventory that the lawyer wanted for the appraisal. The only things of any value were those Juliette had had sent from France, a rug of her grandmother’s, a small desk, some horn chairs. The girls only took things that were of sentimental value to them. They didn’t want to disrupt his house. It was Juliette’s home now too.
They drove into town for lunch afterward, and ate at a cowboy bar their father had liked. It reminded them of him, and they had always liked it too.
“I never thought he’d die so young,” Gemma said softly halfway through lunch.
“Neither did I,” Kate agreed with her. It still seemed unreal to all of them, especially here on the ranch, where they were used to seeing him walking around, riding his horse, or coming out of the barn, talking to Thad. The ranch seemed empty now without him. Kate was happy that Caroline’s children were enjoying being there. They added new life to the place, and another generation. Thad was keeping them busy on horses all day long, and had them mucking out stalls, and hooking up milking machines in the dairy.
“If you came more often, you could write here,” Kate suggested. It’s a good place to walk and think, and get back in touch with yourself.”
“Is that what you do here?” Gemma asked her and Kate laughed.
“No, I work my ass off. It’ll be different now without Dad,” she said. “I’ll have to work even harder and so will Thad. He already is,” and so was she, but she enjoyed it.
“Yeah, maybe you’ll get to do things your way, for a change,” Gemma commented. “Is there anything you want to do, now that he’s not looking over your shoulder telling you that everything you do is wrong?” Gemma always got right to the point, without frills.
“He came around eventually. It just took some