Letting Go (Triple Eight Ranch) - By Mary Beth Lee Page 0,66

teeth are so yellow they’re almost brown. Especially that one in front. Why’d they go and hire her instead of you? You smell like daisies and Dawn dish soap, Momma. I bet they needed ol’ gross Ethel at the 7-Eleven to cover up that stinky gas-o-line.”

Anna hugged her daughter tight. “I bet you’re one hundred percent right.”

She sidestepped Delia’s make-believe tea party and walked into the kitchen, grabbing a coffee cup, filling it before sitting across from her daughter, sister and mother all three of whom knew gasoline had nothing to do with why she didn’t get the job.

Thankfully, Cass didn’t know the real answer. But Justine did and it was apparent in the worry lines on her forehead and the frown that was her almost constant companion.

“I’m sorry, Momma.” Justine’s small fingers slid back and forth across the table as if she wanted to maybe give her a hug but wasn’t quite sure if she should.

Cass was looking into her cream colored coffee as if she were pondering world peace.

But Momma, oh Momma. Anna’s heart hurt at the hope, at the admiration, at the belief she saw in Momma’s eyes. It’d been so long since she’d seen anything other than emptiness.

Momma reached across the table and grabbed her hand. “You didn’t get the job because you weren’t supposed to, Anna. God knows what He’s doing.”

God.

God.

God.

Anna bit her tongue to keep from lashing out. To keep from laughing like some sort of maniac. If God knew what He was doing He sure had a messed up way of showing it.

If He even existed, He’d checked out of her life a long time ago. Momma could believe in God all she wanted. But then Momma had just spent the last few weeks in bed not believing in much more than the OxyContin she kept hidden in her bedside table right on top of her Holy Bible. How was that for irony? Death leading to eternal life.

And Cass could believe in God all she wanted. It was easy to believe when life handed you nothing but sunshine and roses and a good man.

And Justine. Sweet, sweet Justine. Somehow Anna thought Justine still believed in God. She didn’t know how. Not with those scars covering her back.

Somehow Justine hadn’t lost faith. And right now Anna didn’t figure that was a bad thing. Faith could be like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. Something to keep you young before life reached up and smacked you a few times too many.

And maybe, just maybe, if there is a God out there somewhere, please, Justine would be blessed like Cass and she’d never lose that faith, that belief, that certainty. Some man better not hurt her baby again or next time Anna knew, she would kill him.

Anna sipped her coffee, her hands shaking while she swallowed the anger, hurt, disillusionment, fear and jealousy.

And then she forced a laugh because sometimes that’s what a girl had to do.

Only the sound came out harsh and brittle and Justine jumped, nearly knocking over her chair, and Anna knew she’d done that to her baby girl. She’d made her afraid of the sound of heartache, of broken dreams.

For a second she couldn’t breathe. The scent of moth balls and licorice filled her nose, and she could see Ethel with her ol’ fake red hair bigger than Dallas and her too tight shirt and her too small Levi’s looking at her like she was scum of the earth for letting her baby nearly get killed.

Outside an ambulance drove by—its bleating siren crashing around in her memories, breaking every bit of her resolve to tough this out.

She jumped from the table. “I’ll be back. I need to clear my head.”

And then she was out the door.

*****

She needed to clear her head? Was her sister crazy? Cass still wasn’t sure what had just happened. But Anna’d been running away on long walks to clear her head for a long time. It didn’t seem to do much good.

Dani was crying and Delia was biting her bottom lip and Justine’s white face had nearly crumbled when her momma had taken off out the door.

For a moment no one at the table moved and then Justine jumped up looking too much like a pint sized version of her reckless mother. “I’m gonna go with her.”

And then she was gone too and Cass started to chase them both, but her momma stopped her with a surprising vise-like grip around her wrist.

“You let them go on. They’ve got