“Got it,” Dylan says, impatient from the moment we got in the car, hence the holy terror driving. “Can we talk about the ranch now? What do you see us doing with it?”
“Well, it’s yours,” Grandma Ann says, making eye contact with each of us, one at a time, as though she's teaching a class. She sets a tray of sliced chocolate babka on the coffee table, where a rectangular doily is stained with grease from countless previous babkas.
“Yeah,” Gramps says. “It's all in the documents. You five own the property outright, and the mortgage has been paid off, free and clear. All that has to be managed are property taxes and utilities, but we bought so long ago that they’re minimal.”
“Especially minimal when you don’t do a lick to maintain the place,” Hannah grumbles from my other side.
“What’s that, dear?” Grandma Ann asks, cupping her ear with a hand.
I elbow her to keep quiet. “I was just saying it smells so good in here. Did you bake the babka?”
“Nope. That was on special at Trader Joe’s.” She smiles at Gramps, and I wonder whether I’ll have a man to smile at about grocery store savings when I’m in my eighties.
“What do you want us to do with Loveland Ranch? Hold on to it? Sell it?” I ask.
“Yeah, do you want it to be a working ranch with chickens?” Callie asks, hopeful.
“Or should we sell it to the highest bidder and get the heck out of Dodge? That seems smart.” Hazel is nothing if not consistent.
Then Dylan jumps in with her ideas, which have grown exponentially since we sat arguing at the Hitching Post. She envisions a farm-to-table restaurant, a bed-and-breakfast, and a vineyard.
“That’s not something that will build itself. Even if we agreed to finance it—even if wecouldfinance something like that—are you willing to live up there and oversee everything?” Hazel leans forward, eyes blazing, but there’s no way she’ll slug Dylan like she did when we were kids. At least not in front of our grandparents.
Dylan’s face falls. “Well, no. I have projects here. There’s no way.”
“So it’s settled, then.” Hazel’s voice cracks with triumphant glee. “We all live here. No one is willing to move two hours away and make this happen. I already have a list of real estate agents willing to take this on?—"
“I agree with Dylan. We should renovate it and build a bed-and-breakfast. How cute would it be to have an inn for guests, and we could offer horseback riding, fishing, crafts…make it like a family camp.” Callie looks giddy with excitement.
Hannah holds up a hand. “Family camps are huge right now, but that’s a big undertaking. We’d need a staff of people to deal with the horses and run the activities.” She puts her index fingers to her temples like her head hurts.
“I’m down for us do it,” Dylan insists.
“You have no time or money,” Hazel chimes in. “What you’re talking about is a big investment. Don’t you think it would be better to sell the place? Then do what you want with your share of the proceeds. Easy, done.” She brushes her hands together.
“We’d be throwing money away if we sell it the way it is. Let’s at least rehab it a little bit so we can get the most out of it,” Hannah says, always pragmatic. She’s probably already running numbers and calculating the return on investment in renovation.
“Not if we find a buyer who sees the potential. The ranch has good bones, but let’s face it, the place is a wreck. I want out.”
Gramps lets out a long, wheezing sigh that stops Hazel from continuing. Eyes turned down toward his lap, he shakes his head. When he looks up at us, his eyes are rimmed with tears, but he presses his lips together as though he’s working hard to push his emotions down.
“It’s a shame.” His voice is a croak. “When we bought the place, we had such a vision. All of you girls running around, riding horses, playing in the fields…”
“We did that a little.” Hannah looks contrite, but we all know the truth. Once our parents died, all of our grandparents’ energy went into raising us. Trips to the ranch became fewer and farther between. And clearly, once we grew up, no one took care of the place at all.
“Think of it—tire swings and lemonade stands, bike rides down pastoral lanes, teaching your kids to drive a tractor before they learn to drive a car.” Gramps rhapsodizes, recalling a childhood we never experienced. Of course we didn’t. We were all raised in Los Angeles.
I imagine what the ranch could become if we did renovate it and preserve it for future generations of Demille kids and grandkids. The idea sounds nice but impossible.
“We know we’ve let you down, allowing the place to fall into disrepair. But we kept it all these years on a hope and a dream. That you’d make it your own place for your own kids to escape the city and dig their toes into the earth.” Grandma Ann fans her eyes and puts a hand over her mouth. She lays it on thick. I know it’s partly an act, but I can’t help being moved by the idea of what she’s saying.
“Stay strong,” Hannah whispers to me with an elbow to the ribs. “She’s a master manipulator.”
I steal a glance at my grandmother, who has lost a couple of inches in height over the past decade and whose velvety cheeks sag in the right grandmotherly places. She still gives the best hugs on the planet. And her fierce blue eyes still sparkle with the kind of mischief that tells me she knows exactly what she’s doing when she lays down the final blow.
“Oh, and I should mention, there’s some business about a lawsuit. Neighbor busybody accusing us of unlawful water rights or some silly business.” She eyes me, her eyes blinking innocently. “I get why you ladies wouldn’t want to mess with that. It seems like there are two of you who want to keep it and two who want to sell…Tessa, you’re always the voice of reason. I don’t know your wishes.”
It’s a toothless lawsuit, but I don’t tell them that. All the better that they think I’m a hero when I win it and send this jerkof a neighbor back under the potato bin he came from to dream up some other way to make money.
