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She’s borrowing mine.
“Oh…sure, that would be great.” So I’m not exactly dressed for spending a week in the Palouse. I can wear her clothes. Her dad is right, Rosemary is curvy like me, about my height. I can make do.
I quickly see that Hank drove out here to the airfield alone. That’s actually perfect—if I had to make this trip, I wanted to at least get some one-on-one time with my biological dad. He didn’t have a lot to say at the family meeting but that doesn’t mean anything, he could’ve been nervous. I bet when he’s in his own environment he’s genial, playful, even funny.
But I’m soon disappointed. Hank is a man of very few words. He says that Marjorie and “the girls” are home preparing dinner.
The girls.
What a strange, strange thing. I have a younger sister, Sophie, and an older one, Liz. I’m the middle child. Not the youngest. Not the princess—the opposite.
I can’t help wondering how Rosemary is feeling right about now, being shown to her room, playing daughter to my amazing parents, and baby sis to my three older, pain-in-the-ass brothers. She’s going to be pampered beyond fucking belief in Seattle. Fortunate girl.
My heart clenches, realizing…I have been the fortunate one all this time.
I shove all that raw emotion down deep enough so that I can hide from it. I’ve always been pretty good at that, but I am quickly becoming a master. It may sound like avoidance, but it’s control, is what it is. I can be plenty stoic just like my dad. And also like Hank. Evidently.
The drive is unbelievably scenic. We ride past fields of flowers that sprawl farther out than the eye can see. There are windmills and waterfalls along the way. Small grassy buttes. Giant tractors tilling the lands. Old and new barns and farmhouses that seem like cutouts from the big screen at the movies. Signs welcome us into town after tiny town.
Finally there’s one for Fatesville, Idaho. Home.
I swallow a feeling.
We pull up to the beautiful farmhouse that I recognize after copious hours spent looking through Marjorie Hardin’s lifestyle blog and social media. Hank cuts the engine and opens his door. No “here we are.” No “welcome home.” No “I’m starving, let’s eat.” Nothing. Nada. Nenhum.
He’s been so dang silent. When I start to wonder if the man resents me, if he wishes I weren’t his real daughter, wishes I weren’t here visiting, I knock those thoughts out of my head and bury them too. He grabs my suitcase out of the bed of his truck.
Marjorie, Liz, and Sophie give a lot warmer welcome as I step inside. “Hazel!” Marjorie sweeps her palms down the front of her apron the moment she sees me.
The three of them are all hugs and giddiness as they swoop in on me, and the whole house smells incredible with whatever it is they have been cooking. Hank excuses himself to go wash up.
“I bet you’re hungry,” Marjorie says. My stomach growls on cue and I press a hand to it.
“I guess I am now.”
“I’ll get the table set. Girls, why don’t you show Hazel to her room,” she says, then smiles wider at me, maternally, “your sister.”
I can’t deny that the three of them are really nice. I feel welcomed like a long-lost daughter and sister, yet I still see it on each of their faces…they miss their Rosemary. They are going to want her to come back. We’re adults but they’ll want her close. Not just in physical distance. Seattle is a world away from Fatesville.
My family must be going through the same. This is all so unreal.
“This used to be mine and Rosemary’s room,” Sophie announces, as she and Liz guide me into an upstairs bedroom that’s roughly the size of my closet back home.
“Oh my, it’s so charming!” I beam at them.
“Is that city-girl speak for it’s a shoebox?” Liz says with a chuckle. My whole face catches fire.
“No. Well yes.” I give a laugh at my own expense. “It is really nice though. Everything is. So cheery and comfortable,” I add, meaning it.
“Mama works really hard to make it so,” Sophie says.
“I can tell.”
“Make yourself at home,” Liz says, then they both leave me to it. I hear their voices trailing down the hall but I can’t make out the words. I’m mildly curious about what they’re talking about. What in heck do sisters talk about? Boys, clothes? Me?
My luggage is already on top of the bed, courtesy of Hank. I inhale a deep, slow breath. This isn’t so terrible, right? I take my time looking over the homey pieces of furniture that have probably been in the family for going on a hundred years. Lined across the tallest of the two wood dressers are black-and-white and sepia photos of generations of people I’ll never know—my family.
There’s the sound of big slow-rolling tires on the coarse gravel outside. From the picture window next to the bed, I peer down at a beat-up old Chevy truck as it pulls up.
