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Bailey considers that for a minute. “What will you do instead?” she asks.
“I have no clue,” I reply. “Live here, I guess.”
“Dad said you’re rich though, right? You don’t need to work?”
“I’ve got some money saved,” I say, smiling.
Bailey walks over to my old guitar and picks it up.
“You play?” I ask, leaning back against the leather cushions.
She shrugs, plucking at a couple of strings. “A little bit. I found out what you did, and I was curious about it. So, I asked for a guitar for my birthday.”
“I wish I’d known. I would have bought one for you.”
“The one I have is getting kind of small. And it’s pink.”
“Nothing wrong with pink. I’d play a pink guitar.”
Bailey rolls her eyes. “If you buy me one, please don’t get a pink one.”
I chuckle. “Okay.” Then pat the spot beside me on the couch. “Bring it over here. I’ll teach you a few chords.”
The excitement on Bailey’s face is unmistakable as she carries the beat-up guitar over.
It’s the first time I’ve felt like I’ve done something right with my sister, discussing something other than school or Tennessee or any of the other topics I’ve grasped at over the years, trying to figure out what interested her.
Maybe I focused on all the ways we were different instead of some of the ways we might be the same.
Maybe our sibling relationship isn’t the lost cause I always thought it was.
And despite all her flaws and mistakes, I think that if my mom were here, watching this, she’d be smiling at us.
* * *
I don’t turn around as the screen door shuts. My focus remains on the dark yard as I watch mosquitoes buzz around the porch light. I fixed the door’s hinges so they no longer squeak, but the door itself is still rickety.
And I know who it is since John was snoring on the couch in the living room when I came out here and Bailey left several hours ago.
“You fixed the door.”
“Mm-hmm.”
I keep looking ahead, listening to the cows move around. They tend to come up closer to the barn in the evenings to sleep and to be close by for the grain that goes along with morning milking.
“And the roof.”
“That wasn’t me. I hired Cal Hastings.” I glance over. “Which you already knew, I’m guessing.”
Mabel’s smile is knowing. “Violet mentioned she saw you at Adler’s.”
“Of course she did.”
Mabel’s best friend is as nosy as Mabel is tight-lipped. But not sharing an opinion has never kept my aunt from not enjoying town gossip.
“With Piper.”
And…there it is.
