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"Maybe I can take a loan out against my house," Liam said as he forked another bite of chicken and rice casserole into his mouth and chewed with more determination than pleasure. He'd come over for dinner and an impromptu family meeting to discuss what they were going to do about the bills, which were stacked like a big pile of toxic waste in the middle of the dining room table.
"I'd hate to see you take on more debt just to pay mine," Eileen said softly as she pushed her own portion of casserole, barely touched, around her plate.
A blob of chicken and rice spilled from her plate and off the table. Frankie who, as usual, sat at attention next to her chair, snapped it up before it hit the floor.
Colleen couldn't really blame her mom for not wanting to eat it. After over two months of surviving on the casseroles stacked in the freezer, Colleen was ready to eat something that wasn't baked and topped with crushed potato chips.
But eating anything other than leftovers would require her to cook. And that took a level of energy and creativity that she didn't possess.
And that was before she discovered that, thanks to her father's unpaid medical bills, her mother was at serious risk of bankruptcy.
Knowing she needed to eat something, Colleen resignedly forked another bite in her mouth. Four should be enough to provide the calories to keep her in survival mode, right? Besides, knowing Aunt Margaret's cooking, Colleen had probably consumed an entire stick of butter in the scant amount she'd consumed
"Have you considered asking Uncle Martin or Aunt Margaret for help?"
"Absolutely not!" Eileen straightened in her chair, a flush staining her cheekbones as anger flashed in her eyes. "After the way they treated us when we bought them out, I would never count on them for any real help." She threw down her fork and shoved her plate away. "I mean, really, I wouldn't be surprised if Margaret laced this casserole with something."
Colleen sighed, not sure whether to be exasperated at her mother's dramatics or relieved because it was the first flash of her real mother that she'd seen since the funeral. "Okay, so asking them for help is out."
Not that Colleen had expected any different. Years ago, when Colleen and Liam were still little, their dad's siblings had decided they wanted to liquidate their shares of what was left of the land. It made sense, really—they had both moved away, Uncle Martin up north to Kalispell and Aunt Margaret and her family to Denver. While, in theory, all three had the rights to live on the land and build new family homes if they wanted to, only Bill had stayed in Big Timber, and only Bill was committed to keeping this last bit of the property in the family.
Though Colleen remembered very little, she'd later learned that they had put a ton of pressure on Dad to sell to some interested developers, or even to the Osbornes next door, who had always been interested in the property and its water rights.
And if their father didn't agree, well, then according to their lawyers, they were each within their rights to sell off one third of the property to whichever buyer was willing to pay the best price.
Or Bill could pay them each fair market value. Which he had, even though it meant decimating their savings and saddling them with a mortgage that had only recently been paid off. Not to mention cleaning out the life insurance policy which would have been really helpful right about now.
When it was all said and done, Dad got over it enough for them all to get along. "Business is business," he said, "even when that business is with family."
Mom, well, not so much. She could put on a good face and be friendly and all, but she'd never truly forgiven them.
"I've still got some savings, although not nearly as much as I'd like," Liam said as he forked up his last bite.
"So do I, and I'll talk to the hospital about moving to full-time," Colleen said as she did some mental math. If she kicked in a portion of her savings, worked full-time, and continued to live here rent free, between she and Liam, somehow they could make it work.
They had to.
Eileen got up from the table, and ignoring Colleen and Liam's protests, gathered up their plates.
"Please," she said, waving them off. "I haven't lifted a finger around here in months."
There was no argument there—not that Colleen begrudged her mother any of the cooking (okay, reheating) and cleaning she'd done over the last several months. Though she felt a pang of guilt, sitting there doing nothing as her mother scraped and rinsed the dishes, it was nice to see her up and doing something other than staring off into space.
"Is it just me or does this whole thing seem to have jarred her back into the land of the living?" Liam mused.
"I hope that's the case. I was really afraid it was going to send her off the deep end entirely."
"I know," Eileen called from the kitchen island. "I can call some galleries in Bozeman and talk to them about showing my paintings."
She and Liam exchanged a surprised look. Their mother had painted on and off since their childhood—mostly abstract, brightly colored oils and acrylics. But she'd always been so private about it, refusing to show her work to anyone outside of the family. Even then, Colleen had to go into her mom's studio in the old barn because she refused to hang any of them in the house.
"They don't really go with the western decor, dear," Eileen had said when Colleen asked about it.
Liam shrugged. "I'm not going to bet on it, but I suppose it's worth a try," he said so Mom wouldn't overhear. He leaned back in his chair and leveled the green eyes he'd inherited from Dad onto her. "What about your fancy surgeon ex-husband? Shouldn't he be paying you a whole bunch of alimony?"
Colleen's eyes rolled so far back she saw her own brains. "Are you kidding me? When we split, most of what we had was debt for his medical school bills. That he was willing to absorb all of that and still give me half of the proceeds from the house sale made him seem generous at the time."
And it was, even if agreeing to that settlement meant that Colleen gave up any claim to his future earnings, which, now that he had finished up his residency in orthopedic surgery, were likely to be substantial.
