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Wait. No, that’s not right.

Grace—or the old Grace, at least—likes to talk. She likes to tweet, and Facebook, and chat. That was my whole social life before… before
this
happened.

How did I get so confused?

The captain comes on over the intercom and announces that we’ll be landing in ten minutes. I never took my seatbelt off, so his spiel is wasted on me.

I don’t even know why I want to go home to see those people. I guess it’s just killing me to know that I have real blood relatives but I have no connection to them at all.

I sigh and push all those melancholy thoughts away as we descend. And when the wheels touch down, I’m resolved to see this through. No matter what.

“We have a car ready for you, Mrs. Asher. It will pull up into arrivals in ten minutes and should be waiting for you by the time you get outside.”

I nod absently as I chew on my fingernail. Why am I doing this?

I wish I knew. I’m not myself these days. I know that. But it’s like I have this momentum and I don’t know how to stop… whatever direction it is I’m heading.

The plane taxis for another minute and then we stop. I sit quietly as the staff opens things up and then the attendant turns and smiles at me. She has very red lipstick and a tight bun. “You’re all set, Mrs. Asher.”

I hate that they call me that, but I use it myself when I need to get things done. Like taking my husband’s jet for the day.

“Thank you,” I sing back in a cheerful voice. She beams a smile at me like maybe I’m not the damaged freak everyone thinks I am.

You know, it’s funny—I take a few steps off the plane and the wind and cold overtake my thoughts for a second. It’s November in Colorado and I forgot my coat—it’s so easy for me to smile and be fake. I did it so much back when I was a teen. It’s like acting. And that’s what’s funny. Because I married an actor.

Is it this easy for him to hide his true feelings?

I continue with my smile as I walk across the tarmac and go inside the small, but bustling, terminal. The place is abuzz with people. Mostly rich business travelers. None of them pay me any attention as I walk straight across and out the doors to the pickup line.

And stop dead. So I can smile for real. “What are you doing here, bitch?”

Bebe is wrapped up in a stylish red wool coat with a black belt that makes her waist look tiny and her boobs look enormous. She’s got on dark sunglasses and her long, almost-black hair is waving gently around her face in the wind. Bebe looks like a movie star. She slips her sunglasses down her nose and gives me a smirk. “Do you really think I’m going to let you go see those awful people alone?”

I cross the distance between us and she pulls me in for a tight hug. “Thank you,” I whisper. “Thank you so much. I just need to take one more look at them, y know?”

“I know,
chica
.” And then she pushes me back. “You don’t even limp!”

“I know, thanks to you. I hear you called in for a progress report twice a week.”

“Well,” she says as she puts her arm around me and leads me towards a black car, “it was the least I could do. I wanted to be with you for every second of your recovery.”

“You were, Bebe. You were. I saw your face everywhere as I struggled. I love your fucking face.”

“Right back at you, bitch. Now get in,” she says, opening the passenger side of her black Porsche Macan. “I’ll drive and you talk. Oh,” she says just as my door closes. She jogs around the front of the car and gets in before she picks up her sentence again. “I mapped out all the Starbucks from here to Holyoke!”

“They don’t have Starbucks in eastern Colorado, Bebes.”

“I know,” she pouts. “It’s like the apocalypse already happened out there.”

People make fun of small towns. And I guess they deserve it for being so backwards and slow. But I never minded them. It was nice to be in a place with no traffic and no crime.

Well, I guess that’s not true. My whole family was murdered in our home, so obviously every town has crime.

I still wonder why that freak fixated on me. Why me? I’m not ugly by any means. I’m cute. I have my beautiful moments. But why me?

Bebe chats all the way into Parker to pick up coffee, we use the drive-through, and then we get back on the freeway that will take us out into no-man’s-land. It’s a long drive up. Probably boring for most people. But it’s been while since I saw hay baled up neat and lining fields. And the farther away from Denver we go, the more I feel the tug of home. Whole flocks of turkeys wander around the side of the roads. Herds of antelope stare at us as we pass. Snow begins to fall as we make our way north. And before I know it, Bebe stops talking and we drive into town.

It’s quaint, I’ll give it that. It’s well-kept and colorful with the fall decorations. The downtown is small, just a block really. But it’s bustling with busy people.

No one looks at us and yet… everyone looks at us. I mean, a Porsche SUV is not something you see every day in Holyoke. Luckily it only takes us about thirty seconds to drive through town and then we turn east. I look over at Bebe.

“You want to see the farm, right?”

I nod. She knows me so well. And the fact that she knows how to get there without asking me for directions… well, that’s something too. It’s a maze of dirt roads and dead ends. And every field of winter wheat or fallow ground looks like the next. But sure as shit, she finds the house.

Bebe pulls her e-brake as soon as we stop but she doesn’t turn off the engine. “I’m not going inside.”

I look over at her and she turns her head to meet my gaze.

“I don’t want to go inside,” she repeats.

I swallow down my fear and open my door. I step out into the muddy driveway and close the door quietly behind me and then take a few tentative steps towards my home.

I still own it. Which is why it’s still standing, I suppose. No one farms this land. The barns are all empty and the only sound is the slight hum from Bebe’s car and the wind whistling through the trees.

My courage builds as I take a few more steps and then I’m just walking up to the front stoop. The windows aren’t broken. There’s no graffiti on the white siding that covers the exterior. The curtains are all closed.

It almost looks like someone lives here.

I reach for the door handle and…

“Don’t do it, Grace,” Bebe calls out. “Don’t go in. It’s locked, I bet. We’ll have to break a window. And that will open it all up again. Just leave it alone.”

I turn back to her. She’s half in and half out of the car. One foot on the ground. The wind is blowing her hair sideways and a chill runs up my spine.

I rub my arms and hug myself to stave off the cold. “I need a coat,” I call back.

“There’s no coats in there, Grace. We had it cleaned out, remember? There’s nothing in there.”

I look back at the door, at my hand still reaching for the handle. “What if… I open that door and they’re still in there?”

“They’re not in there, Grace.” She’s right up beside me now. “They’re not in there.”

“I know that. But can’t a girl hold onto a little hope?”

“That’s not hope, Kinsella. That’s denial.” I look over at her and she shrugs. “Truth.” And then she hops down off the stoop and picks up a rock and climbs back up. “But if you really want to go inside, I’ll help you. I don’t think it’s a good idea, but I’ll—”

Her words are cut off as a car comes slowly down the gravel driveway. A maroon sedan covered in a layer of dust and dirt.

“Who’s that?” I ask. But I already know. “Aunt Rachel.”

The car parks next to Bebe’s and idles there. I stare into the eyes of a living blood relative for the first time in ten years and my heart goes wild with fear. Her hair is hidden by a wool hat, but even through the window I can see a few straggly strands of gray peeking out. She was pretty when I was a kid. At least, that’s how I remember her. She and my mom used to look alike, but the woman I see through the glass does not look like the mother I have in my memories.

Maybe it’s the frown?

I only let myself remember my mother as happy. Because my last memory of her was the horror that took place the night she was killed.

Aunt Rachel leaves the engine running and then opens the door of the car and places a hesitant foot outside. Just like Bebe did a few moments earlier. It’s like this place makes everyone pause before getting out. “What’re you doing here?” she yells over the wind.

I look at Bebe and she’s squinting her eyes at my aunt, but she stays silent.

“Visiting,” I call back from the stoop.

“You have no right to come back here and disrupt the quiet. No right.”

My eyebrows go up. “I own this farm.”

“
I
own this farm. This is
my
farm. I grew up on this farm. Your mama got it in the will and that’s how you got it. But this farm is mine.”

“Wow,” Bebe says. “She wants to talk about property rights.”

“No one wants you here, Daisy.”

“Grace,” Bebe says with a snarl. “Her name is Grace.”

“I don’t care what her name is. Nobody wants her here.”

Bebe hurls the rock at Aunt Rachel and it hits the hood of her car with a thunk. “Fuck off, you bitch.”

Aunt Rachel is screaming at her, but Bebe provoked is a force of nature. She storms down the front stoop, yelling right back. They get up in each other’s faces and start pushing. Jesus Christ, we’re going to jail today.

“Bebe!” I run after her. “Bebe, please.” I grab hold of her coat and pull her back. “Stop, please.”

“No, Grace.” She turns her anger towards me now. “No. This is over. This life is over. It’s been over for a decade. And this bitch thinks she can come out here to
your
farm”—she seethes that part in the direction of my aunt—“and talk shit to you? No.”

He eyes are wild with anger as she waits for me to say something, but as usual, I stay silent.

“That’s right,” Aunt Rachel says. “She knows her place. She know she’s guilty—”

“Guilty of what, you stupid whore?”

“Bebe, please!”

“Guilty of ruining this family. Guilty of ruining this farm. Guilty of ruining this town. We are forever known as the place where Daisy Bryndle’s family was murdered so some sick freak could have his way with her—”

“Oh, you cunt! You did not—” Bebe lunges at my aunt and hits her full on in the chest, sending her reeling backwards until they are both on the ground.

“Jesus, Bebe! Stop!” I pull on her coat until she gets up off the ground.

My aunt stands, brushing off the dirt. And then she turns back to me, breathing heavy from the altercation. “You did this, Daisy. You led that boy on somehow—”

I slap her across the face. Hard. Harder than I ever did Vaughn.

“Shut up,” I say in the wake of her stunned silence. “Just shut the fuck up.”

Her hand goes to the red mark on her cheek and she shakes her head. “Get out of here. Now. Or I will press charges for assault. And don’t think for a moment”—she looks over at Bebe—“that you will get out of this by declaring me a trespasser. Everyone knows this is
my
land.”

Bebe opens her mouth to say something but I put my hand on her arm to make her stop. “Never mind, Bebe. You were right. There’s nothing here for me. Let’s just go.”

Aunt Rachel stares us down as we climb back into Bebe’s idling Porsche and pull the doors closed with a dull thump.

“They’re all crazy.”

I agree. “Let’s just go.” Bebe puts the car in gear and does a u-turn in the dead grass, flipping off my aunt as she passes. I rest my head back as we bump along the winding driveway and when we make it back onto the paved highway, I laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“You. ‘You stupid whore.’” I look over at her and she’s smiling.

“God. She
is
a stupid whore.”

“Shit. She’s not even good enough to be a stupid whore.”

“Yeah.” Bebe laughs with me now. “Stupid whores all over the world are pissed off that I insulted them back there.”

“Thank you.”

She gives me a sideways glance and tilts her chin up. “I got your back, bitch. Always have. Always will.”

Chapter Seven