Gone

CHAPTER 70

Mary Catherine had sweat on her brow and tears in her eyes as she rabidly zested another lemon in the scorching kitchen. Leo was coming over for dinner tonight, on his day off, and she’d learned that he liked lemons.

And what Leo wants, Mary Catherine thought, grinning to herself as she zestfully zested, Leo gets.

She already had three chickens in the oven, and a five-pound bag of potatoes boiling in a cauldron-sized pot on the stove. There were still the green beans and the salad to take care of, stuffing to make along with the gravy, but she wanted to get the lemon cake going or she’d be in the weeds.

Besides the lemons, pretty much everything was from Mr. Cody’s farm, even-Sorry, Chrissy-the chickens. They were probably flouting some FDA regulation to have the criminal gall to eat what they grew, but she had the feeling Deputy Marshal Leo would look the other way after he had a few bites.

Farm food this fresh just tasted different, Mary Catherine knew from happy experience. Eating it for the first time was like seeing high-definition TV after a lifetime of black-and-white. It was going to be nice having someone new at the dinner table after all this time.

The back screen door slammed, and Brian, Eddie, and Ricky stood in the mudroom, each one more sunburned and filthy and exhausted than the next.

She bit her lower lip to keep from bursting into laughter.

“Would you look at the state of ya! Were you wandering the earth or tunneling through it?”

“Ow,” Ricky said, taking off a dusty sneaker. “Ow.”

“Smells good. What’s for dinner?” Brian asked, his filthy finger creeping toward the mixing bowl.

He howled as Mary Catherine whacked his hand loudly with the zester. Eddie and Ricky snickered.

“Get your butts upstairs and shower this instant or I’ll drag you out into the yard and hose you down. See if I won’t, and don’t think you’re off the hook for going off by yourselves and skipping your lessons, getting us worried. As if I’m not busy enough.”

“Why are you so busy?” Eddie said.

“I told you yesterday. We’re having a guest tonight for dinner.”

“A guest?” Ricky said. “Who?”

“Deputy Marshal Leo,” Mary Catherine said.

“Deputy Marshal Leo?” Brian said. “How is he a guest? He works here.”

“Mary Catherine, does Dad know about this?” Eddie said, raising his brow.

Mary Catherine stopped zesting. That was it. She knew the boys were having a hard time of late, especially Brian, but that was it. Like she hadn’t been working her fingers to the bone for this lot. Was she not allowed to have something nice in her life? Something even a little bit hopeful?

Standing there in the kitchen, she remembered something from when she was a girl. One of her brothers would get cheeky, and her father, after coming in from haying all day or putting up fencing or some other extreme, fourteen-hour task of backbreaking cattle-farm manual labor, would let his fork fall from his callused fist with a clank. With the slow deliberation of a tank cannon acquiring a target, his weather-beaten face would slowly rise from his meal and shift until it was leveled at the offender.

He never said anything. He never had to. A judge about to deliver a death sentence couldn’t approach the solemn, cold, carved-granite malevolence of his silence. There in his gray-blue gaze lay a guaranteed offer. With one more measly word, you would find yourself in the sudden possession of the entire universe of everything you didn’t want.

Standing there in the sweltering kitchen, Mary Catherine suddenly gave that same look to the boys.

The boys glanced at each other, and slowly, one by one, silently, left the room.

Mary Catherine smiled to herself after they’d left. She’d always been her father’s daughter.