8
Diane
November 1993
Diane—Dee to everybody but the bank—took a long drag off her Camel, enjoying the heat inside that contrasted with the cold of night on the outside. The leaves were off the trees now that it was November, but the first snowstorm hadn’t hit yet. The cold made her shoulder ache even more, and she tried to roll out some of the stiffness in the joint. Dr. Henley said she needed surgery to fix the rotator cuff—he’d referred her to a specialist out of Cheyenne. Surgery would include six weeks in a padded sling and months of exercises to restore the full range of motion. She’d been tempted to laugh in his face, but now was probably the best time of year for her to be down, and it had been almost six years since the initial injury, caused when Jolly, her horse, was spooked by a rattler during roundup and bucked Diane into a tree. That was a shitty day top to bottom.
On the way home from the doctor’s appointment, she’d bought her first pack of cigarettes in almost thirteen years. That was two weeks ago, and though the first pack had made her dizzy, she was nothing if not determined. She’d quit smoking all those years ago for Mark. After Gregg had left, he was down to one parent and she’d felt responsible for keeping that parent out of harm’s way as much as possible. What did that matter now that Mark had up and left her too?
“Canada?” Rachel, Dee’s best friend since Girl Scouts, had said when Dee told her about the study-abroad thing that Mark had wanted to do almost two years ago now. “What’s abroad about Canada?”
It was the only international study program Dee would agree to. And for only two semesters. How was she to know that his study abroad would turn into his studying a broad?
“Damn fool,” Dee muttered as she exhaled the smoke into the wintery night. The herd was in the winter pastures now, heifers and yearlings close to the house. It had been a good year as far as sales went. Now she’d focus on a hundred other things she couldn’t get to during the summer months. Mark had come home between his semesters in Canada and helped for the summer, but she could tell he was eager to get back to the preppy life he lived up there. It had made her sad, which of course came out in snappy orders and nitpicking. The day after he’d left to go back she’d actually cried, mad at herself for being so damn hard about everything and worried that he’d never come home again. Had the study-abroad program just been an excuse for him to get away from her? Was she that miserable a person to be around? Probably. People thought she was hard, but she was beginning to think it was just the opposite—she felt things so deeply that it terrified her. A rough exterior at least made it look as if she wasn’t hurting.
So why not take up smoking again? Who cared if she got lung cancer and died? Who cared if her voice lowered and her clothes smelled? Not the ranch hands. Not the cows. Rachel would mind, but Rachel was her friend, not her mother.
The phone rang from inside the house, and Dee cursed even as she pushed herself up from the plastic lawn chair on the front porch. She dropped the almost-finished cigarette into the coffee can now serving as an ashtray and pulled open the screen door. If phones weren’t a necessity, she’d have pulled it out of the wall years ago.
“This is Dee,” she said into the receiver a few seconds later. Rachel had gotten a thingamabob called caller ID—a little box she plugged into her phone that told her who was calling. She thought Dee should get one too—it was a great way to screen calls so that you didn’t have to talk to those annoying telemarketers. Dee didn’t mind the telemarketers enough to pay the five extra dollars the phone company would tack onto her bill for the service. That added up to sixty bucks a year, just to see who was calling before you answered it anyway. The things people came up with to take your money.
“Hey, Mom.”
Dee paused a moment, then smiled and felt a rush of warmth move through her. She wouldn’t show it—she was still mad at him—but she doubted there was a mother in the world who didn’t melt a little when she heard her child’s voice from miles away. “Hey,” she said evenly. “Look who’s callin’ me?”
He laughed, but it wasn’t genuine. Nothing was between them anymore. She’d hated the idea of Mark going to school in Laramie but relented because his getting a degree in agricultural science could only be good for the ranch. She’d hated the idea of his going abroad for his senior year of college but relented because he’d reminded her that once he was back on the ranch, he’d be there forever. And it was only Canada, and Ontario at that. “So, how are things going?” he asked. “How’s the herd?”
That their relationship had dwindled to the small-talk level broke her heart a little bit, but she gave him the updates and then bit her tongue when he was evasive about school and work. The college had already sent her a letter telling her that he’d dropped out of class—she’d seen it coming. As soon as that Mae woman had stepped into his life, he’d turned into a pathetic hound dog. He hadn’t told her about dropping out yet. Maybe that was his reason for this call. She had already decided she would be calm and as reasonable as she could manage. “So, what’s the real reason you called?” she asked when they ran out of easy topics.
He’d never asked her for money, but she kept a lecture in her back pocket just in case. No way would she make his choices easier for him right now.
“Well, I’ve got something to tell you,” he said, anxiety as tight as a cord in his voice. “And I hope you’ll be happy for me. For us.”
“Okay,” Dee said, steeling herself.
“I’m gonna be a dad. Mae and I, well, we’re having a baby.”
Dee’s hand tightened on the phone, but she clamped her teeth down to keep from saying something she might regret. Take a breath, she told herself. And she did. Let it out, she instructed. And she did. That trampy whore!
Rachel’s voice came to mind, something she’d said when her first grandbaby was born a few years ago, months before the scheduled wedding. “Doesn’t matter how they get here, babies are magic.”
Trampy whore or not, this woman was going to be the mother of Dee’s grandchild.
Dee let herself remember the moment when Mark had first been placed in her arms. She’d always expected kids as a matter of course—that’s what Christian women grew up to do—but she’d stared into that crumpled face and felt certain locks click into place inside her. How desperate she’d felt to do a good job. How she wished, now, that she felt better about the job she’d done. She wouldn’t change becoming a Mom for the world, though. Even when Gregg left. Even when Daddy died. Even when her brothers wanted out and so she’d bought their portions of the ranch. Even when she wanted to throttle him, Mark was the best thing that had ever happened to her, and she’d do anything. Anything. Even be happy about this bastard baby.
She cleared her throat. “A baby?” she repeated, keeping her voice even.
“Yeah, in March, we think.”
March. Calving season. Dee held back a joke about his heifer. She was going to have to work on her feelings toward this Mae; there was no way around it now. If only she had some idea how to cool the rage she felt for the woman who was taking her boy away from her. Now, more than ever. Rachel might have some advice on that score. She was good with people and relationships the way Dee was good with cattle and numbers.
“Congratulations,” Dee said after too long a pause.
“You’re happy for me, then?”
“If you’re happy, I’m happy.”
He didn’t answer, because they both knew that wasn’t a mantra she’d ever set her clock by. If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy was more like it. But look where that had gotten her. Fifty-four years old, running a ranch by herself, her only child choosing to live in another country with this trampy whore who was going to be the mother of Dee’s grandchild.
“I’m happy, Mom,” he said, his tone softer. “I’m really happy.”
Why did it hurt her to hear him say that? Had she truly believed that someday a woman wouldn’t steal his heart?
Just because he was the most important person in her life didn’t mean she was his. “Well, good then.”
“If it’s a boy, we’re going to name him after Grandpa.”
Dee swallowed the lump in her throat. She missed her dad. “And if it’s a girl?” Dee asked.
“Sienna,” Mark said. “Sienna Diane.”