The Sometimes Sisters(2)

She could see each shelf in her mind’s eye as she drove around the back of the store to the café entrance. Uncle Zed cooked up the best food in all of North Texas at the café, and Flora took care of the cleaning. Three old folks had kept the place going for decades, and now one of them was gone.

She parked her truck and leaned her head back, shutting her eyes. She’d made it. No spare tire and the gas tank, as well as her wallet, was empty. “On fumes and prayers,” she whispered as she inhaled the pungent aroma of the lake water along with the smell of freshly mown grass and the first roses of spring, all mixed together with cigarette smoke. Lake Side Resort, as the faded sign above the door proclaimed, had not changed a bit.

Uncle Zed rounded the end of the porch and waved. His green eyes looked out of place in that ebony-black skin. His curly hair, once black as coal and cropped short, now had a heavy mixture of white sprinkled in it and was a little longer, but he would be at least seventy by now—maybe even seventy-one or seventy-two. He and Harper’s grandmother and late grandfather were all the same age. He still looked like he needed rocks in his pockets to keep a spring breeze from blowing him into the lake, but he’d always been a beanpole and he’d always worn bibbed overalls. Some things didn’t change with time—thank God.

A fresh wave of pain pounded through her head when she slid out of the seat and her feet hit the ground. “Mornin’, Uncle Zed.”

He wasn’t really her uncle, but he’d been more like one, or maybe even a grandfather. He’d been far more than an employee at Annie’s Place, that’s for sure. Dana, the oldest of the three, had given him the uncle title, so Harper and Tawny followed suit.

She’d vowed when she drained the last drop of whiskey from the bottle the night before that she was through crying, but seeing him brought on a fresh batch of tears. She grabbed him in a tight hug. “What are we going to do without her?”

“I don’t know, but I’m glad you’re here. We’ll all need one another to lean on.” His voice was raspy as his tears mixed with hers.

Smoke filled her nose, wiping out all the other scents. She backed up a step but kept a hand on his shoulder. “Did she suffer?”

“No, darlin’. She was talkin’ to me one minute and gone the next. The Lord took her quick.” He pulled a handkerchief from his hip pocket and wiped her cheeks and then his own.

“The others here?” she asked.

“Dana and Brook are in the house,” Zed answered. “Got here about an hour ago. That Brook is growing up in a hurry. You can sure tell that she’s your niece. She reminds me of you when you were her age—maybe not in looks, but in her attitude. Want me to take your things to one of the cabins?”

“I’ll do it later if I decide to stay. Is Tawny coming?” Harper asked.

Zed folded the hankie and returned it to his pocket. “She called last night and said she’d be here. Your granny has things set up to help you three Clancy sisters, and you shouldn’t let her down.”

She opened her mouth to tell him that she’d already let her grandmother down more than a decade before, but snapped it shut. Now wasn’t the time to peel back the lid on that can of worms. This wasn’t the day to start baring her soul, especially when she’d never told anyone.

“I’ll do my best. Maybe I’ll unload my things in the number one unit,” she said.

“That one is already booked. Fishermen are comin’ in tomorrow mornin’. I’ll put you in number twelve. It’s closer to the house and the café anyway.” He glanced over into the back of the truck at all the boxes. “Looks to me like you come to stay whether you want to admit it or not.”

“Never could get anything past you, Uncle Zed.” She smiled. “The question is whether or not this is where I will land permanently. I can pack and be gone in an hour if it’s not.”

“Well, we’ll hope that you stick around here for more than an hour. My old bones can’t run this place all by myself, and Flora is only stayin’ on for a little longer. She wanted to leave at Christmas, but that’s when—” He rolled his light-colored eyes toward the sky and finally got control. “She promised Annie she’d stick around long enough to get you girls in the groove of things. Now drive this truck on around to cabin number twelve, back it up as close as you can get it to the front door, and we’ll get you unloaded.”

The identical cabins were separated by enough space to park a vehicle. Yet years ago Annie had planted a weeping willow tree between each cabin, so folks parked out front these days. The trees now reached the cabin roofs, and new feathery leaves were pushing winter out of the picture and welcoming spring. Painted white with different-colored trim, each cabin had a tiny porch with a vintage metal lawn chair on the front. It seemed fitting that Harper would be staying in number twelve, with its red trim and door and red chair on the front porch.

It was her punishment for all those nights when she’d sneaked out of the house and met Wyatt in that very cabin, and red—well, that color did bring her sins home to haunt her. But Zed couldn’t have chosen the cabin for those reasons—he had no idea what happened that summer. Maybe it was simply available for long term when the others weren’t. She scolded herself for trying to analyze the whole thing.

Zed was already opening the tailgate when Harper crawled out of her truck for the second time. He pulled a real key on a big fob with the number twelve embossed on it from the pocket of his overalls and tossed it toward her.