For Good (25 page)

“Yes,” Kristen said, and hugged her. Marydale could feel her strength and smell the faint hint of sweat. “We did it,” Kristen said, her voice warm with tears. She pulled away. “Thank you,” she said to Neiben.

He sat facing the bench, his index card clutched in one hand. He glanced over. “I'm sorry.” Neiben sank his head in his hands.

“What's going to happen to him?” Marydale asked quietly.

Kristen put her hand on Marydale's back. “Come on,” she said. “He did what he had to do.”

A moment later, Aldean and Sierra and her friends crowded around them.

“We won!” Kristen said.

Aldean flung his arms around Marydale. “Star of the show,” he said. “Just like old times.”

Beside them, Sierra hugged Kristen. “I knew you could do it,” she exclaimed.

As the group congratulated each other, Marydale slipped out the side door, unconsciously scanning the area for Gulu or Holten or a guard. She knelt down to touch the brown grass that pushed through cracks in the pavement, then pulled a blade and touched it to her lips.

Kristen appeared at her side. “I told them you might need a minute,” she said.

Marydale wanted to tell her how grateful she felt and how stunned. She felt like she could breathe in the whole sky, and she felt like she should sit down lest she fly away into the atmosphere. But she didn't have the words, so she flung her arms around Kristen and squeezed her and picked her up for a second.

“I can't believe it,” she said.

Half an hour later, Marydale rolled down the window of Kristen's car. There was a spring dampness in the air. In a few weeks the wildflowers would bloom on the Summit, hidden among the rocks where the frost didn't reach them. The birds would migrate through the wetlands on the Harney County line. Then would come calving season, then the rodeo. She could see her mother riding out on Trumpet, his white tail swirling behind him.

They said nothing until they reached the Firesteed Summit and the world stretched out beneath them like a quilt.

“This is where we released my father's ashes.” Marydale felt the wind blowing up through the gorge. “He said you can't bury a cowboy in the yard behind the church. And Aldean and I…we threw my mother's ashes here, too.”

Tentatively, Kristen slipped her fingers through Marydale's.

“I think Tristess is changing,” Kristen said. “No matter what Ronald Holten thinks. I don't think what happened to you would happen again.”

“I don't know,” Marydale said.

“Do you ever want to move back?” Kristen asked.

“I was seventeen when I was convicted,” Marydale said. “I don't even know who I'd be if I was still here.”

Kristen squeezed her hand. “I'm so sorry.”

“It's life,” Marydale said. “‘The past is the past,' that's what my mother used to say.” She picked through the words carefully, trying to remember the saying her mother had stitched onto a sampler in the living room. “‘The present is a gift…'”

When Marydale looked over, Kristen was crying.

“What is it?” she asked.

Kristen dropped her hand. “Don't you see?” Kristen's tears were at odds with the perfect whisper of blush on her cheekbones, her perfect taupe lipstick, her tiny pearl earrings, everything controlled and arranged.

“See what?”

“I should have stayed.” When Marydale didn't speak, Kristen said, “If I'd have stayed, maybe you wouldn't have had to go through all this. I should have fought for you then. Maybe we could have done all this five years ago.” She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes, smearing her perfect makeup.

Marydale put her hands on Kristen's arms, holding her and holding her away at the same time. She examined Kristen's face, her thin lips, her restrained beauty, like the tiny wildflowers, at first indiscernible and then breathtaking. Then she pulled Kristen close.

“We don't know what would have happened.”

Kristen leaned into Marydale's embrace. “When I first got back to Portland, I had this clock in my mind,” she said. “A day. I knew you could forgive me for leaving for a day. Maybe a week? I don't know when it tipped, but one day I was running down by the river. It was rainy. Everyone was out, biking and running with their dogs. And it hit me. I'd waited too long. I can't even remember how long it was. Three months? Six months? I just sat down on a bench and cried. And now you can have any life you want. You can go anywhere you want.”

Marydale stroked Kristen's hair, gazing over her shoulder out across the land. “I've been to Nevada. I've never even been to Vancouver, Washington.”

“It's not great,” Kristen said.

“But you are,” Marydale said. “You were meant to be a lawyer and not here in Tristess. We don't know what would have happened if you'd stayed. Maybe we would have been totally dysfunctional. Maybe we'd have adopted a couple of babies and then decided we hated each other. Maybe Eric wouldn't have come forward. Maybe Judge Spencer would have said no. Maybe we wouldn't have won five years ago. We don't know.”

“But…” Kristen began.

“You lost your job. You were going to be partner.”

“It doesn't matter.”

“It does,” Marydale said. “You did that for me. You beat the odds…for me.” She leaned in and kissed Kristen gently. “You've already put in a day's work. How about we crash at the Almost Home and then head back to Portland tomorrow?”

Kristen hesitated. “Sierra told me something,” she said. “We don't have to do this, but the couple who bought your house, they've turned it into a bed-and-breakfast. It just opened, and they've invited us all to stay.”

Gulch Creek Road had been paved all the way to Marydale's driveway, only it wasn't Marydale's anymore. A sign at the end of the drive read
TRISTESS B&B
, and someone had planted a profusion of crocuses at its base. Kristen slowed the car and put on her blinker.

“Is this okay?” She tried to read Marydale's face. “You sure you want to do this?”

“I don't know.”

Kristen searched her face for a clue. “We could just stay at the Almost Home,” she offered. “If it's too…hard. You should never have lost this house.”

They were idling in the middle of the road, but no one was coming.

Slowly Marydale shook her head. “I loved this house,” she said. “That was my parents' house. I grew up there.”

Kristen flicked off the blinker. “We'll go back to town.”

“No.” Marydale touched her leg. “No, I…I don't know if I'll ever come back here. Let's go. Let's see it.”

Kristen pulled to a stop in the freshly graded driveway. The HumAnarchists' SUV was already parked in front of the house. She and Marydale got out of the car, and a woman appeared at the front door, wiping her hands on a faded apron, her long, gray-blond ponytail swinging behind her.

“Marydale Rae,” she called out, and her face bore such a look of tenderness, Kristen thought, for a moment, they knew each other. She hung back as Marydale approached the woman.

“I'm Annette,” the woman said. She put a hand on Marydale's back, ushering her into the house as though Marydale were an old friend who had been lost in a storm and had now returned. “Please, come in,” Annette murmured to Marydale. She nodded to Kristen to follow.

Inside, the interior had been repainted in shades of sky blue with yellow and red accents along the molding and around the windowsills. Annette led Marydale into the kitchen and urged her to sit.

“Your friends are already here,” she said.

A tall, skinny man appeared in the doorway. He, too, had a long gray ponytail, although the top of his head was bald.

“This is my husband, Henry,” Annette said.

“We heard about what happened today.” Henry held out his hand to Marydale. “I'm so glad someone finally came up with the right verdict.”

“You heard?” Marydale asked.

“Small town. News travels.” He pulled up a chair. “I'm sorry.”

Annette placed a pitcher of ice tea on the table. Kristen felt as she sometimes did when interviewing witnesses; she didn't want to breathe lest she disturb the moment unfolding before her.

“I used to teach up at the Correction Center in Gig Harbor,” Henry went on. “I know how a lot of those women got there. They weren't all innocent, for sure, but I heard a lot of stories like yours. I realize it's not right, the way we came by this house. You losing it because of that conviction.”

Marydale looked around the kitchen. Kristen thought she looked like someone waking from a coma, searching the walls for a clue as to just how much she had lost.

“It was nine hundred dollars,” Marydale said quietly.

“Nine hundred dollars?” Annette sat down across from her.

“That's what I owed in taxes. I didn't have the money. Aldean would have given it to me, but I didn't get my mail. I was in jail for hanging out with this woman from Burnville. She wasn't even gay, but my PO thought something was going on between us.”

Annette covered Marydale's hand with hers. “I'm sorry.”

Marydale pulled her hand away. “Did you know? Did you know what happened? Did you know why the house was for sale?”

Annette and Henry glanced at each other.

“We didn't know,” Annette said, “not about you, not about the taxes. But I guess we did know, too. I come from a ranching family out in Avon, Montana. You don't get land without taking it from someone else. You see a ranch for sale, especially a foreclosure or a government sale, and you know. I saw a lot of people lose their dreams that way.”

“And if you look back,” Henry added, “we all took it from the Indians. But you have a place here if you'll take it. You can come here anytime you like. You and your friends. Free of charge. This is still your house.”

“Always,” Annette added.

“A bed-and-breakfast,” Marydale said. “Who wants to stay in Tristess?”

“Birders. Mountain climbers. We get a few bikers. We want folks from the city to come out here and see how beautiful it is. Maybe we can even bring some new folks into the area, like Sangheeta, who manages the Almost Home. She and her husband came out for a camping trip. They just loved it here, so they stayed.”

Kristen heard laughter outside the kitchen window. Sierra, Moss, and Frog were tromping across the yard with bundles of sticks.

“We sent them out to collect some juniper for the fire pit,” Annette said. “The Bureau of Land Management did a big juniper cut—it's invasive—and the piles are just there for the taking. We try to recycle as much as we can.”

Sierra burst through the door, talking rapidly about a snake they had seen and a wall hanging she was planning on making out of juniper twigs.

Aldean followed a minute later, but his lack of twigs suggested he had not been among their party. And he had someone with him. It took Kristen only a second to place her: Aubrey. She stood a few paces behind Aldean, the baby in one arm, her little boy at her side. Marydale stood up, almost knocking her chair over in the process.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Aldean came by this afternoon,” Aubrey said.

The kitchen suddenly felt crowded, and the air tightened around Aubrey and Marydale.

“He said I should look in on you.”

Marydale said nothing.

“We're heading to the swap meet.” Aubrey took a tentative step forward. “I just thought I'd come by and say I'm glad it all worked out.”

“You married Amos Holten,” Marydale said.

“He doesn't know I'm here.” Her next words came out in a rush. “Aldean said I should have spoken up back then. I know what Aaron said—that he'd kill you—and I should have made someone listen. I went along with it, and that was wrong. I just…I'm sorry.”

“You're sorry!”

Kristen thought she had never seen Marydale look so beautiful or so fierce.

“I'm glad you're out,” Aubrey wheedled. “I always knew you'd get out of Tristess. It's no excuse, me going out with Aaron and all, but it wasn't that I didn't care about you. I just knew you wouldn't stay. I was always gonna be a Tristess girl, but you weren't. We all knew that.”

“I wasn't going to stay? I had to stay. I went to prison!” Marydale wasn't yelling, but her voice was like an earthquake deep beneath the ground. “You could have fought for me. You could have called…someone. You could have helped me.”

“I couldn't tell people the truth.”

“What truth?”

Aubrey clutched the baby to her chest. The little boy hid behind her knees. Except for Marydale's breath, the room was completely silent.

“That I'd been with you,” Aubrey said. “That's why he did it, because he knew I'd never like him as much as I liked you. I couldn't go up in front of a courtroom and say that.”

“But everyone knew!”

“It was different back then. Don't you remember? It was okay to be…the way we were…if you didn't throw it in people's faces.”

“I went to
prison
!”

“I said I'm sorry. I came here to say I'm sorry.”

“You let me go to prison…you married a Holten…because you couldn't tell people you liked a girl? You couldn't stand up for me. You couldn't stand up for yourself for one—”

Kristen thought she saw Marydale open her mouth to say
fucking
then look at the little boy. The word came out in a sharp, silence enunciation.

“—second. You couldn't just say this is who I am, and this is what I want?”

“It was easier for you,” Aubrey whispered. Her cheeks had flushed. “We were really young.” Aubrey's voice trembled. “You were so strong, I thought… I'm sorry.”

“You don't get to—”

The little boy at Aubrey's feet let out an agonized sob. Marydale stopped and dropped to her knees before the boy.

 “I'm sorry,” she said. “I raised my voice to your mother. I shouldn't have done that.”

The boy pressed his check to Aubrey's leg, staring at Marydale with big eyes.

“I won't do that again.”

Marydale didn't try to pat the boy or hug him. When she rose, the anger had drained out of her face. She looked older. Kristen remembered seeing her at the Deerfield whiskey tasting and thinking that five years had aged Marydale more than they should have and that she was still beautiful. Perhaps she was more beautiful.

“I'm sorry, Aubrey,” Marydale said.

Tentatively, Aubrey said, “I just wanted to see you, to say goodbye. You and your ma were always special. Sun always shone a little brighter on you. Everyone knew it. I just wanted to tell you.”

Marydale hesitated for a moment, then said, “Thank you.”

Aubrey gave Marydale an awkward one-armed hug, the baby between them. Marydale touched its head gently.

“She's cute,” Marydale said.

“Thanks.” Aubrey smiled. “Take care of yourself, Marydale.”

On their way out, Kristen heard the boy say, “She's scary.”

“That's because she's so powerful, like a superhero,” Aubrey said. “Do you remember Superwoman? And you know what else? Marydale was the most beautiful rodeo queen in the whole world.”

“In the
whole
world?”

“Yep. In the
whole
world.”

“Come on,” Henry said as their voices faded. “Let's get this fire going so we can grill some burgers.” He put his hand on Frog's shoulder. “And veggie burgers.”