her long skirts and chew on the lace. We’ll keep Isabella in her cage when Mom is in one of her costumes.”
“Maybe we should keep her in the barn.”
Jennifer stopped and looked down at him. “Mom or the rabbit?”
Ryan’s mouth fell open, then he started to laugh and Jennifer grinned, too.
Ten minutes later, they finished putting McCloud out into the pasture with Lollypop, their mother’s black mare. The two horses greeted each other with soft whinnies. Soon they moved off and began grazing together as the last golden rays of sunlight faded from the western sky.
When Jennifer and Ryan entered the house, she sent him to wash up. Lizzie and Toby were sitting on the worn blue sofa in front of the TV. The pizza box, with two small slices remaining, sat open on the kitchen table.
Jennifer washed up at the kitchen sink, then put both slices in the microwave. When Ryan returned, she handed him the plate and a glass of milk. He took it and joined his brother and sister on the couch.
Jennifer settled for a glass of milk and the last apple in the vegetable drawer. After tossing the empty pizza box in the trash, she retrieved her textbooks from her room and returned to the table to study.
A few minutes later, Jennifer looked up as Mary Grant came out of her bedroom and entered the kitchen. Her mother was wearing one of her 1850s-style dresses, a deep blue and white plaid cotton dress with a full skirt over layers of white petticoats.
“Oh, good, you’re home,” Mary said, turning around. “Can you hook me?”
“Are you going out like that?”
“The historical society is meeting at the Dutton mansion in Old Towne tonight.”
“So?” Old Towne was a collection of log cabins, restored businesses and homes from the early 1850s. The Dutton mansion was a simple two-story house with pretentious white columns supporting a small balcony across the front of the building. It was the town historical society’s fondest hope that they could turn the area into a profitable tourist attraction.
“Really, Jennifer. You know as an employee of Old Towne I can’t go onto the property unless I’m in period dress. I am, after all, Henrietta Dutton. I’m not about to greet visitors to my home in anything but my freshest gown.”
Jennifer tugged on the tight bodice and began fastening the long row of hooks down the back of the garment. “It seems kind of silly to dress up when there won’t be any tourists to see you.”
“Perhaps, but this keeps me in the spirit of my role. I can practice greeting important people with the grace and charm of a southern belle.”
Jennifer fastened the last hook. “Don’t you think you’re carrying this a little far?”
Her mother spun around and flipped open a fan suspended from her wrist by a silken cord. “Of course not, darling,” she drawled as she fluttered the dark blue silk and ivory fan beside her face. “I’m simply enjoying my job. Wait until you see my performance on Founder’s Day. This year, for the first time ever, we are staging a stunning re-enactment of Henrietta Dutton’s charge up Dutton Heights. I get goose bumps just thinking about it.”
Snapping shut her accessory, Mary lifted her skirts with both hands and headed for the door. “I won’t be back until late, so don’t wait up. Thank goodness I don’t have to wear a hoop under this thing. I’d never be able to drive in it. But I do wish I had a carriage to ride in. It would so much more appropriate to arrive in a horse-drawn buggy than in my truck.”
As her mother departed in a flurry of petticoats, Jennifer glanced to where her brothers and sister sat on the sofa. They were all watching her with various degrees of concern on their faces.
Lizzie said, “It’s tough enough being the brainy girl in school. Having a mother who thinks she is Betsy Ross on top of that is the pits.”
“Mom does get a bit carried away,” Jennifer admitted.
Toby rose and brought his empty plate to the sink. “Carried away? Our mother is a nut case. She knows more about old Colonel Dutton and his weirdo wife than they did. Who cares what was happening in 1859, anyway?”
Their mother’s passion for re-enacting the past sometimes seemed to border on an obsession, but Jennifer felt the need to defend her.
“If it wasn’t for Mom’s respect for the history of our town and her determination to save our heritage, Henrietta Dutton’s deeds of valor would be forgotten.”
“And the town council wouldn’t have an excuse to hold a money-making festival every year and exploit mother’s zeal, not to mention her time and energy,” Lizzie added.
“When did you get to be such a cynic?” Jennifer asked.
“Between your job and school and riding, I’m the only one left to listen to her grand schemes to expand the widow Dutton’s ride into a national event.”
“I’m here,” Toby said, elbowing his sister when he sat down beside her.
Lizzie elbowed him back. “Oh, like you listen to her. All she talks about is making the exact same ride to show the world how brave Henrietta Dutton was. Mom doesn’t even ask about school or how my chess match went.”
“How did your match go?” Jennifer asked, feeling guilty for not asking sooner.
“I won—as usual. Most boys only think they’re smarter.”
Her comment started another round of elbowing with Toby. Ryan moved to the floor to get away from his jousting siblings.
“Cut it out,” Jennifer said sternly. “I’m sure things will get back to normal after the Founder’s Day Festival. Making the past come alive is Mother’s dream. We need to support her.”
Jennifer opened her textbook and prayed that she was right, but she couldn’t quite silence the nagging doubts at the back of her mind. The kids needed a mother who was involved in their lives, not one so involved with the past that she couldn’t see the present. How did one tell their own parent that they were falling down on their job?
The Founder’s Day Festival was only three weeks away. Jennifer would hold her peace until then, but after her mother made her big ride, they were going to have a mother-daughter heart-to-heart.
On Monday afternoon, when Jennifer was done with her classes for the day, she made her way through the veterinary hospital wards and down the short hall to the front desk at the Large Animal Clinic.
Her mother’s behavior was still on her mind, but she wasn’t as worried as she had been the day before. The entire family had spent Sunday together in a normal, modern-day fashion. They had attended church together and spent the afternoon visiting friends of the family. By the end of the day Jennifer decided that she had been making mountains out of mole hills.
Stephanie, another student who worked part-time in the clinic, sighed with relief when Jennifer opened the office door. “Am I glad to see you.”
“Busy day?” Jennifer tucked her purse into the gray metal cabinet beside the desk and took a chair behind the glass partition that separated them from the client waiting area.
“Three emergency surgeries on cows, two bad lacerations on a pair of draft horses and a sonogram to check if a llama is pregnant. Nothing too weird. I just need to get going. I’ve got an anatomy test this afternoon and I really have to study.”
“Is there anything I need to know?”
“Dr. Wilkes just brought in a ton of stuff to be filed.” Stephanie transferred a large stack of papers to Jennifer’s side of the desk.
“Oh, joy.” Dr. Wilkes was notorious for his bad penmanship.
Stephanie bit her lower lip. “Do you want me to stay and help?”
“No, I’ve