“It’s okay, Mother,” Merle said, giving her a quick peck on the forehead before turning to Rainier. “How long have you been home?”
He shrugged. With all the activity and questions his mother had been throwing his way, he wasn’t sure if he’d been home five minutes or five hours. He wasn’t used to this kind of attention, as if the world revolved around him. He both despised and loved it, but it was almost too much.
Even though he’d said nothing, his father seemed to understand and gave an acknowledging tip of his head.
“We haven’t touched your room, Rainier. It’s waiting for you if you’re tired. This week we can go get you some new clothes,” his mother said, coming over and pinching the pink Hawaiian shirt between her fingers and pulling it as if she wished she could throw it away then and there. “And we can get you anything else you need to get on your feet, as well. Waylon, Christina and Winnie will be coming home later this week.” She grinned with excitement. “It’s just going to be so wonderful to have the entire family here to spend Christmas. And Laura, you’ll have to come, too.”
Laura gaped as she glanced from his mother to him, almost as though she was checking him to see what exactly her reaction should be to that unusual invitation. “I...er...”
“You are more than welcome, Laura,” his father said, jumping in. “You don’t have to answer us right away. I’m sure you’ve got your own family plans.”
She looked a bit relieved, and it made Rainier’s chest tighten as some part of him wished she had agreed to spend more time with him and his family. He took a deep breath as he tried to make sense of his body’s reaction. He barely knew this woman, and their conversation had been limited mostly to business. Yet he couldn’t deny there was something, a spark, between them. It was so strong he could have sworn he felt it in his fingertips.
Maybe it was just that she was the only person who had any real understanding of what his life had been like behind bars. She was his ally, and seemed to be the only one who could understand why he had changed.
“I... Y-you...” he stammered, trying to say something that would be as effectual as his father, but no words came.
Merle smiled. “Rainier and I are gonna head outside. I need to get to work on that broken spigot before the pump burns out.” His father handed him a coat, and he shrugged it on.
He couldn’t have been more relieved and thankful for his father’s interference not just with the jacket, but with helping him to get out of the swirl of activity that made him feel so out of place.
Laura’s face relaxed as she glanced over to him and gave an approving nod.
“If he’s going to be home, you know we’re gonna be putting him to work,” the older man continued.
She gave a light laugh. “That’s exactly what I was hoping for, Mr. Fitzgerald. If you don’t mind, while you all are working, I’ll take a quick look around, a brief home check.”
“That’s fine, but please call me Merle.” His father frowned at the formal moniker.
“Thank you, Merle,” Laura said.
“That’s better,” his father said. “Only Mother calls me Mr. Fitzgerald, and she only does that when I’m in deep trouble.” He turned to Rainier. “Let’s get going. We’re burning daylight.”
He followed his dad outside, and the moment the door opened and he breathed in the cold winter air, Rainier was thankful to be out of the kitchen. He loved his mother and the rest of his extended family, but he needed a minute just to be with himself in the quiet of life—an existence that wasn’t framed by steel bars.
His father led him out to the tractor and, handing him the keys, motioned for him to take a seat. “Sometimes the best thing we can do when our world is a mess is bury ourselves in work in order to clear our minds. There are no prisons worse than the ones we impose upon ourselves.”
The man was right. No matter how bad the nights had been when he’d been inside, the worst of them all had come when Rainier had thought about what he’d cost his family. There were so many things he wanted to say, but one in particular came to the front of his mind. “Thanks for everything, Dad.”
It didn’t seem like nearly enough, but emotions and expressing them had never been his strong suit. It was just so much easier to bottle everything up—although that was exactly the kind of attitude that had gotten him into trouble in the first place.
“Which spigot needs tending?” he asked, afraid of things taking another emotional turn. He’d had more than he could handle for one day.
His father’s stoicism thankfully returned, his face taking on the smooth and patient coolness that Rainier had always loved about the man. Since he’d left, however, his father’s face had seemed to age. In fact, he noticed a new darkness in his eyes and it made a deep sadness move through him. Undoubtedly, he had played a role in those changes, and there was no going back or making things right. There was only moving forward.
“It’s the one in the pasture. If you want to start digging, I’ll grab the piping,” Merle father said.
His father tracked through the snow toward the back of the house. Climbing up onto the tractor, Rainier could see a dark patch of grass and soot where the toolshed had once stood.
The tractor chugged to life and he moved the old beast toward the well as he thought about all the things his family had gone through when he’d been away, and what all else could have happened that his mother hadn’t told him.
The earth was hard with the freeze as he set to digging up the piping around the frost-free spigot his family used for watering the animals throughout the year. The tractor’s bucket broke through the top of the dirt, and as he dug deeper, the frozen soil turned into a muddy mess of gravel and clay as the water from the well spilled from the leaking pipes and saturated the ground. Water poured from the sides of the bucket as he moved the earth, piling it to one side.
It felt good to be working again, to be contributing to his family and the ranch. If he could work here for the rest of his life, he would die a happy man—he didn’t want a job like Laura’s, some nine to five.
He scraped out another bucketful of dirt from the hole. As he emptied it onto the pile, something white protruded from the sticky, brown earth. The object looked like a long stick, but its end was round and knobby.
An uneasiness rose up from his belly as he shut off the tractor, the bucket lowered midway. He stepped down from the machine and made his way across the sticky mud.
As he grew near, the thing lurched slightly, settling with the dirt around it. Based on the grooves and speckles on the surface, it was definitely a bone. He swallowed back the nerves that had tightened his throat as he reminded himself that, even though it was a bone, it was probably nothing—just some animal remains or detritus of days gone by.
He picked up the bone, scraping away the mud as he turned it in his hands. It was stained brown from the tannins in the dirt, the long shaft darker than the round ball of the joint. He wasn’t absolutely sure, but it looked terrifyingly similar to a human femur. He laid the bone down near the base of the hill.
Turning back to the pile of dirt, he looked through it, hoping not to see another piece of bone. He scratched at the cold earth, the dirt and gravel tearing at his fingertips as he frantically searched for anything that could help him make sense of what he had found. His wet fingers grew icy as he worked away, then stopped abruptly when he touched something hard and even colder. His hand closed around something L-shaped and, as he pulled it from the mud, he gave a small, muffled cry. In his grip was a gun.
There was the clang of metal on metal as pipes hit the ground and bounced behind him. He turned to see his father and Laura looking at him. Merle gasped in shock.
Rainier dropped the muddy weapon, letting it fall to his feet as he looked at Laura’s pale face.
“What