Daisies in the Canyon(10)

Something her mother said one time when they were sitting on the beach at the end of the day, watching the brilliant yellows and oranges of the sunset over the water, came to her mind. It was one of the very few times that Martha Malloy had mentioned the past, and all she’d said was that as beautiful as it was, that sunset couldn’t compare to the ones in the Palo Duro Canyon. Her eyes had misted, but she’d quickly smiled and the moment had passed, though her eyes had held a haunted look the rest of that evening.

There would be lots of sunsets in the next year and Abby vowed to remember her mother every time she saw one, but right now she couldn’t focus on that or she’d start crying. It had only been two days since she’d cleared out the bank box in Galveston and tucked her important papers and her mother’s ashes in the suitcase with all her candy and snack food.

“I should have tossed them out in the Gulf. That’s where we had such good times,” she said. “But I couldn’t, not after I found that letter tucked away in the bank box when I went to store your ashes there. I’ll pick an evening when the sun is setting and the daisies are blooming to scatter the ashes. Maybe in the spring. Not on a cold day like this, and definitely not the day that Ezra was buried. I want to remember it with a smile.”

Bonnie was the only one in the kitchen when Abby carried her empty plate out to throw it away. Her youngest sister looked less hippieish in faded blue-and-black plaid pajama bottoms and a lime-green knit shirt under a shirt of red-and-yellow flannel with sleeves that had been rolled up to her elbows. Their blue eyes locked across the bar and neither of them blinked for several seconds.

Finally, Bonnie moved toward the refrigerator and said, “My eyes are like my mama’s. Yours and Shiloh’s can be like Ezra’s.”

“Abby can have that honor. I got my eyes and my dark hair from my maternal grandmother,” Shiloh said from the doorway.

Abby jumped like a little girl with her hand in the cookie jar. Twice now someone had managed to sneak up on her blind side—in the cemetery when Cooper had appeared out of nowhere, and now in the kitchen when Shiloh had done the same thing. That aggravated her more than any genetic traits from Ezra Malloy.

She gritted her teeth so hard that her jaws ached. “What difference does it make? He’s dead and we’ll never know him.”

“Did your mama ever talk about him?” Shiloh asked.

Abby removed a can of beer from the refrigerator and pulled the tab off the top. “Once, when I was a teenager and pressed her for the story.”

“My mama talked about him. She cussed him every time she got drunk and every time she got a divorce or threw a boyfriend out of the trailer. Everything from a bad hair day to a flat tire was Ezra Malloy’s fault.” Bonnie brought out ham, cheese, and mayonnaise for a sandwich as she spoke. She set a pitcher of sweet tea on the counter and frowned at Abby’s beer.

“What?” Abby raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t like the smell of beer.”

“Well, I don’t like mayonnaise, so we’re even.”

Shiloh poured a glass of milk and went straight for the dessert table. “My mama said it was best to let sleeping dogs alone. She told me that he didn’t want a daughter and gave her enough money so she could buy a small bed-and-breakfast place in Jefferson, Texas. After I graduated she sold it and went into partnership with her sister, Audrey, on a convenience store outside of Lewisville, Arkansas. I tried a few more questions, but she told me to forget the past and move on to the future.”

“So what the hell did three different women see in that man who was in the casket and why in the hell did we put daisies in there with him? I’ve never seen that done before,” Bonnie asked.

“Good questions. I have been to a couple of funerals where they laid roses on the top of the casket, but I’ve never seen daisies put inside.” Abby carried her beer back to her room, leaving the other two to bond over conversation. She felt like she had the first time she was deployed to Afghanistan. Everything was so unexplainably different there, with everyone a stranger even though they all served the same country. She dug her phone from the cargo pocket on the side of her pants and hit the speed dial for Haley. She almost wept when her friend answered on the second ring.

“Hey, what did you decide about the ranch? Are you coming home? Tell me about the foreman.” Haley asked questions until she had to stop for breath again. That was Haley to a tee. Hearing her voice put a smile on Abby’s face.

“I’m staying. Did I tell you about the daisies at the funeral?” Abby went on to tell her about it, leaving out nothing.

“Did I just hear you right? You put them in the casket with him like roses?” Haley asked.

“That’s right. Only his daughters had them. No casket piece or potted plants or wreaths around the casket. The place where they buried him is bare—it was strange. But hell, my sisters are strangers, Haley. I don’t feel any kind of love, hate, or even indifference for them. It’s like they are people I saw one time in a shopping mall.”

“Tell me your first impression of them.”

“Shiloh is kind of prissy and Bonnie is tough as nails. That much I’ve figured out so far,” Abby said.

“The foreman?” Haley asked.

“Isn’t my type, but the sheriff could be if I was going to stay here forever. Which I won’t. I have decided not to leave until spring, but after that is a day-to-day decision. I’m so confused and rattled. I don’t know what I’ll do.”