In Sheep's Clothing (2 page)

We entered the house, and the smell of cinnamon and nutmeg overwhelmed my senses. Her house always smelled so good. Ever since I was a child, I had imagined the smell of her house was what heaven must smell like. As we made our way up the stairs, I heard Colin talking to Rudy.

“Is she always like this?” Colin asked. “I mean, I've never seen another side to her. But I know there has to be one.”

“Torie definitely has her good side.”

“You're not just saying that?”

“No, I'm serious.”

“That's good, because I worry about you.”

Rudy laughed.

“What's so funny?” Colin asked.

“It's you I'm worried about. I can handle myself.”

Colin made some smirking sound and I ignored them as best as I could. Tomorrow would be a better day. I wouldn't be trapped in a car with Colin, listening to him complain and discuss fishing lures for hours on end. I wouldn't be all cramped and cranky and I'd get to visit with my aunt and things would look better. Colin wouldn't annoy me as much, because he'd be in a boat out on a lake, miles away, and I'd be with Aunt Sissy. He couldn't annoy me if he wasn't around, right? Don't answer that. Yes, tomorrow would be a better day.

Even if it was only two hours away.

Two

It seemed as if I'd just shut my eyes when the alarm went off.

Aunt Sissy had set both alarm clocks in the guest rooms so that we woke up at precisely six in the morning. For a split second, I thought I was still at home in New Kassel, Missouri, in my blue gingham bedroom, and the Mississippi tugboats charging by outside my window. But soon my eyes focused on my surroundings: the antique dresser, the beveled mirror, the watercolor portrait of my grandmother Keith's grandparents from France.

And then there was that smell …

Bacon, brown-sugar sausage links, eggs, warm maple syrup, biscuits, and coffee. I definitely was not in New Kassel. I hadn't woken up to breakfast being cooked downstairs since my mother married Colin and moved out. I realize, of course, that my mother had to move out if she was to get married, but Colin definitely got the better end of the deal. It had been instant oatmeal, Pop-Tarts, and cold cereal ever since. Sigh.

No matter how gritty my eyes felt, or how sunken they looked, the smell of breakfast cooking was enough to make my body get up and move. I yanked the covers back and swatted Rudy on the butt. “Rise and shine!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said and pulled the covers back up and over his head.

“Smell that?” I said and jumped on top of him.

“My nose doesn't work this early.”

“Mmmmm, bacon and sausage and eggs…”

“You don't even eat sausage,” he grumbled.

“That doesn't mean that it doesn't smell good.”

“Go away.”

I tickled his ribs and still he made no move to get up.

“There's a big swordfish out there with your name on it. Just waiting for you to catch it and eat it or mount it or whatever it is you're going to do with it. Although, if you're going to mount it, you and I need to have a serious discussion about interior decorating.”

“There are no swordfish in Minnesota,” he said from under the covers.

“Whatever. There's a big fish out there just waiting for your worm. Okay, that didn't sound right. Just waiting for your bait and lures and stuff. Come on, get up,” I said. I tugged on the blanket, but he had a death grip on it.

“Go away.”

“Come on, you sound like Lon Chaney under there.”

“And that's a bad thing?” he asked.

“Fine,” I said. “But you know Colin is probably already down there eating all your food.”

He sighed heavily and threw back the covers. “All right. Get off me.”

I pulled on the jeans and sweatshirt from the drive up and then nearly skipped down the hallway and took the steps two at a time. I rounded the corner, ran into the kitchen, and threw my arms around my aunt Sissy. “I've missed you!”

She hugged me back, a batter-covered spatula in her hand nearly hitting me in the head. “Beginning to think you weren't coming,” she said.

“Well, you know—”

“I know. You had to stop and feed that one,” she said and pointed to Sheriff Brooke, already seated at her table and partaking of a breakfast fit for a king. He smiled and had the decency to blush.

“That's exactly right,” I said. I was a little taken aback by Aunt Sissy's appearance. She was dressed as I've always seen her. Some Wal-Mart pullover shirt, jeans cut off at the calves, red high-top sneakers, and a baseball cap on her head. But she looked thinner. And a shadow had cast itself under her eyes and along her cheekbones.

She smiled and I instantly dismissed whatever it was that was niggling at my brain. “There's my favorite nephew-in-law,” she said as Rudy shuffled into the kitchen and yawned. “You're only my favorite because you're married to Torie.”

“I know,” he said. “I love you, too.” He hugged her and she returned the embrace with gusto.

“Can I help you with anything?” I asked.

“No. Just eat up. Your uncle Joe is out feeding the horses. You can go on out after you eat,” she said. “He's expecting you.”

“Sure,” I said, feeling as if I were fifteen and had just been given license to do something reserved for big people.

“So, what kind of farm is this?” Colin asked.

“We sell chickens and eggs, and llamas.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, the llamas are good for keeping coyotes and predators away from other animals. So, farmers who have livestock, or sheep, turkeys, and chickens, all come to us for the llamas.”

“Well,” Colin said. “Never heard of such a thing.”

Aunt Sissy just looked at him as if he were stupid. I, of course, didn't mention that I had never heard of llamas being sold to keep away predators either. I was enjoying the fact that she thought Colin was stupid. Why disrupt a perfect moment with the truth?

“Then we also have a market that we open when the crops come in. That's what the draught horses help with. Working the fields. Then, there's the nursery. People come and buy trees and shrubs and plants from us,” she said. “We're getting too old to do it all by ourselves. So my two grandsons come up and work on the weekends and during the summers, and we pay them. But they can't touch the money until they graduate. I'm hoping they use it for college. But you know how stupid young people are.”

“Sounds like a good living, anyway,” Colin said. “Even if it is a lot of work.”

“Oh sure,” she said. “We've done this our whole lives, even before we moved up here, and we've never had to do the nine-to-five thing, and all the rush-hour traffic. That's just not for me, no way. You know, I've always said that people who live in big cities are only livestock. They simply don't realize it.”

“That's a little harsh,” Colin said.

“Whatever,” she said. “I call it as I see it.”

It disturbed me that Aunt Sissy had described herself and Uncle Joe as being too old to do all of the work by themselves. What disturbed me was the fact that, indeed, they were pushing seventy. And that she was aware of it. It just seems so sad when a person realizes that the time of doing what they love is coming to an end. It wasn't as if they were going off to a nursing home anytime soon, but there were limitations to what they could do now. And even more limitations were to come.

Colin stretched and rubbed his belly. “This was an amazing meal.”

“What did you think, only Jalena was capable of cooking a good meal?” Aunt Sissy asked.

“No, it's just … uh…”

“Bacon and sausage came from the neighbor's farm down the road. Eggs are ours. We made the syrup. All natural and fresh ingredients.”

“Well, you can tell,” he said.

“Darn right, you can tell.”

Aunt Sissy turned her back and Colin rolled his eyes as if to indicate how seriously she took her breakfasts. I smiled, because that was the way she had always been. Nobody ever knew how to take her exactly.

“Coffee,” Rudy said.

Aunt Sissy laughed and I shook my head. “He doesn't talk much until he's got enough caffeine in him to run the space shuttle,” I said.

“Uncle Joe's not a morning person, either.” She slammed a coffee mug in front of Rudy, filled it up with coffee, and gave a little laugh. Rudy picked up the mug without blinking and drank two gulps of hot coffee. He then closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and sighed.

“Good morning, lovely people!” he said.

“You're pathetic,” I said.

“What?” he asked.

“Hey, I'm gonna run out and say hello to Uncle Joe,” I said.

“You're not going to eat?” Aunt Sissy asked. “Don't tell me you're one of these weird women who don't eat breakfast?”

“No, I'm going to eat. I just want to go say hello. I'll be five minutes at the most.”

“All right, but if your food gets cold, it's your fault.”

I found my shoes by the door in the living room and stepped out onto the front porch. The floor of the porch was painted slate gray and its outer perimeter was surrounded by lilac bushes in full bloom. I thought about how weird it was that my lilac bush in the backyard had bloomed a month ago. In fact, as I looked out across the yard, I saw that the trees had that surreal green to them that they get right after the buds have just opened. I took a deep breath and smelled the greenness. As I stepped down onto the concrete step, I noticed something engraved in it. Nothing fancy—in fact, it looked as if somebody had just taken a tree branch and scribbled it:
1858.
That's all it said.

I headed over to the stables and saw Uncle Joe as he was rounding the corner with a bucket full of water. “Hey, you need help with that?” I called out.

“Torie! Good to see you.”

I ran up and gave him a hug, careful not to slosh the water all around. “Good to see you, too.”

“How was the drive?” he asked.

“Could have been better, but I won't complain,” I said. “Do you have another bucket?”

“Here, take this one, I'll go get the other one.”

I took the bucket from him and headed into the stables. I was amazed at the sheer size of the draft horses in the barn. Their heads alone were about as long as a three-year-old was tall. For the most part they ignored me, and I began looking for a place to empty the bucket. I stood there scratching my head, because I couldn't find a water trough to pour it in. Uncle Joe came back and realized my dilemma.

“Oh, down at the end, just outside the door.”

I carried the bucket down the length of the stable and found the trough by the fence. I poured the water in and watched it mix with the water that was already in there. I always feel sorry for animals because their water is never clean. “How many horses do you have now?” I asked.

“Just the two Belgians. Eat me out of house and home.”

“I bet,” I said.

Uncle Joe recited how much food they ate in a day, how much water they drank, how much they cost to be shod, and so forth. It seemed as if he was just making small talk to avoid having to talk about the issue that was really bothering him. I could always sense when people were doing that.

I went along with it and asked a few questions about the horses. When I had run out of questions to ask, I asked the only thing I could think of. “So you've got llamas?”

“Yup, your aunt's idea.”

“She's weird.”

“Weirder than you know,” he said. Uncle Joe was one of those all-around nice guys. Pleasant face, kind blue eyes, and a receding hairline that nearly reached the middle of his scalp. He seemed to always be busy and had a habit of talking when he had nothing to say. Sort of like me. I find that an endearing quality, but believe it or not, there are people who don't like it.

He glanced about nervously and finally decided to say what it was that was on his mind. “Glad you're here, Torie. I'm worried about Sissy. You find out what's wrong with her. Okay?”

“If … if I can,” I said, a little shocked.

He gave me the most pathetic look I've ever seen. It was almost as if he were crying without actually crying. “If you can't find out what's wrong, then nobody can.”

Three

It was difficult going back into Aunt Sissy's house and eating breakfast as if Uncle Joe had not just said the oddest thing in the world to me. But I tried my best. Sometimes I think I deserve an Oscar for my performances. Subtlety is not my strong point, by any stretch of the imagination, but I can pretend that nothing is wrong if I have to.

Breakfast was great. I'm not sure how one woman could make scrambled eggs taste so much better than anybody else's, but she could. Rudy had gone upstairs to get ready to go fishing, but Colin was still sitting at the end of the long breakfast table. “What are you waiting for, scraps?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “You know, you really should be nicer to me.”

“Why?”

“Because it would make you a better person.”

Before I could say anything, Aunt Sissy jumped in. “He's right, you know.”

“I should be nicer to him?”

“I didn't say that,” she said. “But it would make you a better person if you were. I, personally, would be mean as hell to him.”

“Oh my God,” Colin said to me, all wide-eyed. “There are two of you.”

Aunt Sissy and I burst into laughter, and Colin couldn't hold it any longer and joined us. After he had regained control of himself, he rubbed his face with his hands and sighed. “I'm going fishing.”

“Have fun,” I said. “Don't drown.”

“I'll try not to,” he said as he left the kitchen.

“Don't get eaten by a crocodile or anything.”

“Not a chance,” I heard him say from the stairwell.