The Wilder Sisters
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HarperCollins e-books
The Wilder Sisters
A
NOVEL
Sisters
A NOVEL
my sisters, Leslie Ann and Carol Jeanne— and to the members of my tribe:
Phyllis Barber, Earlene Fowler, Cynthia Gregory, Terry Karten, Jennifer Olds, Rachel Resnick, Ruth Salter, Nancy Scheetz, Deborah Schneider, and the irreplaceable Alexis Taylor:
women of words, courage, and spirit
Love could still make her into something, but first
it would have to find her.
—
Jennifer Olds “Requiem
”
Epigraph
An Echo from a Former Life
Chasing Sheep
She Wanted Money
Whatever Your Wild Blue Heart Desires
Mere Hours Away from That Seventh Star
Sparrow at the Gate
Shoes
The Rose Tattoo
Legítimos Poluos Chuparrosas
Penitentes
Ven a Mí
A Poco Loco
More Snow
Welcoming El Niño
Heart Like a Manatee
California Slides into the Ocean
The Table Nearest the Door
Recalibrating the Human Heart
Leaving Cheyenne
CC: The World
Scorned-Woman Salsa
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15
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44
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100
116
140
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181
204
224
241
256
269
282
296
310
329
345
Acknowledgments About the Author
Other Books by Jo-Ann Mapson Cover
Copyright
About the Publisher
used to love my children,” Rose Wilder Flynn said as she held the mare’s bound tail aside so the vet, his gloved and greased arm sunk up to the shoulder inside the horse, could palpate the horns of the uterus for signs of pregnancy. “Sesame Street Band- Aids, scout meetings, classroom cupcakes with the little colored jimmies. Once upon a time, Austin, I did the whole nine yards for
them.”
Austin Donavan, DVM, rotated his arm inside Miss Winky, Rose’s five-year-old quarter horse. “I believe you. It’s easy enough to love them when they’re small.”
“I should have had a passel of kids instead of stopping at two. Yes, with three or more offspring, my odds would definitely im- prove.”
“How’s that?”
“Because at any given time one of them is bound to need a loan, a ride somewhere, or a babysitter.”
Austin smiled. “I suppose.” A faraway look came over the vet’s face as he pressed forward and down, gently palpating and massa- ging. Miss Winky, who had earned her nickname for advertising her business end when she was in season, tolerated the inspection with dignity, probably because her upper lip was caught in the bind of a humane twitch. The device, which looked like a nutcracker pinching Winky’s upper lip, in reality was releasing endorphins so she wasn’t in any pain. Rose scratched the mare’s neck with her free hand while murmuring words of encouragement. It was not exactly the kind of treatment Rose herself received when she saw the gynecologist, but why not calm the horse down if it made Austin’s job easier?
He turned his face toward her. The vet was clean-shaven and unsmiling, and though it appeared he was looking directly at Rose, she knew he was concentrating on the mare. They stood no more than two inches apart, their boot tips touching. Over the healthy scents of alfalfa and nervous horse, Rose could detect the soap Austin had used that morning to wash his face. Nothing fancy, but compared to his usual stink of alcohol, soap smelled like cologne. Then he smiled, and Rose’s heart fluttered for a single beat.
Oh, let it be
! Winky hadn’t caught on the first attempt at breeding, back in March. They’d tried again late in May, July, and August. Pregnancy in maiden mares could be detected as soon as thirty days after breeding, if the exam was performed by an experienced vet. Rose crossed her fingers. “Is she?”
“Knocked up like a cheerleader,” he said. “I can feel it along the bottom of the left uterine horn, about the size of an orange.” He withdrew his arm and rolled off the lubricated sleeve, throwing it into the back of his pickup. “Barring unforeseen circumstances, you’ll have yourself a foal next summer, Rose. Going to trailer her up to your dad’s?”
“Yes. Soon.” Maybe, if she got her way, this very weekend.
“I’ll set up a vaccine schedule, and you give it to Shep or your father. Meanwhile, start her on supplements. I’ll fetch you some samples from my truck.”
Rose unwound the string from the twitch, put it away in the barn, then using a garden hose, washed the mare’s butt clean of the slip- pery lubricant. She turned Winky out into the small arena that took up most of her backyard. Cut loose, the nervous horse squealed once, kicked at the fence, then resumed her usual behavior, which involved standing at the rail, gossiping to Max, the elderly bay gelding who technically belonged to Rose’s absent daughter, Amanda.
Dr. Donavan set the patient file on the seat of his truck and flipped through the boxes of medical supplies. Rose had seen him give them away to patients who couldn’t afford proper veterinary care. His thick brown hair was cropped close, almost down to a burr. It looked as if he’d given himself the haircut with the same kind of shears Rose used to clip her horses. Over his ears some gray was beginning to creep in. They had known each other almost all their lives, and had been friends for the last ten. Rose remembered a time when Austin’s hair was long enough to touch his collar. At the time she’d been too young for him to notice, but she’d always had in mind that there’d come a day she’d run
her fingers through that hair. Now it was gone, and the moment for that had passed, too.
“Lately I’ve been thinking about children,” Austin said. “Now that I’m into my fifties, sort of wish I’d had a couple.”
The question that immediately came to mind was,
What stopped you
? Every resident of Floralee, New Mexico, believed the reason Austin Donavan had remained childless was his wife’s—well, Leah was his
ex
-wife now—vanity. She was extraordinarily pretty—cover- girl material, people often remarked. Rose would never come right out and ask, but she suspected that some kind of infertility issue was going on there and had been a contributing factor to the Donavan divorce. She wished she’d thought twice before complain- ing about her own kids. Trying to make light of her words, she said, “Oh, come spend a week here. The collect calls will convince you otherwise. Everyone seems to think I have a built-in mother compass when it comes to my children’s whereabouts, and at the end of the month, I get to pay for telling them I haven’t a clue.”
Austin laughed, and Rose relaxed. She rolled up the hose, hung it over a nail protruding from a side of the barn where the horses couldn’t get to it, and walked out of the arena and into the small yard, where a clothesline was strung between two trees. She bent over a wicker laundry basket half full of dry clothes and began folding. Indoors there was a washer-dryer in working order, but somehow hanging laundry out to dry made the last little bit of summer linger in her clothes. She hated to see it end. With its ninety- degree dry air and indigo sunsets, summer was Floralee’s finest season. Actually, fall wasn’t half bad either, when the light glowed off the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and the trees began to turn, or spring, when the air was briefly filled with the scent of lilac; she waited all year for that, too. And people could bitch all they wanted about winter, but crisp snowfalls and
farolitos
lighting the way into town made Rose love that season, even walking home in wet shoes. The only time of year she could do without was mud season, when snowmelt and spring rains turned the porous red earth into a kind of quicksand, and tempers short enough that New Mexico’s crime rate, already fairly high on a national average, hiked upward of 25 percent.
“The phone bills sound bad, Rose, but when you get old, won’t it be nice having your kids around?”
She turned and gave him a rueful smile. “When they were babies, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world, sacrificing my breasts so they could fill their little bellies, or rocking a colicky infant until the sun came up. Mothering came as natural to me as breathing. I’m telling you, Austin, I loved my babies like a three-star general. Now I doubt they’d give me the time of day.”
Austin peered over his wire-rimmed glasses. The bulk of his calls involved tube-worming the parasitically infested, cleaning geldings’ sheaths for lazy owners who ignored the loathsome task until it caused an infection, or fretting himself into the morning hours over what might be causing a particular animal to colic. The wind lifted his collar. “All right. What’s all this confession leading up to?”
“Begging for time off.”
“I guess everyone deserves a vacation. How long?” “Three weeks?”
He sighed, and Rose could tell he was going to say no.
“I was planning on having my stretch marks surgically removed, joining a witness protection program. A woman needs a little down time for that.”
“You know I can’t do without you for that long, Rose.” He closed the technical manual he’d been consulting and held out the inocula- tion schedule. “I’ve said this before, but I feel the need to remind you: I’m not your priest. You don’t have to justify your feelings about your kids to an old drunk like me.”
“The hell I don’t.” Rose tucked the card into the back pocket of her faded Levi’s. “Every time you drive up I’m wracked with guilt over how those kids left these animals. I don’t see why I can’t take your books with me along to Pop’s ranch. It’s September, not foaling season. I want to put my feet up and watch the sun set. Stare out at the mountains and think of nothing.”