“I found a hat like that in Sissy’s office. It was wrapped in tissue inside a photo box.”
“Oh, I bet that was Wilda’s. Anyway, what was your question?”
“You were telling me about how you knew Sissy.”
“Oh, yeah—we went to school together.” It seemed like a convoluted way to get to that point, but we finally got there. “She was so damn smart.”
“I wish I could’ve known her longer than I did, but yeah, she was sharp.”
“Back in our day, girls were supposed to take sewing classes and worry about how to make their husbands happy.” The old man smiled fondly and continued, “But not Sissy. She staged a one-girl protest every day before school until they let her take the math classes she wanted instead of whatever they were trying to force on her. Our principal, Mr. Rusche, was so damn happy she was out of his hair that he practically danced at graduation when her name was called.”
“That’s amazing. I hope I can do her home justice. Sissy kept it in such good condition.” I paused before I let anything slip. I’d gathered from Hank that at least some people had known Sissy was sick, but I didn’t want to break her confidence if it wasn’t common knowledge.
“She did a bunch of work over the last couple of months, which I thought was kinda strange.”
“Why’s that?”
“Everyone in town knew she was ate up with cancer and wasn’t getting better, but she had a whole bunch of new toilets and sinks and whatnot put in. Hell, I heard she even ordered a brand-new kitchen for the place. She lived alone out there, so what’d she need all that for? Sissy wasn’t much for sharing her business, so who knows what she was up to?”
When Sissy first reached out to me on social media, I thought she seemed rusty talking to people—but I hadn’t realized her reputation as an introvert. The fixtures had seemed oddly updated for a historic home, so that was one mystery solved. It hadn’t occurred to me that she’d been prepping for me to move here all along. I’d told her I felt unanchored, but I hadn’t realized how closely she’d listened.
“I didn’t know all that.”
“Yeah, back in school, she’d go around people more, but after Dennis passed, she changed.”
“Wait a sec. Who’s Dennis?”
“Sissy’s little brother. He died back in the eighties. The minute he was done with school, he hightailed it out of here and went out to San Francisco. I heard a rumor that he joined some leftover hippie commune to live off the land, but I knew that was some bullshit the minute I heard it.”
In all our conversations, Sissy hadn’t mentioned having a brother, and neither had anyone else in the family who’d known I was coming down here.
“How do you know that?”
“He was, uhhh…you know…like you…” The older man’s voice trailed off, and he squirmed uncomfortably on his stool. I took pity on him. He didn’t mean anything by it and had sorta stumbled into the awkward part. And I was wearing a T-shirt that readSounds gay, I’m in, so the assumption was fair.
“Oh, he was gay. There are a lot of us running around out there,” I said with an easy smile.
The clerk nodded at the lifeboat I offered. “He was always so put together—even when he was out baling hay in the summer with us. He handled that scratchy shit faster than anyone, but he hated every damn minute of it because he was gettin’ dirty. There’s no damn way he’d join a commune for more of it.”
“I don’t know about him, but I’m definitely not made for baling hay. I’ll happily stick to my lane.” I snapped my fingers and added, “Oh wait! I forgot to see if you have feed.”
The older man shook his head before answering, “We’ve just got small bags of it, and that’ll get expensive if you’ve got more than one goat. You got more than one, right? You should, ’cause those little buggers like friends.”
“I’ve got four.”
“Good, good.” He nodded approvingly. “You’d be better off stopping by the feed store and getting something. They’ll have big bags in stock.”
“Where’s that?”
“Out of our parking lot, get on 27, right again on High Street. It’s across from the Treue.”
“I’m sorry. The what now?”
“Treue der Union monument. Look for either one, and the other’s across the way.”Well, that cleared up nothing.
“Got it.” He waved away my thanks, and I headed into the Texas heat with vague directions and a mental picture of a statue I hoped was labeled.
Spoiler alert: the Treue wasn’t even a statue. It was a pointy, column thingy. As the hardware guy promised, once I found it—after doubling back because I went the wrong way—the monument was right across from the feed store. The gravel parking lot was full, but I squeezed my little car between the rows of trucks that took up most of the lot.
