Chapter 15
Amanda turned on Lee, flailing in her own emotions, lost the minute she’d seen the light go out in Jake’s eyes. Torn between following him and facing his sister. She knew what she wanted to do, but she knew what Jake would allow. She stayed.
Lee looked almost as bad as her brother had. “All this time?” she demanded, her voice impossibly young, her eyes a wasteland. “And he never told us?”
“How could he tell you?” Amanda challenged. “He couldn’t take the time out to learn when he was young. It was all he could do to keep a roof over your heads. He was seven when your dad started pulling him out of school to help, Lee.”
“But now—”
“Now he has to admit to his baby sister who’s attending a top-ten university on a partial scholarship, who talks Chaucer and Hesse, that he’s never even known how to write a check? A man as proud as Jake? How do you expect him to do that?”
“But we could have helped!”
Finally, Amanda went to her. “I know, honey,” she soothed, enfolding the girl into her arms. “I know. He just couldn’t bear to see you three lose faith in him.”
“I humiliated him,” she sobbed. “Oh, God, Amanda, I feel like I’m dying inside. He has to hurt so badly.”
He does, Amanda thought, shutting her eyes against her own tears. You can’t know, little girl, just how badly he feels. “We’ll all get by this,” she promised. “Maybe this is what he needed to get him started.”
Lee lifted her head. “You knew,” she breathed. “You figured it out. How? We’ve lived here all our lives and we didn’t know.”
Amanda’s smile was sad. “Because Uncle Mick was illiterate. Nobody knows that but me, because I was the one who interceded with the world for him. Just like you guys did.Youread his mail for him before he hired Betty, didn’t you?”
Lee nodded, surprised. “He just said he was so tired from riding. And that he couldn’t write letters and stuff because his handwriting was so bad. I mean, we always laughed about it, because his signature was so awful. Betty,” she said suddenly. “Wouldn’t she know? Would she really know and not help him?”
Amanda could only offer a shrug. “Maybe she suspects. Maybe she thinks she’s helping him by keeping his secret.”
Still Lee shook her head, trying to comprehend the years of painful deception. “But, Amanda, there were so many things. How could he get by? How could we not know?”
“Lee, there are a truckload of tricks you can use to get by. And if you set yourself up as a man who does things just a certain way—”
Lee’s abrupt laughter was bitter and lost. “Jake’s way,” she protested feebly. “We all say it about him. Oh, God, Amanda. What are we going to do?”
“We’ll wait here for him, so we can talk before anybody else on the ranch shows up in the morning. Now, why don’t you go on in and wash your face? He’s probably down in the barn. Let’s give him a little time alone, and then we can go talk to him.”
“What do I say to him, Amanda? How do I face him again?”
Amanda took a big breath and fought the terrible frustration of impatience, of fear, of hurt. “Tell him you love him. Tell him thank you for getting you to that fancy school of yours. Whatever you do, don’t tell him you’re sorry.”
Amanda thought maybe she should do the dishes, but her hands were shaking and her mind was down at that barn. She could build a new fire in the fireplace. If she hadn’t left her dulcimer at the cabin, she could have attacked that for a while. Jake needed his room, and Amanda was going to give it to him if it killed her. Then she heard the rumble of a truck engine turning over.
“Where’s he going now?” Amanda demanded, more to herself as she peeked out the front window to see the truck back away from its slot.
“The cabin,” Lee said, walking back out of the bathroom. “Whenever he’s really upset about something he heads right up there. I hope he’s taking Buck. Buck doesn’t mind him in bad moods.”
“He’s not taking a horse,” Amanda said, turning back. “He’s taking the truck.”
“The truck?” Lee demanded, coming to a stop. “He can’t take the truck.”
“Why?”
“The bridge is out over Parson’s Creek. Snow melt and the storm, I guess. The creek’s a mess. That’s why I came back, because I couldn’t get by. There’s a—” suddenly the color melted from Lee’s face “—a sign.” She breathed in horror. “My God, Amanda, he won’t be able to read it.”
“Yes, he will,” Amanda reassured her. “He’s learned to recognize road signs. The color and shape will alert him.”
“No,” Lee protested, as she headed for the door. “That’s just it. There is no road sign yet. Just some hand-painted thing on cardboard at the side of the road. Amanda, he won’t realize it in time. That creek bed’s twenty feet down!”
They reached the lawn to see the taillights to the truck disappear around a bend.
