Still, it’s the only thread I have that makes me feel connected to her.
My mother's name is above it. A photo for her contact card I took at my high school graduation and never updated—I'm seventeen in the picture, smiling at something off-camera that I don't remember now.
I sit on the edge of the bed and type into the silence.
Mom. I'm getting married today. He's a good man. The wedding's at sundown under Earl's oak in the east pasture. Pops is officiating. Shiver's walking me down the aisle. I'm wearing your mother's dress, the one Marlena had altered. I wish you were here. Just for a few hours. Just to see me in the dress. I love you, Mom. Please come. Please.
I read it twice and add the please at the end the second time.
I press send.
The text delivers, but I know three dots won't appear. There won’t be a read receipt.
I put the phone face-down on the nightstand.
The cold of the floor comes up through the wool socks. Down the gravel drive, Banshee's diesel turns over—he's been at the clubhouse since five, hanging more lights and warming up the brisket pit. The dogs at the kennel bark once and quiet. A horse blows out down by the round pen.
The property is coming to life.
There’s no way in Hell I'm getting back into that bed.
By eight, the main house is full, warm, and up to no damn good.
Marlena is making biscuits at the big stove. Grace is at the kitchen table with Waylon in his highchair, working a spoonful of scrambled eggs into him one mouthful at a time.
Bex is at the coffee urn in flannel pajamas with her hair in a long sleep-braid down her back. Cal's on the rug in his playpen working on a teething ring with the focus of a man who has work to do.
Presley pulled in late from College Station and slept on the couch in the living room. She's at the kitchen island in one of Pops's old t-shirts and yesterday's jeans, half-asleep over coffee, hair in a loose knot.
Pops at the head of the table with the morning paper. Holt across from him eating biscuits with his coffee.
"Morning, kiddo," Pops says, not looking up from the paper.
"Morning, Pops."
"You sleep?"
"A little bit."
"Liar. I heard you up at six."
"Sorry."
"Didn't say I minded. Just wanted to know."
He turns a page of the paper. Marlena turns from the stove and looks at me.
Her face goes careful around the eyes the way it does when she's reading me, and I know I look a little raw. I haven't told anyone about the text I sent at six. I'm not going to.
"Eat something, kiddo," Marlena says.
"Yes, ma'am."
She sets a plate in front of me at the island next to Presley—biscuit, butter, a piece of bacon, a spoonful of strawberry jam she put up last summer.
Presley smiles at me sideways with her mouth full of toast. "You look pretty already," Presley says.
"Liar."
