All the Winters After Read Free Page A

for the pyramid businesses but more as a service to the citizens of Caboose than out of her own need. The only thing she couldn’t sell anyone on was the idea of getting the town mascot, the old caboose parked at the end of the spit, moving again. But she didn’t have time to dwell on that.
    She climbed into the car and took a deep breath. Kache. “He’s going to want to kill me, and I can’t blame him one bit.” She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her rain jacket, surprised to see a black smear across it. She wore the mascara for the first time in years in honor of Kache’s homecoming. It was the brand she’d demonstrated at kitchen tables, rubbing it on a page of paper, dropping water on it, holding the paper up so the drop ran down clear as gin. Now she smoothed her fingers under her eyes: more black. She licked her fingers, ran them over and over her face, took the balled-up tissue from under her sleeve, and wiped more. She adjusted the rearview mirror to check herself. “Way to go, woman.” It looked like someone had struck oil on her face. With all her finesse for cleaning, Snag sometimes felt that her biggest contribution to humankind was making a mess of things.

CHAPTER
    FOUR
    At the small Caboose airport, Kache recognized Snag before she turned around to face him. You couldn’t miss her height, a half inch shy of six feet. Long-limbed like he was, hair cropped short, with much more salt than pepper now. She was his father’s twin, and they bore a strong resemblance—the deep dimples, the large gray eyes. Maybe that’s why Kache had always thought of her as a handsome woman. Her back expanded. Her shoulders hung limp in her hooded jacket. She fidgeted with her sleeves, touched her face. Many times that sad spring before he’d left, Kache had seen her cry with her back to him, as if she might protect him from all the grief.
    He sighed and kept standing there, observing her broad back. How was it that you could leave a place for twenty years, stay away for twenty years , and walk right smack into the very center of what you left behind, like it was some bull’s-eye for which you were trained to aim?
    â€œAunt Snag?” He touched her arm and she jumped.
    â€œKache! Of course it’s you.” As tall as she was, she still had to stand on her tiptoes to swing her chubby arms around him. “Oh, hon, look at you. Your mom and dad would be so proud.”
    He held her soft face, wrinkled a bit more, though not as much as he’d expected, but a little…dirty? Streaked with something. With Snag, it was more likely mud than makeup. He smiled. Their eyes stayed on each other for a long minute. There was a lot to say, but all he got out was, “Let’s go see Gram.”
    Snag blew her nose, blew some more. “She’s not herself. And I tried and tried, but I couldn’t keep up. It’s a decent place though. It is. We can stop on the way home.” She pulled his head down, ruffled his hair, like he was eight years old instead of thirty-eight. “You look so handsome. Kache Winkel, you’re home. Is that your only bag?”
    He nodded. He’d packed the few warm clothes he still owned, along with the old, holey green T-shirt he would never throw out, the one that said, No, I don’t play basketball . Denny had it printed up for him, because at six-foot-six, Kache had gotten tired of being asked. And he’d packed the only item of his mom’s he’d taken—her favorite silk scarf, which had smelled of her perfume for years after she died. Snag asked him where his guitar was, but he shrugged, as he had whenever she’d asked him in Austin. She raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth but let the question go, just as she had before.
    Even in the middle of winter, Austin didn’t get this cold. In the car, he rubbed his hands together and felt the pull and release of resistance and surrender. The