Jane Bonander Read Free Page A

her nothing, but in doing so, he’d led her to believe that the only things that were important were her own selfish needs. Heaven forbid that she should have any responsibilities, Julia thought peevishly.
    “Don’t defame your sister, Julia.”
    “ Defame her? Papa, she does that well enough all by herself. She doesn’t need my help. Have you forgotten about Marymae?”
    He cleared his throat and wiped his hands and face on a towel. “Nobody knows about that but the three of us—”
    “Oh, Papa. Surely you don’t believe that no one knows what happened?”
    His frown was filled with more sorrow than anger. “Why, nobody’s said nothin’ to me.”
    Julia forced down her impatience. “Just where do you suppose they think the baby came from? That she just fell from the sky? That the stork dropped her on the way to someone else’s house?”
    “Now, no need gettin’ sarcastic,” he answered with a weary sigh.
    Julia pressed her fingers against her eyes. “Papa, we don’t live in the middle of nowhere. People notice things like brand-new babies.”
    “Yeah, I suppose they do. I’m just glad no one’s asked me about it. I wouldn’t know what to tell them.”
    “The truth might be nice.” She was unable to curb her sharp tongue.
    “Oh, but to have people think my little Josie—”
    “You’d rather they thought Marymae was mine?” She was incredulous, but shouldn’t have been surprised.
    “Well, dang it, Julia, even I sometimes forget that the baby is Josie’s. You act like the child’s ma.”
    “It was either that or watch her starve to death right before my eyes.” Even though she’d come to love Marymae as her own, her resentment toward her flighty sister welled up within her again.
    Her father walked to the edge of the stoop. Julia knew his face would be filled with longing as he gazed out over the vast acreage that used to be rife with wheat and now lay fallow.
    “After your ma died, we moved here to get a fresh start. It’s been ten years, eight of ’em growin’ and sellin’ more wheat than we thought possible. Now look at what we got. We got nothin’, Julia. Nothin’.” He massaged his neck with gnarled fingers.
    Julia didn’t answer; she didn’t have to. She knew his thoughts. Knew he was remembering the torrential downpours they’d endured three and four years before, which ruined the grain, and on the heels of the rain had come two years of drought. They hadn’t recovered. She wondered if they ever would.
    “I’ve tried to do right by you girls. Guess I shoulda married again. It wasn’t fair to either of you to grow up without a ma. Why, just look at the two of you. You’re all but worn-out doin’ all of the work around here. And Josie …” He sighed. “Josie needs a firmer hand than mine. When the trouble started, I should’ve sent her to your aunt Mattie in San Francisco like she wanted me to. Maybe she could’ve done something for Josie, but I don’t see how. Mattie was a wild one, too.”
    Julia was surprised he even mentioned his younger sister’s name. He usually only referred to her as “as the wild one,” because she hadn’t followed the conventional path of marriage and babies. At forty-five, Mattie Larson ran a successful boardinghouse in San Francisco. Julia had no doubt that Josette would have been a different person if Mattie had been around, for the adult Mattie stood for no nonsense from anyone. And Josette was absolutely filled to the brim with nonsense. But Papa had refused Mattie’s help from the very beginning, probably because they had never seen eye to eye on anything. “Aunt Mattie would have made mincemeat out of Josette and you know it.”
    “Yeah, well, maybe that’s what she needed, honey. You both needed a ma, but I just couldn’t bring myself to marry again. Just couldn’t replace your ma in my heart. At least Mattie would’ve been a woman for the both of you to look up to.”
    Julia was close to tears whenever her father