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“I hope Aunt Tessa helped you with your problem.”

  Miss Gloria’s eyes widened. “Oh, no. You’re mistaken. I don’t have a problem. Your aunt was asking me about my religion.”

  What? I stared at Aunt Tessa. She vigorously shook her head.

  “Okay,” I responded, not knowing for sure what was going on here. “Would you like to stay for supper?” I waved a hand at the stove. “I’m going to make tuna casserole.”

  “No,” Mrs. Swiggly said, then repeated herself. “No. But thanks for the invitation. I must get home. Ray Don will be wanting his supper, too.”

  “Bye.” I raised a hand.

  The woman bustled out the door and I turned to Aunt Tessa. “Whoa! Don’t tell me you’re thinking about converting to the Church of the Living Jesus?”

  Aunt Tessa shot me a dirty look and snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  I jerked a thumb at the back door. “What was that about?”

  Gleefully, Aunt Tessa rubbed her palms together. I could tell she considered it quite a feather in her cap that Miss Gloria had sought her expertise. “The woman was embarrassed to come to me. She insisted on the proselytizing story to cover the fact she wanted her cards read and swore me to secrecy.” Aunt Tessa sank into a chair beside me. “Lord, that woman’s got a lot of problems.”

  “Like what?”

  “Come on, Ally, you know I can’t violate client confidentiality.”

  “You’re not a priest, Aunt Tessa, nor a psychiatrist.”

  “In many cases I assume the role of both,” she said.

  “But you hate Swiggly. How come you’re giving readings to his wife?”

  “She paid fifty bucks.”

  “It could be a put-on. You know, she could be trying to gather ammunition to use against us.”

  Aunt Tessa shook her head. “You didn’t see what the cards told me about her, Ally. The woman is very messed up.”

  “Is it her husband?” I asked. “Does he cheat on her? Let me guess, he’s diddling the church secretary. You know the old classic story.” I couldn’t resist chuckling.

  “I’m not discussing it.” She pointed her chin in the air. “It’s obvious you don’t respect my profession, I suggest we change the subject.” When Aunt Tessa turned haughty it was a sure bet you weren’t going to get anything out of her.

  “Wanna soda?” I asked, defusing her indignation before it expanded.

  She nodded and without getting up, I swiveled my torso toward the fridge, opened the door and hauled out another Dr. Pepper. I popped off the top and passed it to Aunt Tessa.

  I wasn’t quite sure if my aunt was really psychic or simply believed she was. She wasn’t a fraud, at least not intentionally. Sometimes her predictions came true and sometimes they didn’t, but she did possess uncanny insight into human nature. That, I believed, was her real talent.

  Then again, if Aunt Tessa was so perceptive maybe I could ask her about Conahegg and me. Like what were the chances we’d ever get together?

  “Something’s wrong,” Aunt Tessa stated.

  “Is your Dr. Pepper flat?”

  “No, there’s something wrong with you.”

  I met her eyes, which darkened with concern. Before she could read me, I looked away. “Nothing’s wrong with me.”

  “Bad news,” Aunt Tessa said.

  “How do you know?”

  “When you’re worried you get these little lines around your mouth. Just like your father used to.”

  I reached up and fingered the corners of my mouth. “You’re right. It’s bad news.”

  “Is it about a patient?”

  “Yeah. But it’s more than that.”

  Aunt Tessa’s hand flew to her chest. “Someone’s dead.”

  I nodded.

  “Anyone we know?”

  I nodded again.

  Aunt Tessa inhaled sharply. “Let me see if I can determine who.”

  “It’s Tim,” I said, not inclined to play guessing games.

  “Tim? You mean Sissy’s ex-boyfriend? The one who decided he was gay?”

  “Yes.”

  “But how? When?” Her hand crept from her heart to her throat and her eyes widened.

  “It was an accidental suicide.” That was a polite way of explaining his undignified demise.

  “Does Sissy know?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Oh my gosh, who’s going to tell her?”

  I knew I’d be the one to have to tell Sissy. I’d known it from the moment I’d found Tim’s body. What would Aunt Tessa do, I wondered, if I told her she’d have to break the news? Probably go into Ung mode and hibernate.

  “I’ll tell her.”

  Aunt Tessa placed her hand over mine. “You’re an angel, Ally. A direct gift from God.”

  Funny how my mother and my aunt always complimented me when I took care of the unpleasant things in their lives. But they were my family, how could I begrudge them? They’d come to depend upon me so completely it was impossible to pull the rug out from under them. Like it or not, I was the caretaker. Always had been. Always would be.

  Inexplicably, I longed for a man to lean on. A strong masculine presence to take care of everything. I shook my head, surprised at my own thoughts.

  “Listen, don’t tell Mama, at least not yet,” I said.

  “This is a very bad thing.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “And I have the strangest feeling it’s not as it seems,” Aunt Tessa said.

  “Where’s Denny?” I asked, anxious to change the subject.

  “He’s upstairs watching television.”

  The back door opened and Mama came in from the pottery shed, smelling of plaster, paint and turpentine. She carried a cardboard box in her arms.

  I got up to take the box from her and set it on the table.

  “Thank you, Ally,” Mama said. “You’re home early.”

  “Yes. Bad day. I’ll tell you about it in a bit.” I nodded. “Do you know where Sissy went?” I picked an apple from the fruit bowl and polished it against my shirt.

  “What do you think?” Mama held up a ceramic troll doll and two different colored tufts of cotton. “Green or pink for his hair?”

  “Pink. His whole outfit is green.”

  “You’re right.” She nodded.

  “What about Sissy?” I bit into the apple and pulled out a chair for Mama. It was hot in the pottery shed and her hair had come loose from its chignon and lay flat against the back of her neck.

  “I believe that she went to see Rocky,” Mama murmured and sat down, that familiar faraway expression in her eyes.

  For most of my life my mother has been out to lunch. When I found out she had been quite the hippie back in the sixties, I wondered if too much experimentation with drugs had affected her powers of concentration.

  But the truth is, everyone on my mother’s side of the family is a little off center. First, there’s Aunt Tessa. A cavewoman-channeling tarot card reader who’d been through four husbands and lived in sixteen foreign countries before coming to stay with us after Daddy died. Then there’s my Uncle Charlie, who’s a charming Shakespearean actor with a penchant for kleptomania. He’s currently serving five to ten in Huntsville for “borrowing” a Jaguar from a dealership showroom.

  My mother’s father had been a circus performer. A fire-eating sword swallower. I never met him. He died in a rather grisly circus accident before I was born. Nobody talked about it much.

  And grandma was reputed to have been an herbal healer and a good witch. The kind you go to for lucky talismans and love potions. I do remember her. She was small and had a naughty twinkle in her eye. She liked to gossip about the neighbors and their health problems.

  I used to sit on a stool in her kitchen and watch her cook up crazy things in big vats. Poultices and headache cures, restorative elixirs and impotency remedies. She never baked cookies or raised flowers in her gardens like regular grandmothers. When you think about where they came from, you can’t really bla
me Mama and Aunt Tessa for being so weird.

  I laid my hand on Mama’s and waited for her to give me her attention. It took a while. When Mama is off in her magical, mystical world of trolls and castles, fair maidens and dashing knights, it’s often hard to pull her back.

  She looked up and blinked at me over the top of her reading glasses.

  “We have got to do something about Sissy,” I said.

  “Allegheny.” A stern note crept into her voice. She didn’t believe in butting into her children’s lives, even when she should be butting in. “Your sister is a grown woman.”

  “Rocky is a bad influence on her.”

  “It’s not our place to tell her who she can and can’t date.” Mama’s gaze slid sideways toward the troll, her fingers tightening on the porcelain figurine. I could see she was aching to slip back into her world and away from mine.

  “Why not? We care about her. We love her.”

  “Allegheny, we don’t learn when people lecture. We only learn from our mistakes.”

  It’s really hard to get my mother to see reality. Usually, I don’t even try. But sometimes Sissy will listen to Mama. She never listens to me.

  “He’s got her smoking pot.”

  Mama leveled me a look. “I smoked pot when I was young.”

  Yeah, I was tempted to say, and look what happened to you. “Not when you had kids,” I said instead. “Sissy is responsible for Denny. She needs to be held accountable for her actions.”

  “Sometimes you can be very harsh, Ally. I don’t know where you get that from. Your father was so kind and caring and I don’t judge people. What’s made you so hard?”

  Her words stung. I won’t deny it. Hard? Harsh?

  “I only mention it because I care about Sissy and I don’t want her to get into trouble.” I smashed my lips together. I would not cry.

  “Leave her be, Ally,” my mother said. “Just leave your sister be.”

  “Fine.”

  I got up and slung my uneaten apple into the trash can on my way out the door. I was still dressed in my mauve scrub suit and white lab coat but I didn’t care. I stalked away from the house and down the hill toward the river.

  I reached the river’s edge and stared out across the water. I swallowed several deep gulps of air and watched as a sand crane skimmed the water searching for one last meal before bedding down for the night.

  When had I become the enemy?

  Maybe Rhonda was right. Maybe it was long past the time when I should let my family sink or swim.

  Why don’t you hightail it out of here? the rebellious voice in the back of my mind whispered. The voice I never listened to. You could leave. Get a job as a traveling nurse. Take off and see the world. Like you’ve always dreamed of doing.

  I bent to pick up a stone and skipped it across the water. It splashed four times before sinking into the middle of the Brazos river. My father would have been proud. He’d taught me to skip stones and he loved the river with his heart and soul. He had passed that love on to me. It’s the reason why he willed me the house. He knew no one cared about the place the way I did. He also knew I’d provide for everyone.

  “Ah, Daddy.” I sighed.

  He’d been dead for almost sixteen years but I never lost that tight awful knot somewhere dead center within my heart. He’d been the only sane thing in my insane childhood. He’d been the cement holding our bizarre little family together and when he died, he’d passed that torch on to me.

  I closed my eyes, remembering the end. His body had been completely ravaged by cancer. I’d only been fifteen but I’d stayed out of school to be with him.

  Mama had been hysterical, unable to cope. The doctors had kept her so medicated she’d stumbled through the next few years in a total daze. With one of his last breaths, Daddy, his frail body no more than flesh-covered bones, had taken my hand in his.

  “Promise me you’ll take care of your mother, Ally. And Sissy, too. They’ll never make it without you.” He squeezed my fingers. “Promise me, so I can die in peace.”

  “I promise, Daddy.”

  I’d made that vow with the most solemn of intentions. And I’d kept my promise. Ah, the old triple threat, duty, honor and guilt. What powerful motivations.

  Don’t forget fear, the voice in the back of my head piped up.

  Fear? I wasn’t afraid of anything.

  And yet the question nagged. Was I afraid to let go of my family? Was I afraid to be alone, to fashion my own life? Was I actually using their dependency as an excuse, hiding behind it so that I didn’t have to face the truth?

  Was Allegheny Green afraid of not being needed?

  The idea was startling, disturbing and I didn’t want to consider it anymore.

  I hitched in a deep breath and opened my eyes. The sun was hugging the horizon in a vivid splash of orange and pink. I smelled honeysuckle and the odor of fish.

  Home.

  I parked my butt in a lawn chair on the dock, and watched the perch come up to feed, blowing bubbles on the water’s green surface. I heard the back door creak and footsteps padding down to the river.

  “Aunt Ally?”

  Glancing up, I saw my nephew, Denny, standing in the twilight. He was a cute kid with big brown inquisitive eyes and a chocolate-colored cowlick that insisted on flopping over his forehead no matter how much hair gel he slathered on it.

  “Hey there.” I held out my hand to him. He sauntered over the dock’s planks and let me pull his lanky body onto my lap. It wouldn’t be long until he would resist such closeness. I knew that and I savored his warm, slightly sweaty body pressed against mine.

  We sat for the longest moment, staring out across the river, breathing together as the stars began to speckle the sky.

  “Are you mad at Mom?” he asked.

  “I’ll get over it.”

  “I hate that Rocky fella.”

  I smiled at his unintentional pun. “So do I.”

  “When Mom’s with him she forgets about me.”

  No matter what my opinion of Rockerfeller Hughes might be, I had to be diplomatic when dealing with an eight-year-old. The poor kid had never known his real Daddy. Hell, Sissy wasn’t even sure who the father had been.

  “Your mother never forgets about you, Denny. She loves you very much.”

  “Yeah? Well if she loves me so much how come you’re the one who packs my lunch and drives me to school and takes me to the dentist?”

  “Denny, I like doing those things. I like taking care of people. That’s why I’m a nurse.”

  “I wish my mom liked taking care of people the way you do, Aunt Ally.” He leisurely swung his foot, kicking me lightly in the shins.

  “Your mom is good at other things besides taking care of people.”

  “Oh yeah? Like what?” Denny challenged, turning his head so he could see my face.

  “She’s a good singer. And a good dancer. Don’t you two have lots of fun when she turns up the radio and dances around the living room with you?”

  “She doesn’t do that much anymore. Not since she started hanging out with fart-face Rocky.”

  “Denny,” I said. “Don’t talk like that.”

  “Why not? Mama says fart and worse.” He folded his hands into his armpits so that his arms looked like wings.

  “Your mother shouldn’t say such words, either.”

  “I know.”

  What was one supposed to do with a wise kid? I had no idea. I only wished my sister would grow up and realize what a treasure her son truly was.

  “Aunt Ally?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You won’t ever go away will you?”

  “Of course not.” I looked down at him, guiltily remembering that a few minutes earlier I’d been contemplating escape. “What makes you ask that?”

  Denny shrugged. “I heard Gramma telling Aunt Tessa you need a boyfriend.”

  “Well, even if I did have a boyfriend, I wouldn’t leave you.”

  “But what if you got m
arried and had kids of your own? Who would take care of me and Mama?”

  “I’d never marry someone who wouldn’t let you and your Mama live with us.”

  Denny made a face. “I don’t want you to ever get married.”

  “Don’t worry about it, champ. If I ever get married, it’s a long ways off.”

  “Aunt Ally? Can I ask you a favor?”

  “For you, anything.”

  Denny took a deep breath. “You know my Junior Adventurers troop is having a campout the weekend after next.”

  “Yes.”

  “Mama said she would go but now she says she can’t.”

  “Oh, Denny, I’m so sorry.” Fresh anger at my sister welled inside me.

  “Will you do it, Aunt Ally? We need another grown-up to help chaperone or they’re going to call off the trip.”

  “Why sure, Denny. I’ll be happy to. I’ll switch my work schedule at the hospital with Rhonda.”

  “Really?” He beamed.

  “Sure.”

  He hugged me. “You’re the best aunt in the whole wide world.”

  Unexpected emotions crowded my throat. I ruffled his hair. “Come on, let’s go inside. The mosquitoes are nibbling you up and it’s time to start dinner.”

  Denny followed me into the house, a pensive expression on his face. I knew that he was worrying about his mother and his own future. We were a lot alike, my nephew and I. Both worriers, both willing to take on the weight of the world.

  I wanted to tell him it wouldn’t do any good. That no matter how much you worried bad things still happened. But who can tell an eight-year-old something like that?

  Instead, I shook off my own gloominess and took Denny by the hand. I wasn’t afraid to be alone. I’d made my decision a long time ago. I belonged here. On the river. With my family. The people who counted on me. There would be no trips to foreign locales. No boyfriends and no marriage. No matter how I might dream that it could be different, there simply wasn’t enough room in my life for Sam Conahegg.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I WAITED UP UNTIL midnight for Sistine to come home. Finally, I dozed off in the rocking chair in the living room, Mama’s hand-crocheted afghan thrown across my lap. The back door creaking open jerked me awake a little after 2:00 a.m.

  The low-watt kitchen venti-hood bulb illuminated Sissy in silhouette. She crept into the house carrying her thick-soled, sling-back pumps in one hand and her purse in the other. She wore one of those barely there tank tops like the female characters on a Friends re-run and a spandex skirt that didn’t cover her thighs.