Page 131 of Westin

My knuckles rap on the door. There’s a short silence, and the blue front door opens as my mother’s pale, oval face appears. She pulls back, shocked that I’m finally visiting. Then, she recovers and pushes open the screen.

“Westin,” she whispers. “Come inside, baby.”

I’m thirty-seven and six and a half feet tall, but I don’t tell her I’m not her baby. I just kiss the top of her head and follow her into the front hall. She’s in leggings and a big sweatshirt, her gray and brown hair piled on her head and skewered with a pin. Everything is exactly how I remember.

“Can I get you coffee?” she asks once we’re in the kitchen.

I nod, sinking down. She has tiny chairs, and I always feel them groan beneath me. She busies herself making coffee. The room is thick with the unspoken months since my last visit. I clear my throat.

“Sorry I haven’t been around,” I say. “The ranch has been busy.”

She waves a hand. “I understand. How’s it been?”

“It’s good. We turn a decent profit,” I say.

She sets the coffee down before me and gets a cup for herself. I take mine black; she likes lots of sugar. Her eyes fall on my hand on the mug, and she frowns.

“You get so many scars from the barbed wire, baby,” she says. “Make sure you wear gloves.”

I nod, clearing my throat.

She chews on her lower lip. There’s a faint light in her eyes that hasn’t been there in a while.

“Something going on?” I ask.

She smiles, tapping her mug. “I’m seeing someone.”

My brow arches. “Oh? What’s his name?”

“Matthew Hewitt,” she says, blushing a little. “He’s very kind, quiet and…gentle.”

I know the Hewitt family; they own a chain of banks in South Platte. Matthew is about my mother’s age, and he has always been respectful towards me, but I don’t know him well.

“I’ll drop by and see him sometime,” I say.

Horror creeps over her face. “Don’t you dare, Westin.”

I reach out and take her hand. “I won’t fuck this up for you. You deserve to be happy.”

“Don’t swear, baby,” she says, her eyes going soft. “And thank you. He’s very different from your father, but we’re happy.”

My mind goes back to this morning. My hand loosens, and I withdraw it. My mother’s eyes follow me, her brow creased.

“You came here to ask me something,” she says quietly.

I nod. I’m not sure how to say the words.

“Ask me anything,” she urges.

“Was my father a good man?” I say, looking her in the eyes.

She’s taken aback. Her nails clink on her mug as she thinks.

“He wasn’t,” she says finally. “He was gentle but very stern and bullheaded. There was a reason my father ran him off with a gun.”

I cough, clearing my throat. “What?”

She shrugs. “My father ran him off with a gun the first time he came to our door. He was too old for me, but I was just so…young, I guess. I couldn’t see all the reasons why a cattle farmer who’d already been married twice was a bad match for an eighteen-year-old girl.”

---