“I know, but I’ve got a good feeling. I think he’s going to bring something for my camera—maybe a new lens.”
“You’re such a dumbass.” Dani was always telling me I was too hopeful, Dad would never change. But sometimes he went weeks without drinking. Maybe one day he’d quit for good.
I was half expecting to see Dad’s truck in the driveway now as I walked toward our house, or have him roar past me, laughing as he left me choking on the dust. I glanced behind me. In the distance I could hear calves mooing and a tractor out in the fields. I aimed my camera at a pretty bird sitting on the fence, then took another shot of our house. Dani was home. I could tell she was in a mood by the way she’d parked the truck—sideways, windows down, the grille almost touching the front steps—and by the music blasting from inside the house. I slowed my pace.
I didn’t mind living on the ranch, but I wished it was ours—the bank had foreclosed on our old place. That house had been pretty—I still remembered the front patio swing, the white fence that went down to the road, how Dad would repaint it every year. This was just an old ranch hand’s house on a cattle farm, but we had lots of room, a big yard for Dad’s stuff, and we needed the work. After Mom died—she was hit head-on by a truck carrying a load of hay—Dad lost his job. He took off to Calgary for months. I’d just turned ten. Courtney was eleven and a half, and Dani almost thirteen. We ended up in foster homes.
They couldn’t find one willing to take all of us so I got put with a family that already had six kids, two of them handicapped. There never seemed to be enough food for everyone. I’d wait until my foster mother wasn’t looking, then slip some of my mashed potatoes or whatever onto the little kids’ plates, shaking my head to warn them to keep quiet about it. If one of them forgot and yelled, “Thank you!” my foster mom would whip around and we’d end up with nothing. I ran away once, trying to get to my sisters, but got picked up by the cops. I found out later they’d tried to run away a few times too. None of us made it.
Finally, after five months, Dad came back, promising to stay sober.
Courtney told me a little about her foster family, how the father peeked at her in the shower, how the mom used to slap her when he wasn’t watching.
Dani didn’t talk about her foster home much, just said the people had been old and couldn’t take care of their farm and wanted a helper. I don’t know if they were mean to her—she never said. Sometimes I wondered if she wished she was still there. “Did you like it better than taking care of us?” I said. She cuffed me lightly across the head and said, “Don’t be a dumbass.”
*
When I walked into the house she was sweeping the kitchen and I could smell pine-scented cleaner. All the windows were open.
“Where’ve you been?” she said. “I looked for you at the barn.”
“Ingrid needed help in the fields.”
During the school year we worked on the farm at night and on weekends, but in summer we worked whenever they needed us. Our arms and legs were muscled, our hands blistered—Courtney was always putting lotion on them or doing her nails. Dani would spend all day in the fields if she could, riding the tractor with a smile on her face, her hair under a big cowboy hat. Sometimes after school she’d even go over to her boyfriend’s place to help—his family had the neighboring farm. I didn’t mind working in the fields, but I preferred working with the animals. Spring was my favorite, all the babies being born, but I refused to eat the meat, which made Dad furious. I took a few beatings for that.
“We’ve got to get this place cleaned up before Dad gets back,” Dani said.
“Okay.” I started washing some dishes that had been on the counter for at least a week, scraping at the dried food, imagining a big dinner when Dad got home. I hoped he’d take me grocery shopping with him.
After Dad got us out of foster care, he’d found this place and kept himself together for months. Then the beer cans started piling up. The cops came by a few times, asking if we were okay, but we kept our mouths shut. When teachers asked about a black eye or a bruise we couldn’t hide, we’d say we fell or hurt ourselves on the ranch, tangled with a mean horse. If Dani heard someone teasing us, she delivered what we’d gotten good at taking. I didn’t tell her when a kid gave me a hard time about the smell of manure on my shoes or called Courtney names. It just made Dani feel bad.
“Where’s Courtney?” I said.
Dani shrugged. “Where is she usually?”