Free The Wilder Sisters by Jo-Ann Mapson Page A

go bad as she passed the vasectomy reversal sign. She flipped it the bird and gunned the Lexus’s engine, taking it all the way to ninety. Lily’d been pregnant once, accidentally, at eighteen. She hardly ever allowed herself to think about abortion as anything but a necessary medical option. Trouble was, with her medical background, she knew far too much about the various stages of gestation to ease her guilt. The embryo hadn’t even been the size of a watch battery; nevertheless, it haunted her. If she had gone through with her pregnancy, she’d have a nearly grown child now. She supposed that just to punish her the baby would have been a girl, precociously prepubescent, her little body bursting with enough hormonal madness to turn Lily’s hair prematurely gray. On the positive side, her daughter would have had half her handsome father’s genes. Tres Quintero: What kind of father would he have made? If they’d stayed in Floralee, a dependable but frustrated one, because just like Lily, Tres had ambitions larger than staying in a small town. On the negative side, Lily’s daughter would have a mother in the nuthouse because she’d had to forgo a career, an aunt who didn’t speak to her mother, plus a grandmother prettier than the granddaughter could ever hope to

    become. On top of all that, like some bizarre mix of ice cream flavors, Lily’s daughter would have to wrestle with the complications of culture. While Lily’s Spanish and Indian blood was diluted enough to dismiss, Tres Quintero was dark skinned. His facial bone structure screamed out his surname. All her life Lily had run from her roots, hoping to avoid the politics that accompanied it, wishing to blend into some larger, more anonymous mainstream where she would be judged on her actions, not the traces of her blood. Marrying Tres—which he would have insisted she do—even at eighteen he was the kind of guy who believed it took two people to make a mistake—would have shut down all her paths. Repeatedly Lily as- sured herself she’d done right not telling Tres, going through the procedure alone, yet she couldn’t help imagining what gorgeous eyes any baby of his might’ve had, or how their mingled spirits would have melded together to create one remarkable child. Post- partum blues have to be a snap compared to this , she thought, and took a swig of the juice she’d bought at the Stop and Go in Flagstaff, next to the motel where she’d spent the night. Her mouth puckered and she nearly choked. The sad fact was that without the addition of vodka, there wasn’t a whole lot to recommend grapefruit juice.

    In less than a hundred miles she would cross the New Mexico state border. She felt curious as to how that might affect her after all these years. The Albuquerque airport was an aeronautical anomaly, with beautiful tile floors and leather seating. She flew in there all the time when she visited surgeons. The terminal had airflow and art on its walls, not recycled jet fuel exhaust and fading travel posters of faraway beaches. The cool southwestern beige, aqua, and touches of coral eased the traveler’s bleary eye. Whoever had designed it must have understood territorial architecture, because cramped coach seats and dreadful airplane meals were instantly forgotten the moment one stepped from the jetway into the high-ceilinged terminal.
    Driving to New Mexico offered another transition entirely. Gallup, the first big town she would come to, was in close proxim-
    ity to any number of trading posts she liked to shop: There was the Outlaw, seven miles east, in Church Rock, built in the old bullpen design, and Pinedale, with its enviable collection of dead pawn, just off that little road that ran parallel to I-40. Or in town, and by ap- pointment only, but worth it, Tanner Indian Arts. Her bare wrists just itched

    for silver bracelets. In her mind’s eye she designed herself a pair of custom-made cowboy boots with eighteen rows of feather stitching on