Free Sweet Return by Anna Jeffrey Page B

you could figure out what it’s worth and I could buy it. Or I could buy just a few acres from you. I don’t need all six hundred and forty acres. You could let me pay it out over time.”
    “That ain’t what I wanna do. I feel like it’s my fault you got all these worthless chickens and the struggle to sell these damn eggs. If I hadn’t o’ talked you into it, you wouldn’t be doin’ it. I feel bad that now you got that mortgage on your house and all. If somethin’ happened to me, I know them boys wouldn’t let you keep these chickens or these donkeys here. They’d prob’ly run you clear off.”
    “Look, Clova. I’m not your responsibility, okay? I made a conscious decision to take out the mortgage on the house, and I was stone-cold sober when I did it. Let’s both think about it some more.”
    “I’m done thinkin’. I thought all the way home from Lubbock. Practic’ly gave m’self a headache. This last little trick of Lane’s has did it for me.”
    “Clova, listen. Before you do anything hasty, I want you to know I called Dalton. He wasn’t at home, but I left a message on his voice mail. I asked him to come for a visit. He hasn’t called back yet, but I’m hoping he will. If he decides to come home for a few days to help out, maybe we can talk to him about it. Sort of see how he’d feel about your giving away land he expects to inherit.”
    “Inheritin’ ain’t a automatic right, Joanna. Just ’cause him and Lane are next in line don’t mean they get it. Both of ’em need to show respect for it and do somethin’ to earn it. Like I did.”
    Joanna’s heart would hardly hold the emotion that swelled. Her dad had never earned much; he had driven a bread delivery truck for a Lubbock bakery until the day he became too ill to continue. He had left Mom a home and a small amount of insurance money, but she still held a job to make ends meet. Love and affection were all he’d had to leave his daughters. Everything Joanna owned she had earned from hard work. No one had ever given her so fine a gift as acres of land.
    “I still think we should both think about it some more,” she told Clova.
    Together they completed the egg-washing and storing process, then Joanna drove them into Hatlow to Sylvia’s Café. Sylvia herself was cooking, so they feasted on her special recipe of pot roast with fresh carrots, potatoes and onions and her homemade sourdough bread. Years back, Sylvia’s husband had worked as a chuckwagon cook at a legendary West Texas ranch, and he had brought his recipes to Sylvia’s Café. He had passed on, but his wife continued to cook in his style.
    They avoided discussing why Clova showed no enthusiasm for the possibility of her oldest son returning for a visit after so long. They didn’t discuss where he had been or why. Nor did they speculate on the consequences if Lane came out of his latest escapade crippled. Though Joanna was still burdened by the comments about Clova and Dalton from the day’s earlier conversation with her own mother and sister, tonight, with Clova, she talked about the food and music. They laughed about TV programs as if neither of them had a thing to worry about.
    Later, Joanna lay in her bed in the darkness watching the turn of the ceiling fan’s dimly visible blades. Joanna Faye Walsh, landowner. She could hardly believe it. Wow , was all she could think.
    Owning land opened doors to all kinds of opportunities. Why, she could sell her house. Then she could buy a mobile home and put it on the land and maybe have a free-and-clear roof over her head again. That way, she could be near the hens and wouldn’t have to make two trips a day to take care of them. She could even think about going into the broiler business. Didn’t someone tell her just last week that a meal of free-range chicken sold for forty dollars in the fancy restaurants in Dallas?
    With highway frontage, maybe she could put up a small stand and sell eggs and fresh fruits and vegetables.