Angel Fire, Valmore Daniels [rosie project txt] 📗

to apologize for your uncle,” Aunt Martha began. “He’s a cranky ass, you know. Doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut.”

“I’ve heard worse.” With a little effort, I kept my voice nonchalant.

“Maybe, but not from family. He shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

Uncle Edward and I had never been close. Even as a child, he would treat me with cold indifference when I came over to visit—a sharp contrast to Aunt Martha’s welcoming arms and lovingly baked treats. I didn’t know if he didn’t like kids, or just me.

I guessed the past decade’s events had turned his apathy toward me into hatred.

Maybe there was more to it than that, judging by Aunt Martha’s words.

“Taken what out on me?” I asked.

“Well…”

I put a hand on her shoulder. She was trembling. “What is it, Aunt Martha?”

Wringing her hands, she mumbled, “I don’t mean to put this on you, because it’s not your fault. How could you know? You just got here.”

I spoke in a soft voice. “Tell me.”

A furtive glance in the direction of the office seemed to ease her nervousness. There was no one listening in to her confession.

“Well, for a couple years after … your ordeal … business got real slow. Some folks stayed away because they didn’t understand; some were angry; some just didn’t know what to say. On top of that, the economy hasn’t been what it used to be. Fewer travelers. With that new interweb thing people just talk on their computers rather than meet face to face. What is this world coming to? I mean—”

“And?” I prompted to get her back on track.

“We had to get an extension on the loan, and then we had to lay off all our staff just to make ends meet.”

I put my hand on my heart. “I was wondering why it was just you two here. Why didn’t you say anything? I’m so sorry.”

“No, don’t,” she said. “It’s been a rough ride, but it’s not your fault. It’s nobody’s fault, really. Oh, this isn’t your problem. I should have just kept my big trap shut. It’s just—”

“Just what?”

Aunt Martha sighed. “Well, Edward and I aren’t getting younger.”

“You’re not so—”

She put up a hand to stop me.

“We are. But that’s not what I wanted to say. Things have started to pick up again. We’re finally shifting back to normal. Who knows, we might even have a little left over this year.”

“That’s great, Aunt Martha.” I furrowed my brow, wondering how long it would take her to make her way completely around the bush before she finally came to the point.

“Well, working long hours seven days a week is taking its toll. And … well … we’re getting tired. Running a motel is a lot of work for two old fogies like us.”

She needed to take another deep breath before she looked me in the eye.

“We’ve been talking about selling,” she said finally.

“Oh?” I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, wasn’t sure I had the right to feel one way or another about it. For as long as I could remember, the Lazy Z had been like a mainstay for our family. Although only related by marriage, my mother and Aunt Martha were closer than most sisters were, and when I was young they wouldn’t go more than a day without visiting, so I was always over here. I think I spent more time playing in the parking lot and the field behind the motel than I did in my own backyard.

“But the market is still soft right now. We’d lose our shirts. We just can’t sell this year; maybe not even next year. In the meantime, let’s just say we probably wouldn’t want to hire the sort of person who would take the salary we could afford to pay. Rock and a hard place. The Lazy Z has been in the family for fifty years. Edward is taking it as a personal failure that we’re faced with this.”

“Is there anything I can do? Anything?”

Aunt Martha wrung her hands again, as if expecting the worst. “Yes, there is.”

I nodded once, firmly. “Name it.”

“Stay on. Work the motel. Like I said, we can’t pay you much. Oh, Lord, I feel like I’m taking advantage of you for this.”

I had so many conflicting thoughts at that point; I didn’t know what to say first.

“That’s what I wanted in the first place: To stay here and help out. But Uncle Edward said—”

Aunt Martha waved her hand. “Edward is as stubborn as an ass. He needs to get over himself. Life’s too short. He knows deep in his heart it was an accident, what happened to his sister and Robert. He’s just being ornery. Can you forgive him?”

“Forgive him? Of course, Aunt Martha. And I would love to stay and help out.”

She threw her arms around me and gave me a noisy kiss on the cheek. “You won’t regret this, Darcy.”

For the first time that day, I felt my heart swell with hope. Leave it to Aunt Martha to make the person responsible for the deaths of her in-laws welcome in her home.

“I’m just glad I can help.”

“Edward’s in the office,” she said. “I told him to apologize to you, though if you get a grunt out of him you’re doing better than I am.”

I shook my head. “I really don’t need an apology, but I’ll go see him right away.”

“Listen,” she said. “I want you to feel at home here. I know the room isn’t much, but it’s yours for as long as you like.”

“That’s far too generous. You have to let me pay my own way.”

She waved her hand. “Pish-posh. I’m just so happy you’re back.”

Aunt Martha beamed a wide smile at me and I suddenly felt much better about myself. She hugged me again, and I didn’t want her to ever let go.

“Me too, Aunt Martha. Me too.”

 

Chapter Six

Uncle Edward and my mother could have passed as twins, though nearly five years separated them. Both were tall and spare, almost willowy. They had narrow jaws, high cheekbones and slightly protruding chins. Both were fair complexioned, but that’s where the similarity ended.

Eleanor Johnson—Ellie to her friends and family—was a free spirit. She refused to cut her hair, and by the time she was an adult, her flaxen locks hung down to her hips. She would occasionally wear it in a braid, but her preferred style was to leave it loose. Uncle Edward had never changed his hairstyle from the day he left the military; as far back as I could remember, he had always sported a crew cut which he would get trimmed at least once every two weeks.

Eleanor explored art and literature; she loved crafts and antiques. At any given point in her life, she had at least one adopted pet—a stray cat, a wounded bird, a lost dog; and once she even brought home a lost bear cub (which apparently caused quite a stir in the Johnson household that day).

Uncle Edward went straight into business courses in Flagstaff and, once he returned to Middleton, gradually ensconced himself in the day to day operations of the Lazy Z, assuming as much responsibility as his father would dole out until the day my grandfather had his second heart attack and decided it was time to retire.

My mother never wanted anything to do with running a business, and was more than happy to let her brother take over the Lazy Z. When Uncle Edward and Ellie were old enough, Uncle Edward got the motel and my mother got the large family house for their inheritance. My grandparents relocated to a cabin on the edge of some property they owned outside town, where they lived out their remaining days.

My mother loved to tell me about how my father had changed her life. When it came to marriage, she would never have tied the knot—she was such a wild spirit—if she hadn’t met her soul mate in my father the summer after high school graduation.

She was waitressing in Fresno while staying at her great aunt’s when she met Robert Anderson on a hike with her cousins. A biologist, he was monitoring migratory patterns of the native bird population for the University of Sacramento, and the two of them hit it off famously. By the end of that summer, Ellie had come back home to Middleton freshly engaged. Robert transferred to Northern Arizona University, and I arrived a little under a year later.

My mother told me once she never thought her brother would ever get married, not because Uncle Edward didn’t want to, but more because of his naturally abrasive personality. None of the local girls wanted anything to do with him, except for one. It took someone like Aunt Martha to see past the gruff exterior and spot the loyal, hardworking, and devoted person beneath. Rumor had it that she had proposed to him—something of a scandal back in those days.

Unfortunately, marriage never softened Uncle Edward, and even his own family had difficulty spending more than a few hours at a time with him.

Growing up, I can’t say I had ever held more than a one-sentence conversation with him; but now, standing outside the front office of the Lazy Z in the morning sun, my hair still wet against my back from my morning shower, he had my undivided attention.

I walked a step behind Uncle Edward, who frequently pointed his finger like a gun while taking me through the orientation—as if I had never spent thousands of days at the motel.

His voice dripped with impatience. “Right there’s the electrical room, in case you need to throw a breaker back on. Dumb-ass power company out here. Everything goes dead in a storm, and we get interruptions even on a clear day.”

Reaching out, he rattled the door knob, and glanced at me pointedly.

“Always make sure it’s locked. Check it twenty times a day if you have to. Every time you walk by, check it. Don’t want some punk kid sneaking in there to smoke dope.”

“Got it.” I nodded affirmatively.

Uncle Edward shuffled down to the next room. He paused and made a show of producing a key from a retractable karabiner hooked to his belt loop. Jiggling the knob to prove to me it was locked, he proceeded to unlock it and threw open the door.

“Maintenance and laundry room. All the cleaning carts and room supplies are in here. Light bulbs, toilet paper, what have you. Same thing: check the door every time you go past. Guests might think it’s a free-for-all on towels and soap, and those damned things cost a fortune.”

I nodded again. “Got it.”

Uncle Edward gave me a stern look. I kept my face serious.

He grunted before he continued on down the line of rooms to the end of the motel, not looking back, simply assuming I was following.

Behind the building a length of pavement bordered a field of tall grass that stretched all the way to a gentle hill a hundred feet away. As a child, I used to love racing down there on my bike. Beyond the hill was Circle Lake, where we sometimes picnicked and fished.

My uncle pointed toward the end of the motel. He said, “Back there is the trash bin. Keep it locked as well. Ranch folk will drive up here in the middle of the night and fill it up with their junk otherwise. We don’t need to be paying to haul someone else’s garbage.”

“Uncle Edward, I want to thank you for giving me a chance. I know we’ve never seen eye to eye, and I know