Rustic Hearts

Sophie

I tightly hold Braxton’s hand and let him lead me to the porch, Daddy follows a few minutes later and sits in a rocking chair.

Braxton turns me to face him and lets go. He cups my face with his hands. “Hear him out. It can’t be worse than what you already imagine in that gorgeous head of yours.”

I nod, and he kisses my forehead. I take a seat on the porch swing, and he grasps Daddy’s shoulder for a moment before he walks back inside.

We sit in silence with nothing but the crickets and tree frogs groaning around us.

Finally, he leans his elbows on his knees and starts to speak, “That year was a hard one for us. There was a severe drought throughout the county, and as a result, wildfires ravaged the mountainside. One took out over half our grazing pastures and most of our cattle. Pop and I saved what we could, but it spread too fast, and we had to fight it with all we had just to save the house and the barn. Some of the ranches west of us lost everything, including some lives, so at the end of the day, we counted ourselves lucky. Lucky but in dire straits. We had no steers to take to auction that year. We lost our best heifers. We knew it was going to take years to recover, if we recovered at all.

“So, when a Hollywood scout showed up at the door one afternoon, looking for a location to film for a big motion picture that was in production, we had no choice but to accept. They paid us a decent sum of money for the use of one of the grain silos and a few acres of land off the backside of our property line. They were going to be here for eight weeks. Eight weeks, and he promised we wouldn’t even know they were here.”

I vaguely remember the fires but not the severity he’s describing.

“I hated the thought of them on our land. I hated them trampling the fields, cutting back trees, and littering our space with trailers and campers and equipment. It was a nuisance, but Vivian, she loved it all. She was always enamored with Hollywood. She liked to sing and dance, and she was fairly good at it—as far as her little bit of experience at the local town theater. She was always on the piano, practicing for some production they were putting on.”

He gets a far-off look in his eyes.

“She had the sweetest voice. I loved to come home and hear her singing in the kitchen.”

He looks back at me. “She was vulnerable. I should have paid better attention, but Pop and I were so preoccupied, working sunup to sundown, trying to repair the damages as much as we could ourselves. Once you were off to school, she would spend her entire day down there, watching the goings-on with the filming. Then, it got to where she wasn’t picking you up at school on time or doing anything at the house. One day, I happened to be coming to the barn for some tools—I can’t remember what exactly—and Mrs. Martin was pulling up with you in her car. You had been sitting at the school for over two hours, waiting for your mother to pick you up, and finally, she brought you home when they couldn’t get anyone to answer the phone at the house.”

I recall that day. I was so embarrassed that my teacher had to bring me home.

“You were upset. You had sat there for hours. I got you inside, and your mother was nowhere to be found, but I knew where to look for her. I got you settled, and I headed for the filming location. When I got there, it looked like they had finished up for the day. A few people were milling around, and I asked for the director. They pointed me to a trailer that I assumed was his office. I stormed in to ask if he had seen your mother.”

He stops for a moment as pain crosses his face. He focuses his eyes on the porch floor.

“He knew where she was all right, and it wasn’t an office. It was his personal trailer. They were in his bed together. In the act. I lost it and flew into a rage. I pulled him off of her, and I beat the man. Beat him bad. She kept screaming and trying to get me off of him, but all I could see was him defiling my wife. My love.”

He takes a deep breath.

“I dragged her from the site. Told them to pack up their gear and get the hell off my land. Your mother wasn’t even remorseful. She was angry. She told me that they were in love and that he was going to take her to New York and make her a star. He was full of shit. He saw a pretty, naive girl, and he took advantage.

“The film crew packed up the next day and headed out. I sat and watched until the last truck pulled out. Then, I went to the fishing cabin for a couple of nights. I needed to clear my head, and I didn’t want to lash out in anger, not in front of you. I needed a little time to calm down. I could forgive her. I loved her that much. She broke my heart, and I was furious. But I could forgive her, and that was what I came to tell her when I found the note you’d left for me. She had packed the two of you up in the middle of the night and taken off.”

He stops his trip down memory lane there and waits. I let his story rattle around in my brain.

Fragments come to my memory. The film crew leaving abruptly. Mom’s frantic state that night. Daddy’s odd fishing trip in the middle of the week. All of it.

“Sophie, sweetheart, say something.”

“She lied to me,” I whisper.