From the doorway, Hector said, “Do you remember Jojo? She lived at Rustling Willows a long time ago. We lived there, too, in those days, and later when the Kornbluths bought the place.”
Jimmy didn’t turn from the window. He stood slump shouldered, his right hand on the sill.
“There were horses on the ranch,” Hector said. “Many horses. Beautiful horses.”
Except for Annalisa and Jimmy, Hector had lived for horses. They were his life, his passion. In truth, he loved horses as he never could love Jimmy, for horses returned his affection.
“Jojo was born a rider,” Hector said. “She started on ponies but soon she was riding larger than her age. It scared me at first, to see that little girl astride a big mare. But she could handle them—and soon even stallions. The horses loved Jojo. They would do anything for her. None of us who’d worked with horses had ever seen anything like it.”
Jimmy said nothing; as always he said nothing.
“God, how I miss the horses,” Hector confessed. “I wish the Kornbluths had never sold the ranch. They’d have kept it a horse operation, and we’d still be there.”
When Liam O’Hara had sold off the horses, he provided Hector with not merely a severance package but also with a pension, which neither Sam Chase nor Roy Kornbluth provided. Yet Hector harbored some resentment toward the billionaire for having taken away the horses that were his great passion. He knew this feeling wasn’t worthy of him, that Liam O’Hara never earned it, but the ill will remained, like a precancerous lesion, and when Hector had too much to drink, the resentment became malignant.
If Jimmy had died and Annalisa had lived at least there would now be the comfort of a wife, and there would be enough money for a horse or two. Jimmy had health problems that kept Hector’s wallet thinner than he would have liked. This resentment, too, was unworthy of him. Jimmy was a burden, yes, but a burden earned and one that, Annalisa believed, they must carry or else endanger their immortal souls.
“Do you have a soul?” Hector wondered. “Do I? Your mother was so certain.”
Beyond the window, the dusk dimmed and the land darkened.
“I wonder what Jojo came here for, what she said to you.”
Silence but for the wind and the windmill.
“As she grew up, she must have wondered, doubted . . . must have wanted to be sure that it happened how they said.”
Jimmy moved his hand from the windowsill to the pane, as if to touch the storm wind and the dark, or maybe he yearned for something else beyond the glass.
“All these years,” Hector said, “I’ve been expecting her to come back with questions for me.”
Earlier in the day, when he’d gotten the call from Wyatt Rider, when he heard Joanna wanted to see him, pain had for a minute rocked him, as though his heart must be turning backward in his breast and twisting the vessels that brought it blood: the pain of fear, of remorse.
“But she asked me nothing about it. And if she had, what could I have said that would change anything or answer any doubts?”
Hector’s habit was to carry on long conversations with his son, as though Jimmy understood but was unable to respond. However, never had he spoken of this or of anything else so sensitive.
“I saw nothing that proved anything, nothing worth destroying his reputation and his business. It was not just my job at stake, you understand, but also those of everyone who worked for him. Your mother and I and you—we lived on the ranch in those days. It was our livelihood and our home.”
Jimmy raised his left hand and, as he’d done with his right, flattened it against the glass, as if pleading with someone for something.
“He sometimes swam in the lake after dawn. There was nothing different that morning except it was still dark when I saw him in a swimsuit, coming back from the lake. There was no reason for me to be suspicious. She hadn’t gone missing yet in the skiff. He ran when usually he would walk. But it was cool, you see. So maybe he was chilled. He didn’t go directly to the house, instead followed the willows, through which I had only glimpses of him. No ranch hands were up and about. Only me. No one else to see. What proof is that of anything? What reason to destroy a man’s life?”
From a great distance, thunder rolled. If rain was falling in the mountains, it would take a while yet to reach here.
“Later that day, when they found the empty skiff drifting on the water, and later still when they found her, what could I have done? Anyway, I knew that he was not capable of harming her. He was not a violent man. She was beautiful and kind and gentle. No husband would want to lose such a precious woman. He wept. I saw him weep and heard his grief. If earlier I had seen him wet and chilled and following the long arc of the willows to the house, who am I to say that proved anything, meant anything? It meant nothing.”