Chapter 10: The Promise

Nobody answered me.

The only sound in the house was Birdie breathing on the couch.

Lottie unfolded her arms and leaned against the wall.

For the first time since I'd known her, she looked like she was enjoying herself.

"Go on," she said to Jesse. "She asked."

"Lottie, get out on the porch."

"It's cold."

"Get out."

She went, slowly, and left the door open a hand's width.

Jesse stood in the middle of my father's living room with his shirt unbuttoned and his hands hanging.

I had never seen him afraid before.

"Say it," I said.

"She's Dean's."

I heard it.

I did not feel it yet.

"Birdie is Dean's daughter," he said. "She's your niece, Hat."

I looked at the little girl on the couch.

I looked at the high narrow forehead, and the crease between her brows.

It was my father's forehead.

It was the one I had seen in the mirror every morning of my life.

"Tell me all of it," I said.

He told me standing up, because he couldn't sit.

Five years ago, the night after we buried my father, Dean had come to the Tillman ranch drunk and shaking.

He had sat on the tailgate of Jesse's truck until sunup.

He had been seeing Lottie the summer before, when she was home visiting her sister.

It had been three months, nothing serious.

She left, and he didn't think about it.

Then she called him to say she was pregnant.

"He was twenty-two," Jesse said.

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