They Sold Me, Then My Dead Mother Came to Take Me Home novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: On Her Own Feet

I got to the top step and stopped there, because the step was as far as I could go.

The yard had filled while I crossed the trailer.

Eight ranch hands stood in a loose half circle, and the cook's boy was holding a bucket he had forgotten to put down.

My father stopped at the foot of the gravel with my brother at his shoulder and the deputy a pace behind.

"Mara," Ernest said, and he spread his arms. "Sweetheart. Thank God."

I looked at him from above.

He had signed the paper that put me in a car, and now he was smiling at me with wet eyes.

"Hello, Dad."

"We've been so worried."

"Seven years," I said. "That's a lot of worry."

The deputy cleared his throat and stepped up beside my brother.

"Ma'am, I'm with the county sheriff. I've got an order from the county here regarding your welfare. I just need to ask you a few questions."

"Go ahead."

"Can you tell me today's date?"

I told him the date, the day of the week and the name of the county.

"And who's the governor?"

I told him that too.

"And can you tell me where you live?"

"On Makinen Ranch, in a trailer I pay no rent for, because the man who owns the land is a decent man who won't let me."

I heard Jonas breathe in behind my father.

The deputy wrote on his clipboard.

"Seems pretty clear to me," he said.

"She's clever," Corbin said. "She always was. That isn't the question."

My brother stepped forward with the folder, and his smile did not change.

"The question is whether she can look after herself. Look at her. She can't cross a room. She hasn't left this property in seven years. She's been living off charity in the middle of nowhere, with a man who has every reason to keep her like this."

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