Darlene Graham - Born Under The Lone Star

But every morning she was up early to fix breakfast for the boys and Robbie and help her sister sift through the wreckage of her life. These first two weeks had flown by in a blur of trips to negotiate payment schedules with the funeral home, the doctor, the bank. They’d sorted through Danny’s clothes early in the first week because Robbie burst into tears every time she so much as glanced at a pair of his boots. They’d gone through the farm’s books and bills and paperwork together and, together, had come to a sad conclusion. Danny and Robbie’s debt was horrendous. Robbie admitted to Markie that it was far worse than Danny had let on.

“Sissy,” Markie started gently, “I don’t see how you can hold on to this farm.”

They were sitting at the same oblong oak table where Markie had been working her late-night hours. Only it was midafternoon and the slanting southwest sunshine made the table, made the whole house, in fact, look dusty and stagnant. Several flies had slipped in when the boys had clamored out to play. The insects wasted no time in finding the smears of ketchup the boys had left on the worn countertop.

As Markie got up to swat the flies and wipe the table, she longed to be back in her sleek, new air-conditioned town house on the edge of Austin’s urban sprawl. As penance for that selfish thought, she vowed to give her sister’s kitchen a thorough cleaning…as soon as they confronted this financial mess.

Robbie moaned softly with her elbows propped on the table, her head cradled in her hands. “But what are Mother and Daddy going to say if I default on the note? They cosigned on this place.”

“Let’s not worry about them. Let’s try to decide what’s best for you and the boys. If you file for bankruptcy, I believe you can stay on the place as a homestead.”

“Bankruptcy?” Robbie lifted her pale face. “I can’t do that. Danny would never do that. I’d rather sell out.”

Once Robbie had made up her mind, they’d gone to a Realtor in town, arranged for the sale of the place, and Markie had taken on the task of riding and walking the property with the appraiser.

“He said it might take months to find a buyer for a farm of more than a thousand acres,” Markie told her sister when she got back.

“Then the sooner I list the place, the better.”

“He thinks you should fix it up first.”

“Oh, really?” Robbie’s voice rose sarcastically. “Now, there’s an idea! Oh. But wait. I’m flat broke, pregnant as a pea, with three kids pulling at me all day long. Well, shoot.”

Markie had just stood there, flabbergasted. This was not her nicey-nice sister talking.

The work and stress had been going on like this for a few weeks when one night in the wee hours, right after she’d unplugged the laptop and jacked Robbie’s phone back in, the thing let out its jangling ring, as if it had been waiting. Markie snatched up the receiver.

“Hello?” She kept her voice down. A farm could be so eerily quiet. Noise carried especially far in the wee hours. Down by the remaining outbuildings one of the dogs set to barking.

“Markie?” The resonant baritone voice was unmistakably like the one she’d heard on the phone from Dallas recently. “This is you, isn’t it?”

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