Holly carried the two wine glasses out to the front porch, holding one in the crook of her arm as she shut the door.

“Mind if I join you?” she asked as she handed Rachel one of the glasses.

When she shook her head, Holly took a sip of her wine, sitting down on the edge of porch next to her.

“It’s beautiful out here.” Holly tried to think of something to talk about with her sister-in-law.

Since her miscarriage, Rachel’s fiery personality had undergone a drastic change. She was so somber. The only time she exhibited any trace of emotion was with Ema.

Neither Cash, nor her brothers, knew how to help her. Even the weekly counseling sessions Cash had Rachel take with him weren’t working.

Taking another sip of her wine, she looked down into its dark depths, biting her lip. “Do you hate me?”

Rachel swung her head toward her at the sudden question. “Not once have I thought that.”

Holly rubbed her lips together, making them firm to keep them from trembling. “I should have answered Mitch’s letters. If I had known his friend blamed me for his death, I could have talked to him, made him understand how sorry I was that he had died in that accident.”

“There was no way you could have known Brett was in love with Mitch. He didn’t even know. When the police checked his apartment, he practically had a shrine to him. They think he’d been in love with him since high school. If Mitch didn’t know, there was no way you could have.

“You weren’t responsible for Brett, and you weren’t responsible for Lindy. No one she worked with knew they had met when he came to Treepoint and exchanged numbers. From what Knox said, they just fed each other’s obsession to get back at you.”

Holly gave a bitter laugh. “She thought me and Dustin were having an affair. She became even madder when I married Greer. Knox was able to get a warrant for their messages. He said one of Lindy’s texts was so violent he didn’t think women could think that way.”

“A jealous woman is a dangerous thing.”

“Yes, they are,” Holly agreed.

Lindy’s jealousy had affected her whole life, and Rachel’s.

She and Greer hadn’t even made love since she had come home from the hospital two months ago. Logan slept with her, afraid to go to sleep. Every member of their family was tense, walking around each other on eggshells, because they didn’t want to hurt Rachel if they mistakenly brought up her miscarriage, or Logan and her almost dying. Each person needed time to heal the wounds that Mitch and Lindy had dealt them.

“Logan doesn’t want to go out for Halloween this year. He says he’s too old to go. And he doesn’t color anymore. He threw his coloring pad away after I mistakenly turned the next page for him to draw on and realized he had already drawn on it. He had drawn a king’s crown on a dark sheet..”

“Because he’s afraid. He thought the pictures in his head were his imagination. When he almost died, he found out they aren’t. I was afraid of everything after I almost died. Tate said he was, too. When he’s ready, we’ll talk to him. He’s not ready yet.”

Holly sighed, finishing her wine. “All the Porters are strong. From what little I found out, you’re used to licking your wounds until they’re healed. For the rest of us, it isn’t as easy.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re pushing Cash away until you come to terms over losing the baby. Greer is pushing me away, because he thinks he didn’t protect me. I lived with you, and I didn’t know you and Greer were capable of healing like you can.” She waved away Rachel’s explanation as to why. “I understand why. I’m not blaming you. I just wish you would open up to me more. I didn’t even know you had been seriously injured when you were younger, and I still don’t know how your accident happened.”

“Tate, Greer, and I went to the lake to go swimming” Rachel began. “It was the first time Ma let us go by ourselves. Tate and Greer promised to keep an eye on me, so she let us go. Tate and Greer did watch me. They were very responsible. I was the one being silly. I kept wanting to climb on the rock, and they kept telling me no. They had taken their fishing poles, and when they were baiting their hooks, I sneaked away to climb the rock. I wanted to jump off just like I’d seen them do. I was diving into the water when I heard them yelling at me.

“That’s the last thing I remember, until I heard Greer’s voice in my head. The pain was unbelievable. I couldn’t believe I could feel that kind of pain and still be alive. I couldn’t breathe and knew I was dying.

“Holly, it was beautiful. I didn’t want to come back, but Greer wasn’t letting me go.”

“No, he wasn’t. How did Tate get hurt?”

Rachel wrapped her arms around her legs. “When Pa got drunk on moonshine, he got really drunk. He and Ma had some bad fights about how he would make us go to the barn and give us spankings …” Rachel stopped before starting again. “Pa usually let Ma discipline me, but the boys … He beat the hell out of them. He wanted the boys to be afraid of him. Said it would keep them out of trouble when they got older.

“One day, Ma left Tate and Greer with him. They were home sick with the flu. With Pa, the only one who was allowed to get sick was him. So, he was already mad, because the boys didn’t go to school that day, so to teach them a lesson, he had them deliver his moonshine to his customers. When Greer and Tate came home, one of his customers had called to tell him that he had been shorted.

“He was drunk on moonshine, and Tate thought he had a few joints, too. He beat them bloody that day and locked them in the barn, saying they could sleep out there that night. It was the dead of winter.

“When Greer woke up, Tate wasn’t moving. He said he was so cold he wanted to go to sleep, but the spirits surrounded him and gave him a vision.” Rachel raked her fingers through her hair. “They told him he couldn’t go to sleep and gifted him a sign to show he would make it out of the barn. When he tried to show Tate his sign, he couldn’t wake him.” Rachel gave a shuddering breath. “Greer said he told his spirits that, unless they healed Tate, there was no sense in showing him the sign, because he wasn’t leaving the barn without Tate.”

“He wasn’t letting Tate go without him.” Her husband had saved Tate the same way he had saved her—willing to sacrifice himself at the cost of his own soul. “Did your father let them out that night?” Holly wished she had brought the whole bottle of wine outside instead of just the glass.

“Pa didn’t let them out until morning and made them go to school.”

“Why didn’t your mother let them out?” Holly asked, feeling sickened.

“Pa had locked them in. Tate said Ma sat out there all night, trying to pry a board loose so she could get inside. When that didn’t work, she started digging, but the ground was frozen …” Rachel trailed off as she thought about how her mother fought so hard to reach her children and failed.

“Your father is lucky he’s dead! I know he was your father, Rachel, and I’m sorry, but he was terrible.”

“I know. Ma tried to leave him, but he brought her back, holding us kids over her. After that, it got better, though. He never beat them as badly after that. My ma wasn’t the same after that.

“All of us warned them not go out to the lake that day. Dustin had been having nightmares of drowning, and Tate had heard the death bells twice. I think she had enough of Pa and didn’t care that there were storm warnings out.”

“How am I supposed to look at that barn knowing what happened in there? How hurt and terrified they must have been?”

“I hate it, too. It was before I was born, but I have my own memories of Pa coming out of there, drunk, and having to go in there, waiting to take a whipping.”

“Dustin, too?”

“Yes, I had it easier, because I was a girl, but Dustin, Greer, and Tate took their beatings in there.”

“Really?” she snarled.

“Uh … yes. Are you okay?” Rachel asked worriedly.

“No, Rachel, I’m not.” Holly stood up, setting her glass down on the porch. She stormed toward the barn with Rachel only steps behind her.

Throwing the barn door open, she looked around for something she could use.

“What are you doing? Maybe we should go inside the house.”

“You go ahead,” Holly told her absentmindedly.

Seeing Greer’s toolbox, she opened the lid, taking a hammer out of it, then rushed back to the front of the barn.

“Holly, what are thinking about doing?”

She didn’t waste her breath, too infuriated to care if she made Rachel angry.

She tried prying one of the boards off with the hammer. The more she tried, the more furious she became. The stubborn thing didn’t want to budge, just like Greer.

Frustrated that she couldn’t remove the board she had tried to break off, she didn’t notice Rachel go inside the barn and come back. She was giving the obstinate board a hard whack when Rachel tapped her on the shoulder.

“Try this.” She held the axe out for her to take.

“Thanks.” Holly started to swing it then gave Rachel a warning, “Move.”

Rachel moved to her side so she wouldn’t be struck when she lifted the axe over her shoulder, bringing it down with all her strength.

Holly gave a victorious laugh when the axe sank in deep. “This works just fine.” Another swing, and she was able to tear the stubborn board from the barn wall. Choosing another board, she swung the axe again. “Take that, you son of a bitch!”

Rachel moved farther away. “Who are you cursing?”

“Your father!” Holly yelled, hitting the board again. “Your asshole … drunken … father!” The axe punctuated her anger as she tore another board from the wall.

“Oh.”

“Yes, fucking oh!” Holly screamed, taking all her fury out on the helpless anger she felt toward who she couldn’t have arrested for being a terrible father.

“You bastard!”

“Who you cursing now?”

“Whoever called your father to complain about his moonshine …” She gave a jab with the axe at that thought, thinking about Tate and Greer afraid to come home, knowing what had been waiting for them.

Holly was so intent on what she was doing that she didn’t notice Rachel going back inside the barn and grabbing another axe. It was when she heard another whack of an axe hitting wood that she looked up to see Rachel destroying her own board. Tears were running down her face. Holly glanced away a lump in her throat, seeing the inconsolable grief she was taking out the sturdy barn. She gave Rachel her privacy, working side by side in silence until Rachel turned toward her, the grief was still there but a flicker of her former flame was returning to her spirit.  

“This feels good!” Rachel grinned over at her.

“Yes, it does,” Holly agreed, going back to work.

“You drunken coward!” Rachel vented her own anger. “I wish you were alive, too, so I could get Cash to beat the hell out of you with his brass knuckles.”

Holly looked over at her with interest. “Cash has brass knuckles?”

Rachel laughed. “Yes. And he looks hot when he wears them.”

Holly swung her axe again. “How hot? Like an eight or nine hot, or a ten hot?”

“A ten.” Rachel swung her axe.

“That’s hot. Greer is a ten when he kisses me, but he slips to a seven when he doesn’t put the toilet lid back down.”

“That used to piss me off when I lived here, too.”

Holly set the head of the axe down on the ground, leaning on the handle to take a rest, staring at Rachel dismally. “Greer hasn’t made love to me since before we were married. Do you think he doesn’t want me anymore because I have one breast bigger than the other now?”

Rachel dropped her axe, taking a rest to study her breasts. “How are they …?”

“When Lindy shot me. My left breast is smaller than my right one now.”

Rachel’s eyes narrowed on her left breast. “How much?”

Holly raised her pinky up, using her other finger to show that it was the tip.

Rachel shook her head. “Nah, I bet he won’t even notice.”

“I do,” Holly admitted.

“Then to hell with Greer. You’re a beautiful woman. If Greer is angry about a little bit of skin, then to hell with him.”

“Yeah! Then to hell with Greer.” Both women began chopping down the barn.

“Cash and I haven’t made love since I lost the baby!” Rachel yelled out.

“Why not?” Holly took the board that she had been working, throwing it onto the growing pile.

“I don’t know. At first, I wasn’t in the mood.”

Holly gave her an astounded look. “Girl, he gets me in the mood, and I’m in love with my husband.”

Rachel gave a giggle that sounded more like a sob. “He is handsome, isn’t he?”

“He’s a ten, for sure.”

“I think so, too. Do you think he blames me for losing our baby?” Rachel held her axe handle against her shoulder.

“No, I don’t think he blames anyone but Brett and Lindy,” Holly answered honestly.

“I blame myself.”

The two women stared at each other before Holly went to give her a hug. “You wouldn’t be the best mother in the whole world I know you are if you didn’t.”

Rachel laid her head on her shoulder. “You really think I’m the best mother in the whole world?”

“Yes, I do. I admire that you have breastfed as long as you have. When me and Greer have children, they’re getting a bottle.”

“You say that now, but wait until you have a baby.”

“Can you imagine how big these breasts would get if I breastfed?” Holly poked a finger into her chest.

“Some men find it sexually attractive.” Rachel blushed bright red.

“Really?”

Rachel nodded, her eyes staring meaningfully into hers.

“Fucking hell.” Holly went back to her side of the barn, giving a board a particularly hard whack. “If Greer ever gets his ass off the fence, maybe I’ll find out.”