A couple days later during lunch, the seldom-used phone rang, making everyone jump. Taking a bite of her sandwich, Junior murmured to Bobby, "Didn't know you had a phone."

Bobby shrugged while his father stood, brushed the crumbs off his hands, and answered the phone. Jack half choked upon hearing the voice at the other end of the line and stiffly motioned to Ennis that the call was for him.

It turned out that call was from Alma. She wanted to come up with her new boyfriend, who ran the grocery store in Riverton, and check out the ranch to make sure it was a safe, healthy place for the girls to live. Ennis didn't have much choice but to oblige.

And so the next afternoon, Alma and her boyfriend, Bill Monroe, arrived at Jack and Ennis's still-not-quite-on-its-feet ranch. Jack saw Ennis huff as the car pulled up and he patted his friend's shoulder.

When Alma stepped through the door, the girls immediately dropped their hands of cards and ran to hug her, leaving Bobby to declare himself go-fish champion by default. Alma was all smiles with the girls but shot a rather cold look over their heads at Jack before he had the chance to duck into the kitchen. Bill for his part was standing politely if awkwardly by the door. Ennis was standing just as silently, if less civilly, by the opposite wall. Alma looked up at him. "Well, show me around."

Ennis nodded once. "Right."

At first, Bill followed as Alma was led, mostly by her daughters, from one room to another, but he declined to go see the girls' room upstairs, this left him alone with Jack on the main floor, Bobby having gone to ensure that Junior's ban from his room was enforced. Bill glanced at Jack. "So, uh, how you and Ennis come to be running this place together?"

Jack shrugged. "Old friends, met as teenagers, both got divorced right about the same time," he shrugged again.

Bill just nodded.

Everyone else came back downstairs. Only half looking at him, Jenny on her hip, Alma said to Jack, "Ennis said you painted the girls' room. The purple's nice. Be better with some pink, but you did okay."

Jack bowed his head to her. "Thank you."

After a few more exchanged words, Alma and Bill left, taking the girls back to Riverton. Ennis sighed and leaned heavily against the wall, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I never want to hafta do that again."

Jack patted Ennis's shoulder again. "She ain't just gonna disappear, bud."

Ennis sighed. "I know, but that, that was awkward if anythin' ever was."

Jack just patted more.

The next Wednesday was New Year's Eve. Ennis walked in and dropped a newspaper on Jack's lap. He gestured vaguely at the headline. "Aguirre ain't gonna be happy 'bout that; can't make no poor fool sleep with the dang sheep no more."

Jack looked at the headline and article beneath while Bobby leaned against him on the couch, slowly flipping through a Spider-Man comic book. The Occupational Safety and Health Act had been signed into law the day before. Jack snorted. "He ain't gonna be the only one not happy 'bout that."

Bobby tugged at Jack's shirt and pointed at a rather long speech bubble of Mary-Jane's. "Daddy, what's she sayin'?"

Jack read it for him.

Later that afternoon, right around the time when it becomes unclear if it's really still afternoon or if it's early evening, Ennis, being watched by the cows as he fixed part of the fence, was startled to hear a car coming down the driveway. He stood up as the shiny, new, yellow Chevrolet pulled to a stop and Lureen got out, unsteady on the gravel in her high-heals. Ennis cursed quietly. "What are you doing here?" he called, not bothering to mask his irritation.

She put her hands on her hips. "I am here to see my son." She stomped to the porch as determinedly as possible while stumbling every few steps.

Jack, who had been reading the directions on the back of a can of soup, jumped at the knock on the door. He felt as if he'd been hit by something very heavy that was moving very fast when he opened the door. "Lureen?"

She smiled big, making him uncomfortable in addition to bewildered. "Hey, Jack. I just thought I'd come see Bobby, and you, of course," she pushed her way gently past him and looked around the room.

Jacked looked out through the open door at Ennis, who gave him a don't ask me look. He turned back to his ex-wife. "Well, uh, Bobby's not in the house right now..."

Lureen gave him a perplexed look. "Well, where is he?"

"The laundry room garage shed thing out back."

Lureen blinked and allowed him to lead her to the so-multipurpose-it-was-hard-to-define building. Bobby was on the floor, playing with Coalie and Sheriff, cackling joyfully. He looked around, "Mama!" and ran to hug her legs.

Oddly, and quite confusingly to the two men, Lureen's visit was overall going much more pleasantly than Alma's had been, despite its suddenness. Partway through the evening, she clapped her hands together. "Oh! I almost forgot, I brought Christmas presents. I know they're a little late, I hope you don't mind." She tottered out to her car and returned with three wrapped gifts.

The biggest of the three went to Bobby, the next to Jack, and the last, smallest gift to Ennis. Lureen shrugged as she handed it to him. "I didn't know what you'd like."

Ennis didn't say anything; he found the entire situation strange and uncomfortable.

Bobby tore the paper unceremoniously from his gift. It was a Hot Wheels set. He was thrilled.

Jack's was a shirt, a very nice, green shirt with his initials embroidered on the pocket. He blinked, surprised. "Wow, thank you..."

Ennis silently opened his rather generic, department store watch and set it on the nearest table to be ignored.

Once Bobby had gone to bed, Lureen insisted they needed some alcohol to ring in the new year with. It was soon revealed that she had begun to insist upon having at least one drink for any and every occasion. Even the lack of an occasion was an occasion. By midnight she was quite drunk. She leaned dramatically on Jack's shoulder, the hand not occupied by her drink slung loosely about his neck. "You know, Jack," she said somewhere between sternly and weepily, "this whole thing is such a mistake." She shook her head. "I never meant to push you away; I just didn't see..." She leaned her head against his shoulder. "We should get back together. Just come back and we can make everything better."

Jack gently but insistently disengaged from her, took her drink and set it down. "No, Lureen, we are over, no one's coming back."

She looked at him, a pathetic, pleading look in her eyes. "But, Jack..."

He shook his head. "No. Yer drunk, Lureen, yer being ridiculous."

She started crying silently except for the occasional hiccup.

Together, Jack and Ennis managed to convince her to go to bed in the room that, as far as she knew, was Jack's. Ennis stood in the middle of the living room, silent as the grave, and clearly pissed. Jack looked at him, upset that he was upset. "What's a matter, Ennis?"

Ennis huffed. "What she'd have to go an' show up for?"

Jack sighed and stepped closer. "I dunno, bud."

Ennis huffed again, but with less venom so it was almost a sigh. He mumbled so that Jack could just barely make out the words, "I wanted to spend tonight with you..."

Jack glanced over his shoulder to make sure the door to Lureen's room was shut; it was. He gave Ennis a quick kiss. "I know, I know." He touched Ennis's cheek gently and told him to go to bed.

Ennis slept in a bit the next morning. He was woken by some sort of altercation coming from the living room. Once dressed, he came down the short hall to find Jack and Lureen arguing. He sighed.

"I am taking my son back with me!"

"No you damn well aren't, woman; he's not a baby, he has school starting back next week!"

"Will you both shut the fuck up?" Ennis growled. There was immediate silence. "Jack is right, Bobby has school, he's staying here. Beyond that, work your shit out like adults. You two got divorced more calmly than this." He shuffled to the kitchen and made himself some coffee.

Lureen left just before noon. She couldn't have left any sooner for Ennis's taste. When her car was long gone, Ennis turned to Jack. "Why the hell did you marry that woman?"

"You know, I'm not sure."

Ennis snorted; there was a pause. "Oh, and, I think maybe, it wasn't your fault, after all."

He walked away, leaving Jack to figure out what he meant. It took a minute, but once he remembered, Jack had to laugh.

A/N: Thank you to reviewers cowboy and akiko.
Comments appreciated and questions happily answered. :)

Edit: Was re-reading the novella and realized the grocer had a name so I changed it here to match.