A/N: I can't seem to write long chapters.

Chapter Three

The old lady was real kind. She ushered him inside immediately, wrinkly hands grabbing for his jacket. He gave it to her. It looked too heavy in her tiny hands; he almost reached out to make sure she didn't drop it.

She walked toward the kitchen table, and draped his jacket over a chair, then offered it to him. "Now, I knew it was you the second I opened that door… You've got your daddy's eyes and that's no small compliment, child. Bobby."

Her voice was small and country; it had none of the flair of his Newsome grandmother's. Bobby smiled tightly, wrapped his left hand around the arm of the chair, polished from use, and said, "Thank you, ma'am."

"Can I get you something?" she asked, biting down on her lip.

The old lady was going to cry, and Bobby couldn't do anything about it. Coming up North was a bad plan. He would have rose and walked out, if Mrs. Twist hadn't been staring at him with those bleeding eyes, as though he was his father come back to life.

He was not his father.

"Ma'am, you know, I don't really know why I came and maybe I should be going…"

The skinny hands went to the stout neck as Mrs. Twist gasped. "No. Please, Bobby. I… I just don't know what to say or do. Not many 'round here knew Jack or understood him. Can't we just talk for a bit, son?" Bobby nodded. His grandmother smiled. "I'll make some coffee, alright? You like apple pie? I made some just this mornin'."

He sat there in silence while she cut him a big ol' slice of pie and poured him a cup of coffee. The apples were tart and the coffee bitter, real food, not like the leather monstrosity of the diner. He quirked a grin at his grandmother after his third bite, and she smiled angelically, just let him eat.

"You know, your daddy… He was a real happy child, most times that is." Her voice caught on his ears, tore at them, and he made himself remember that he wanted this, wanted to know about Jack Twist and his mood swings, his rodeo days, his tree house around back if he had one. The things he didn't want to know were back in Riverton. Lightning Flat was safe.

"Was he now?" Bobby asked, and forced his voice to be congenial.

"Why, yes. Always had a kind word. His father wasn't easy on him, but he was a real bit of sunshine for me. He liked music; he sang those old church songs while he did the dishes, you know. Never had an ear for it." She laughed and he could tell she didn't have the ear either. Well, neither did he. The Twists were just not a musical clan, apparently.

She was watching him like she expected something and he realized she wanted him to talk. Tell a story in exchange for her own memory. He looked down at his plate, watched his hand moving of its own accord, crushing his pie with his fork. "He used to ride with me on the tractors. My granddaddy Newsome owns this business and Pop worked for him there. He sold these huge ol' tractors for the real big farms, and my dad pulled me up on his lap and rode around in circles. My mother hated it."

They went on like that for a while, exchanging story for story, a little bit of his father's childhood seeping into Billy like rain into the cracked desert ground. When the pie was gone and the coffee cold, Mrs. Twist said, "Now, I ain't barely touched his room. You can go on up and take a look at it. Only one other person other than me been in that room since Jack died."

Bobby blinked, wondered who it was, and then decided he didn't want to know.

His father's room was so much smaller than his own, so much less colorful. There was a BB gun on the wall, threadbare blankets on the bed, and a couple toys on the desk. An ancient picture of a movie star was tacked on the wall. Bobby felt a rush of anger at her dark hair and soft curves. A woman on his father's wall. Why then had he gone down to Mexico or up to hunt in Riverton? Why had he been killed? Why couldn't he have just stayed with the picture of that girl, who must have been pretty before age had rendered the ink of her skin magenta?

Bobby ripped the picture down, almost tore it in half. Then he stopped, took a breath, and put it back down on the desk. No use in tearing up the past. No use in keeping it either. He left it there, took one more look around the room, and walked away.

By the time he made it down the stairs, his grandfather had come home. Bobby didn't ask where he had been and didn't make a move to introduce himself. The old man watched him with a quirked brow.

"This one coming by is better than the other one," he said and the old woman shushed him.

"This here's our grandson, Bobby."

"I know that." The old man looked him over and something glinted in his eyes. "He's got Jack's eyes. Damn pretty eyes," he said and it wasn't a compliment. "You ain't like Jack, are you, coz I never said nothing to him about it, but—"

"Sir, I ain't nothing like my father."

The old man's lips quirked up just like his brow and he shook his head. "Twenty years ago, Jack stood right there and said the same."

Bobby sighed, blinked, then smiled at Mrs. Twist. "Ma'am, sir, I better be going. I just came by for a visit."

"You drove from Texas for an hour?" the old woman said, voice strangled.

"I'm really no good at this," he said. After a couple seconds of indecision, he crossed the room and swept the woman into a hug, pressed her to him firmly. She smelled, he thought, like a grandmother should— not like vinyl car seats or perfume like his Newsome grandma, but like apples and soap. "You're a fine cook. Thank you."

He nodded to the old man and slipped out the door. His grandmother was right behind him, calling out protests then goodbyes when she realized he was actually leaving. He could imagine a similar scene twenty years before, imagine Jack leaving the same way, climbing into a car that was much less shiny than his own, and propelling himself into a future that was unknown, cast into shadow by clouds of dust.