Lone Star Legend Read Online Free Page B

that’s why he left me to deal with my mother—as a sort of substitute for himself, when he couldn’t handle it anymore?
    Okay, sorry to get so deep there…. I’ve already written tons of angsty stuff here about their divorce and all the trauma it
     caused me. Thanks again, guys, for reading this site and saving me the therapist fees.
    I’m overanalyzing, I guess, because I’m about to take a road trip with my mom to deal with some somber family issues. And
     what better time than a road trip to hash out your differences with someone, right?
    Wrong. I intend to keep the conversation light and the radio on, all the way.
    Love,
    Miss TragiComic Texas

8
    W ith her right hand, Sandy steered her mother’s Lincoln Town Car south, down a quiet two-lane highway. With her left, she drank
     an iced chai latte, as quickly as possible, in order to infuse her brain with the caffeine it needed in order to cope with
     Mrs. Saavedra’s constant chatter.
    “I told Aunt Ruby we’d go over there and see what needed doing. Put away the last of Linda’s things, clean out the cupboards,
     make sure there aren’t any important papers still lying around. It’s the least we can do, you know, since we didn’t even go
     to the funeral.” Her mother heaved a guilty-sounding sigh.
    “Mom, it was in California. They didn’t expect us to fly over. We barely knew Aunt Linda, anyway. It’s not like if you or
     I died, we’d get mad at
them
for not showing up at
our
funerals.”
    “Jesus Mother Mary, Sandy. Bite your tongue!”
    Despite the macabre theme of the day, a fresh breeze blew through the window and perked Sandy up a bit. The drive would take
     an hour and fifteen minutes, assuming they didn’t get lost. Sandy had been to her great-aunt’s ranch house only a few times
     before, as a girl, and her mother wasn’t good with directions. She’d mapped the location online and printed the results, but
     that gave her a piece of paper with much more white space than ink.
    Her mother narrated the trip to one of her friends via cell phone. “We’re on a little road trip, just like Thelma and Louise.
     Sandy took me to one of her coffee places. I thought we were going to Starbucks but no, she took me somewhere special. I’ll
     have to show it to you, if I can remember how to get there on my own. Sandy knows the neatest little places. Uh-huh, closer
     to San Antonio. I know, it’s so sad. No, we never did. We didn’t even know she was sick until she went to stay with my aunt
     Ruby. No, that’s how it always goes. Yes, I-35 South, until we get to some exit. I forget which one. Sandy knows. No, not
     yet. I don’t know. She won’t let me ask her anything. You know how they get. Hmm? Two years now. No, they don’t live together.
     He still lives at the university. His family? I think they’re from Atlanta. Is that right, Sandy? Are Daniel’s parents in
     Atlanta?”
    “Mom,” Sandy said, putting the warning note into her voice.
    “Oh, okay. Sorry. See, she won’t say. You know how kids are. Right. Oh, really? Okay, then. Bye, Tina. I’ll call you later.”
    Well outside Austin’s city limits, the landscape changed completely and had a sort of hypnotic effect on Sandy’s mother. She
     stopped fishing for information and simply stared out the window at the hills and twisty trees and the occasional slivers
     of slow-flowing brown river. When she did speak, it was only exclamations about their surroundings, or else one-sentence regrets
     about the funeral.
    Sandy concentrated on the road, on finding signs and the few landmarks she’d been able to glean from the online satellite
     map. She’d brought her camera along, but there was nothing worth photographing so far. Just endless cedar and mesquite trees
     and low hills cut by the highway. The sky seemed bigger down here somehow. But Sandy knew from experience that you couldn’t
     photograph the bigness of the Texas sky. It simply wouldn’t translate into pixels. Every few