Page 8 of Love Is a War Song

“Welcome to Red Fox Ranch,” this woman—my biological grandmother—said.

I looked at her face and saw my mother. They had the same mouth and chin, but what I focused on were my eyes on her face.

We shared the same golden almond eyes, a little slanted, framed by thin dark brows.

This gave us a hard-edged look. On my face, they gave the impression of mystery, on hers…

this woman had seen some shit. Her eyes pierced through me in a look of disappointment, like I was lacking in whatever she expected me to be.

Disappointed or not, there was no denying that we were related.

I was family with this complete stranger holding a gun that was fired into the roof of the porch only minutes ago. I looked past her head back at said porch where debris was falling from the ceiling.

“Do you shoot at visitors often?” I asked.

“It was a warning shot. I didn’t aim it at him. Which is what you will say to the sheriff if they come poking their noses here. Got it?”

I didn’t know my grandmother for more than a minute and already I was directed to corroborate a story to the authorities? It was looking clearer why my mother cut off contact. This was not normal.

“Yeow!” A shout sounded to my left. I squinted toward the barn at the bottom of the little hill and saw a tall man missing his left arm followed by a scruffy-looking shorter man. Both were wearing black cowboy hats and dusty boots.

“Shit, Lottie! How’d you find the ammo?” the tall man shouted.

“I always have spare lying around for emergencies, and I ain’t telling you where my hiding spot is,” Lottie shouted back.

I eyed the vile thing in her arms. I had never been this close to a live weapon before. It made me uncomfortable, and even being in the vicinity of such a thing went against all my pacifist principles.

I stole a glance at Lucas and he gave me a strange look of pity.

That really made my blood boil. I had listened to him rant about how terribly he thought of me and my music and now, because I was—rightfully—scared of a gun, he pitied me.

Now I was human. I was just about to tell him off again when he walked over to my grandmother.

“How about I take that and put it away in the safe,” Lucas said, reaching for the gun in Lottie’s arms. She acquiesced gladly.

“Sure, take it inside,” she told him. He started walking away and she halted his steps. “Wait till the guys catch up, there’s something I want to say to everyone.”

“All right.” Lucas clicked the safety lock into place on the shotgun, then started looking everywhere but at me.

Lottie turned her gaze to me and I couldn’t take more of her disappointing appraisal. I would just have to kill her with kindness.

“Thank you for letting me stay until things cool down and it’s safer for me to go home…er…Grandma?” My voice hitched up in question saying the unfamiliar word aloud.

She visibly cringed.

“Lottie is fine,” she corrected me, turning to motion to the men to hurry up the hill. “We don’t have all day, Davey. Red, I know you can walk faster than that.”

The men grumbled and started jogging up the hill.

“Great, thank you for joining us. Boys, this is my granddaughter, Avery. Avery, these are my hired help, though not much help lately .”

The men all rolled their eyes and smiled.

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

“This big fellow is Davey, he’s in charge of the horses.

Red has been here since before your momma left, he’s a jack-of-all-trades.

And Lucas you already met. He has been here eleven years and manages the day-to-day for me.

Boys, you will all behave like gentlemen around Avery.

No dirty jokes and no one better come on to her while she’s here. Got it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” they all mumbled in unison.

“Red is too old to be flirting with you and Davey is engaged to our farrier, Mary Beth, who comes and trims the hooves and shoes the horses every six weeks or so. Lucas has made it clear to everyone he hates your guts, so there should be no issues, but if I catch a whiff of any funny business y’all will be dismissed with no pay.

Now back to work.” Lottie jutted her chin out the same way Lucas did, as if the gesture encompassed a directional order and authority all in one.

I couldn’t even look at that shit-talker Lucas. He hated me? Well, that went both ways, buddy. I regretted apologizing to him for calling him a dirty cowboy.

“We are glad to have you here, Miss Avery,” Red said as he tipped his hat.

Up close, I could see his hat had an intricately beaded band.

The pattern looked like arrows in the colors of the sunset.

I’d seen some people wearing similar “Southwestern”-style accessories at Coachella before.

I always liked it. Not sure why he was called Red though, was that his given name or a nickname for the fading red hair peppered with gray?

“You can just call me Avery.” I waved him off.

“Welcome to the chaos,” Davey said, and snickered to himself before following Red back down to the barn.

Lucas took the gun inside.

I watched them all go, wishing someone was still here to act as a buffer between me and my grandmother…Lottie. Now it felt weird to even think of the word grandmother in my head.

“How’s your mother?” she asked me point-blank with no emotion. I felt like I was talking to a drill sergeant.

“She’s good,” I answered, staring down at my feet.

“Haven’t spoken to her in twenty years, we lost my mom and dad in that time. Glad she is good.” By the tone of her voice, she was not glad at all. She sounded downright pissed.

“Get your bags and I’ll show you where you’ll stay.” Lottie turned on her heel, the gravel crunching as she marched into the house.

One by one I tried to heft my luggage out of Lucas’s dirty truck.

I had no leverage and they were too heavy to pull out on my own.

I hopped into the bed and pushed each one over the edge and out onto the ground.

I jumped from the truck and the impact sent shocks through my shins and I cursed and kicked the closest trunk.

The once-beautiful matching set of luggage was scuffed and filthy with no place on a ranch in the middle of nowhere. Just like me.

I let myself feel anger and despair for ten more seconds, taking a deep breath in. On my exhale, I picked up the biggest trunk and started wheeling it toward the house. It got stuck, and I just kept tugging and dragged it up the three steps onto the porch.

I’ll be honest, when I pictured my grandmother in my head at the bus station, I had envisioned a little old lady wearing a sunny yellow dress with an apron, maybe some freshly baked cookies.

Instead, what I had was this scary gun-totin’ woman.

This was like The Beverly Hillbillies but less friendly.

Inside, clutter littered every surface within the foyer, as if everyone had been too busy to put things away.

To my left was a pile of boots by the door and a dozen different jackets hung on the coat pegs along the wall.

On my right, piles of mail were haphazardly stacked on the little sideboard.

A few were stamped with Final Notice or Late .

I looked away, afraid to be caught snooping, even though these were out for all to see.

The house was a home. Lived in. There was evidence of so much history that immediately hit me as soon as I crossed the threshold.

Despite the size of the property, it was unpretentious.

The walls had a few pieces of artwork—if one could call an old tin rooster nailed to the wall art.

The place wasn’t as large as the mansions in Los Angeles where I’ve gone to parties or stayed with friends, but it was better.

It was a home that generations of my family had lived in.

Family I had never known. I felt a crack form in my heart.

A large mahogany grandfather clock stood proudly next to the stairs, and it made me wonder, if Lottie was my grandmother, then who was my grandfather?

I’d seen no photos growing up, and my mother never spoke of them. All my life when I asked about them, she just said, “It’s complicated.”

Something happened to cause this chasm and I was determined to find out what. It wasn’t like I had anything else to do, with my career being flushed down the toilet.

I couldn’t see Lottie anywhere, so I tentatively started wheeling my suitcase farther inside.

Off the foyer to the right was an impressive living room of sorts.

It was clean and mostly free of clutter, so likely the more formal sitting room.

The couches were an old blue plaid but looked like the perfect stuffing level to sink into and never want to leave.

The hall to the left housed a dining room and another door that I assumed led to the kitchen.

Everything was painted in shades of tan.

More plaid in the colors red and navy accented the rest of the beige house from what I could see.

Honestly, it was like if I Googled “country living,” these were the images that would come up.

“Up here.” Lottie’s voice above me made me jump.

I followed her voice up to the banister on the second floor where Lottie was standing impatiently waiting for me to join her. I did my best getting the trunk up the full flight of stairs; the landing break in the middle was a helpful reprieve.

“My room is straight down this hall at the end.” She pointed to the left of the stairs. “Your room is this way.” Lottie walked right and straight down to the complete opposite end of the hall. As far away as possible under one roof.

I followed in silence.

Lottie opened the door to the guest room and ushered me in. All my eyes could focus on were the chickens.