Spirit Warriors: The Concealing

Part 6

That Saturday, Lilly called and asked us to go to the Hines ranch with her. Ollie was out of town playing basketball, but he gave us his latest playlist. I picked the others up and we drove to the Hines ranch with Ollie’s playlist blaring, the windows down, and the warm breeze blowing through the Jimmy.

When we got there, Lilly looked at us. “Please give me a few minutes, ok?” She had a package under her arm. We sat quietly in the Jimmy listening to the music. When she returned, the package was gone.

“Come in for a few minutes and have lemonade with Mr. Hines,” she said. We got out and walked into the house. Mr. Hines had cookies set out with tall glasses of ice. We sat down at the table and grabbed cookies as Lilly poured lemonade over the ice. We munched on the cookies as Mr. Hines looked at each of us.

“What are your names again?” he asked. We went around the table and told him our names and who our parents were. When we got to me, I said, “Emme Belrose, and my parents are Scott and Becky Belrose.”

Mr. Hines looked thoughtful. “You Edwin Belrose’s granddaughter?” I nodded and said yes, but my voice was sarcastic. He looked pointedly at me. “Your grandfather is a hero. He saved my life when we served together in the war. He saved my life along with Archie Hunt and Tom Arrington.”

I looked up at him startled. “Seriously?”

“Yes, and I promised him to never speak of it. I will keep my promise to him and take it to my grave. You will need to learn how to make peace with the man he is now, Emme. Don’t have regrets. Life is too short.”

We sat there quietly. I looked over his shoulder at a beautiful metal picture frame with an iridescent butterfly that appeared to be flying out of the frame. In it was a picture of a young cowboy astride a beautiful quarter horse. Behind him on the horse was a girl with honey blonde, wavy hair and an elfin look. Her head poked out from behind him and a look of pure joy was on her face. The young cowboy was holding the hand she had around his chest tightly to his heart and smiling at her. In her hand, she clutched a pure white lily. I felt guilty looking at it, like I was intruding in something too beautiful to be shared. Mr. Hines saw me staring at the picture and he reached back and turned the picture around.

After we finished drinking our lemonade, we thanked Mr. Hines and waved goodbye. He waved back.

“Lilly, I’ll have the papers ready next week, come back then. Okay?” Lilly nodded and waved back. “I’ll be here.” On the way home, we asked Lilly about the papers. Lilly was quiet. “Nothing really. Mr. Hines wants to give me the right to survival to his house and land after he dies. That just means that I can live there until I die. After I die, the house and land will pass into a preserve where it will be left as it is forever. No one will be allowed to hunt or farm, or do anything to the place. I told him I won’t need it, but he insists on doing it. I finally just agreed.”

We all sat in the car astonished. “What the hell?” Bets asked. “Zach Arrington is drawing up the paperwork for Mr. Hines,” Lilly confided. We drove home quietly. What do you say to that? Something Lilly said resonated over and over in my head. “I told him I wouldn’t need it.” Why wouldn’t she need it? Lilly spent the weekend and the following week with Bets so they could practice theircheer and dance. The week went by quickly, and soon Friday was here and it was time for tryouts. The tryouts started at 5:00 pm and we stayed after school.

We drove to the taco place and ate nachos and tacos while we waited. We got back in time for Lilly and Bets to change into their t-shirts and shorts. Lilly was number 29 and Bets was number 30. They fastened their numbers on their t-shirts and waited nervously outside the gym.

Lilly was picking on the edges of her cast. She had cut the thumb out of the cast so she could clap her hands. Without the thumb part of the cast, the rest of the cast rolled around on her arm. “You shouldn’t have done that, Lilly,” I told her.