Page 1 of The Lookback
PROLOGUE: MANDY
Most families have somethingthat makes them different from other families. The Brooks family boys dominated in most every sport. The Gibbens family found trash that no one wanted and managed to use it for something unexpected. The Davis family loves to cook and bake. The Duttons love to argue.
My family has its thing, just like any other, only, no one knew. Or, whatever they thought our thing was, it really wasn’t. From the time I was old enough to understand anything at all about the world, I was taught what it took to be a successful member of the Saddler family.
We were liars. Accomplished liars.
Never in a way that hurt someone else. That was our one guiding principle, really. If a lie stole something, hurt someone, or did obvious damage? No, no, double no. But as long as no one was hurt by the exaggeration, it was not only allowed, it was downright encouraged.
I didn’t even find out what my real nameshouldhave been until I turned eighteen. That’s when my mom sat me down and explained that my dad had been a hero—he’d stood up to the Red Army’s invasion of our home country, Latvia. But they had eventually lost against the swelling tide of Russians that spilled across our border, eager to trample Latvia in their attempt to face off against Germany.
What really happened when my family left Latvia, no one will ever know for sure. My family’s propensity to embellish was too firmly rooted by then for me to have any hope of sussing out the unvarnished truth. But I’m reasonably sure that my father fled Latvia just in time to escape, and that he brought my mother to America right as this fledgling nation was preparing to enter the same war he’d just avoided. He wasn’t keen on rejoining it from a new position.
To avoid being sent back to Europe to join the fray as a United States citizen, he entered illegally, somehow finding what I’m quite sure were fraudulent papers on his way out West. Manila was a new town and it needed men madly—my dad could work wonders with leather, especially saddle repairs. Eventually he began crafting saddles himself. Although he also ran cows on our land, the majority of our income came from his saddle repairs. It was only natural that our family should shed its prior name that was bizarre in this country—Liepa—and adopt a new one that people had no trouble with: Saddler.
It was also the best kind of marketing in that era.
And so it was that, when my mother was nearly ready to give birth to me, my father loaded her into our old Ford Standard and started out for the hospital. It was a fluke that Jedediah’s mother happened to be almost ready to burst as well, and with her husband needing to watch their older child, little Clyde, we offered to give her a ride over.
When I was born on September 25 of 1944, Jedediah and I were only the third and fourth babies delivered in the brand new Roosevelt Hospital, a solid ninety plus miles to the south of our family ranch outside of Manila. The name my parents put on my birth certificate, just in case anyone was paying attention, wasn’t Amanda Liepa. It was Amanda Saddler.
That’s how I started my life with a lie, and my parents made sure that I learned to proceed that way whenever the truth would be inconvenient, embarrassing, or in any way undesirable.
It took me a very long time to realize the error of that line of thinking. Averylong time. I’ve always said that no villain can do as much damage to a person as their own family, and that’s not a lie.
I still blame them for the worst lie I ever told. As with most things, I didn’t realize it was such a damaging lie until long after I told it.
1
HELEN
The start of summer in the Wasatch Front is literally the only time it becomes even a little bit habitable. I mean, sure, New York City gets cold, but other than walking from your brownstone to a cab, you’re never exposed to the elements for long.
This entire area’s just rotten with outdoors. In fact, it’s the only thing that draws new people, usually, and the tourists who come to see the Flaming Gorge barely spend any timeinside, so having the weather warm enough that the mounds of snow melt and the sunshine actually warms your face is absolutely lovely.
All the mud that squishes and squelches everywhere, because the horses and cows that everyone else seems to love greedily gobble up anything at all that tries to grow, isn’t quite so wonderful. Still, when Abby told me that Amanda and Mandy had both already signed the contracts and that I could come pick them up, I knew she’d probably be outside, so I wasn’t even annoyed when that’s where I found her.
I’ve been staying with Ethan at the Brooks ranch—I stuck around when Steve and Abigail moved to a remodeled version of Steve’s house—and it’s a little lonely if I’m being honest. Ethan’s gone all the time. He’s either out with cows or he’s preoccupied with Beth. Even when he’s around, he’s not much for elevated conversation, in spite of my best efforts.
I honestly wonder sometimes how Abigail and her relatively intelligent first husband Nathan created a kid like Ethan. He’s not dumb, but he’s so unmotivated. His hopes and dreams couldn’t even fill a salt shaker—and most of them, he’s already realized at the age of nineteen, right here in this cowtown. I just don’t understand how a person could be thatsatisfied. What does he strive for?
Nothing. That’s what.
“Oh, you’re here.” Abigail smiles and waves from where she’s standing along the split rail fence. The baby on her hip turns toward me and smiles a gummy grin. For some reason that no one has been able to explain to me, they have to tell people how old he is inweeks.Thankfully, I’ve broken their code, so I know that he’s six months old as of last week. It’s a decent age—he’s young enough that no one tries to fob him off on the women who know nothing and have no interest in babies, but he’s old enough that he can sit up on the floor and play with things to keep him from crying. He’s young enough he can’t talk your ear off with inane babble yet, and old enough to chew on soft objects as his teeth come in. That’ll happen any day now, hopefully. I find his gummy smile a little disturbing, if I’m being honest.
But most importantly, he holds his head up on his own.
The few times I’ve been forced to hold him, I was always terrified that his neck would give out and his head would just roll right off his shoulders. Baby-holding should come with some kind of mandatory neck-cradling training. Anyone who hasn’t had that training yet should never be allowed to touch them.
“Where did you say the contracts are?” I’m being polite. I’ve been here more than a minute already and she still hasn’t told me.
“They’re doing some work on the closet in the master, so I had to put them in that cabinet beside the microwave so no one would spill anything on them or, you know, use them as an oversized coaster.”
I can’t help pulling a face. I do occasionally get a little lonely living with Ethan after staying with Abby for a while, but it’s the lesser of two evils for sure. Her house exists in a perpetual state of barely managed chaos. “Well, I’ll go rummage around until I find them, trying not to get in the way of the cabinet people.”
When I glance up, I see why Abigail’s waiting on the fence line.
As usual, if Steve’s not at the hospital, he’s on a huffing and puffing horse. This one appears to be young or stupid or both, because it keeps trying to rear back. Meanwhile, Emery, Izzy,andWhitney are doing something quite strange, making serpentine, twisty, follow-the-leader back and forth movements from one end of the arena to the other.
