“Well.” Holly hesitated. “Faith is probably going to the Air Force Academy when she graduates next year, and I might do that, too, when I get out of school. The counselor is looking into what all she has to do to get into the academy. It sounds like a good program.”

“If that’s what you want to do, I’ll support you in your decision,” Lily promised, all the time hoping that she’d change her mind by the time she graduated.

“Thanks, Mama.” Holly gave Lily a brief hug. “I’m not going to think of Jenny dying, even though I know she will before we finish the journal. It makes me real sad to think that I’d ever lose you, so you have to live forever.”

Lily had to work hard to keep the tears at bay, but the moment passed quickly when Holly jumped up and grabbed her notebooks. “I’ve got to go get some of this written down while it’s fresh in my mind.”

Lily remembered the day that Sally had called to tell her that her mother had passed away. Jenny had had poor means of transportation and miles between where she lived and her mother, Matilda. Lily had only the excuse of being busy, and she had regretted not having visited her mother more often in the past five years.

Chapter Fourteen

Holly! Holly! Come quick! Hurry!” Braden yelled at his sister as he hit the back door with a thump after school the next day and rushed inside with a newborn baby goat in his arms. “I need help, Holly! We got to keep her alive.”

Holly had been in the living room watching television, but she didn’t waste time getting past her mother in the kitchen. “Good Lord, Braden. I thought Mama was dying.”

“Not Mama,” Braden huffed. “This baby’s mama died, and we got to keep her warm or she won’t make it. Get some old towels. Mack said to rub her fur until she’s dry, and then we’ll see if one of the other nannies will take her.”

Lily opened a bottom cabinet drawer where her mother always kept scrub rags and tossed a fistful into the utility room. Braden and Holly each grabbed an old towel and started rubbing the newborn baby. They were talking to the animal as if it were a human baby, and they weren’t arguing. Lily watched them, amazed. Who would have ever thought her kids would bond over a goat?

When Mack finally came into the house, the baby was on her feet and throwing a fit. Evidently, she was hungry and wanting either a bottle or a mama that had more to offer than dry towels.

“I’ve put two nannies that gave birth today into stalls,” Mack said. “We can take her out to see if either one of them will take her as their own.”

“Can’t we keep her in the house?” Holly asked. “I’ll give up my cat from Granny Hayes if we can.”

“She’ll be healthier if we put her on a nanny, but she can be your goat. You can name her and spoil her every day,” Mack said. “Since Braden carried her to the house, you can take her to the barn.”

“Her name is Star, because that white spot on her head looks like a star.” Holly wrapped her in a clean towel and scooped her up in her arms.

Mack winked at Lily, who was still in shock that Holly would even touch a goat. Life had sure taken a big turnaround since the first of the month. Lily fully expected Braden to hate the name or else put up an argument that the goat was his, but he just followed his sister out the back door with Mack right behind them.

The table was set for supper, and the food was ready to be put into bowls by the time they got back from the barn. Lily remembered a few times when her father had brought a calf into the utility room to warm it up and then took it out to put it on a cow that had just given birth. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. If it didn’t, then they had to bottle-feed the little critter until it was big enough to eat feed. She crossed her fingers that didn’t happen. Holly would not like getting up thirty minutes early every morning to go feed Star, or traipsing out to the barn every evening, whether it was snowing or raining, to take care of the goat again.

What will be, will be, Lily remembered her mother saying, and everything happens for the best.

Braden came through the door first. “Guess what, Mama? One of the nannies took Star right in and let her eat, and she’s a prize-winning mama goat, and her own baby is a boy, and Mack says he can be my goat to show next year at the livestock show!” He stopped long enough to draw in a long breath. “And I named him War Lord.”

“So does that mean you don’t want to go back to Austin?” Lily dipped the mashed potatoes out of a pan and into a bowl.

“Hell—I mean, heck, yes.” Braden grinned. “Why would I want to leave War Lord? He’d miss me awful bad.”

Lily could hardly believe his answer. A month ago, he’d been so against the move that she feared he’d never forgive her. She glanced over at Holly and raised an eyebrow.

“The jury is still out,” Holly said. “I’ve got to go wash up.”

“Me, too.” Braden rushed out of the kitchen ahead of her. “I bet I beat you to the bathroom.”

“Don’t you dare lock the door,” Holly yelled.

“If these old walls could talk, I wonder how many stories they could tell.” Mack stopped at the kitchen sink to wash his hands. “Kids running through the place, first kisses on the porch swing, tears and giggles.”

Lily thought of the journal in her bedroom. Life going past at lightning speed. Happiness. Wars. Changing times. Like the house, the old journal had its stories to tell, but unlike the silent walls, the book told its tales, even if they weren’t long.

“What would the walls tell me about your life here the past five years?” she asked Mack.

He raised one shoulder in half a shrug. “It could be written on a postage stamp. Work, home, old movies, more work. I’m a boring fellow for the most part.”

“That’s a matter of opinion.” Lily lifted the hot rolls out into a basket.

“And yours is . . .” He paused for her answer as he dried his hands. Then he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her back to his chest.

“That you’re kind and sweet and that I love living with you.” She smiled.

The pounding of two kids’ feet on the wooden stairs broke up the moment. Mack gave her a slow wink and picked up a bowl of potatoes to take to the table. Holly pulled out a chair and sat down in it. “Since Star is my goat, do I get to go feed her every evening?”