One
Socorro, Texas 1951
Claire curled up on the cushioned window seat beneath her bedroom window and stared across her father’s vast acreage. The early morning sun radiated heat that would inevitably change from soothing to stifling within the next few hours. Texas summers were invariably hot, and she could already feel the sweat oozing from her body, causing her floral cotton sundress to cling to her tall, slender, freshly showered frame. It was going to be a long summer, and she was not looking forward to the boredom she predicted would envelop her. She and her father, Colton Richmond, lived alone on his thriving cotton farm and Claire wondered if she would ever see any other part of the world. This land was all she had ever known; and lately, she had felt almost like a prisoner in her own home. It was only ten o’clock in the morning, and she was already dreading whatever the day might bring.
It was the second week of June. Claire had just graduated from high school one week before, and now she had no idea what to do with herself. Of the few peers that she considered friends, all were preparing for college life and diving into summer jobs that would bolster their “fun money” accounts, assuring that they could take full advantage of the social life that awaited them as soon as they left home. Claire, too, had hoped to attend a small college in the fall to study art, and to escape the cotton farm that had been her only home. That is until her mother fell ill with cancer, passing away suddenly the year before, and leaving her and Colton Richmond to fend for themselves. She wouldn’t be going anywhere now. Her father needed her, and in fairness she needed him, too, as they continued to wallow in their grief, trying to figure out how to live without her mom and the love of his life, Cayte.
She wasn’t exactly sure when the cancer first invaded her mother’s body, but Claire did remember that soon after Christmas the previous year her mom began to complain of extreme fatigue. Cayte just didn’t feel like herself, and she was
