The county road had been repaved, but the old cottonwood that marked the entrance to the dirt two tract that that led to our families small ranch was still there. It had been three years since I'd been home, a job in Spain had kept me away, but now I had at least a month before starting a new job in New York and I was glad to see my mom and sister.
After dad had died they decided to keep the small place going although there wasn't really much to do anymore. The few head of stock that were on the ranch had been sold off and with what dad had in insurance and investments neither one really had to work. I guess they just liked the place and didn't want to move on. Me on the other hand moved away as soon as I had the chance. College had given me the opportunity to make a good living away from this part of Arizona. I had never liked the heat and dust so it didn't take much for me to leave.
The haft mile down the drive didn't take long and soon I was pulling up into the yard. No one answered the door so I walked around back and saw that there was now an above ground pool with a nice sized deck where our old swing set and sand box used to be. Me and my sister had spent countless hours out there when we were kids.
Until we were old enough to help with small chores there hadn't been much else to do. Looking around I saw there was now an shower head next to the rear door with couple of towel bars next to it. That was one thing mom had always wanted, a place to wash off the dust so the house would stay cleaner.
I started walking down toward the old barn when my sister and mom came around the corner. I hardly recognized them, both looked thinner than I remembered and both of them had deep tans, something they never had when I was still at home. They had always kept inside the house or covered up, like they thought the sun would kill them or something.
After a few quick hugs and welcoming kisses we went inside and I was surprised that not much had really changed in there. There were a few new pieces of furniture but the kitchen looked exactly like the day I left and there still wasn't any air conditioning, something that I thought would have been installed by now with the ungodly heat in that part of the state.
We got caught up on things over the next few hours and had a nice supper and then went outside to have a few beers after it cooled down a bit. Around midnight we all decided it was time for bed and mom said I should take my sisters bedroom and the two of them would share mom's room while I was there. The house had had three bedrooms but they had changed one into a storage room last year.
The next couple of days the three of us just kind of laid around not doing much of anything, as if there was anything to do anyways. One morning my sister went into town to do some shopping, while mom and me sat in the kitchen talking.
