True Colors Read online

  Praise for Kristin Hannah

  “As Hannah explores the deep, emotional connection between sisters, she creates a beautiful and captivating story of love and rivalry, family and community, that readers will happily devour.”

  —Booklist on True Colors

  “[Hannah] really knows what women—her characters and her audience—want.”

  —Publishers Weekly on True Colors

  “An engrossing, fast-paced story that will appeal to readers.”

  —Library Journal on True Colors

  “Riveting . . . insightful.”

  —Ladies’ Home Journal on True Colors

  “[C]lever plot twists and complex, engaging characters make True Colors a very satisfying read.”

  —USA Today on True Colors

  “Not since Iris Dart’s Beaches, twenty years ago, has there been a story of friendship that endures everything, from girlhood dramas to bitter betrayal, to be the touchstone in two women’s lives. In Firefly Lane, Kristin Hannah creates the most poignant of reunions and an unforgettable story of loyalty and love.”

  —Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean, on Firefly Lane

  “A tearjerker that is sure to please the author’s many fans.”

  —Library Journal on Firefly Lane

  “With perfect pitch, Kristin Hannah describes the tumult and energy of the 70s and 80s, and on a deeper level takes readers into the heart of a friendship between two women. Firefly Lane is masterful at the grand sweep and the fine detail.”

  —Elin Hilderbrand, author of The Castaways, on Firefly Lane

  “Hannah’s latest is a moving and realistic portrait of a complex and enduring friendship.”

  —Booklist on Firefly Lane

  “You won’t be able to turn the pages fast enough on this emotional powerhouse of a novel. Lock the door, take the phone off the hook, settle in, and keep a big box of tissues nearby. (Don’t say I didn’t warn you.) No one writes more insightfully about women’s friendships with all of their messy wonder, humor, pain, and complexity than Kristin Hannah. She’s a marvel.”

  —Susan Elizabeth Phillips, author of What I Did for Love, on Firefly Lane

  “TERRIFIC.”

  —The Seattle Times on Firefly Lane

  “Kristin Hannah weaves an exquisite tale of a woman at the crossroads of her life. . . . There are real-life lessons here, told with truth, humor, and courage. You will love this story”

  —Adriana Trigiani, author of Very Valentine, on Distant Shores

  “Kristin Hannah breaks new ground in her powerful exploration of a woman rediscovering herself.”

  —BookPage on On Mystic Lake

  “Bestselling author Hannah writes witty dialogue . . . bringing snap and a lot of warmth to a familiar lesson: that contentment comes from accepting other people’s flaws.”

  —People magazine on Between Sisters

  True Colors

  Kristin Hannah

  ST. MARTIN’S PRESS

  New York

  Table of Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part One: Before

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Part Two: After

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Acknowledgments

  For the women who have come into our family

  and brightened us with their presence:

  Debra Edwards John and Julie Gorset John.

  For two friends, Julie Williams and Andrea Schmidt.

  You made me laugh in the craziest of times,

  and I thank you.

  And, as always, to Benjamin and Tucker,

  without whom I would know so much less about life

  and love and joy.

  Part One

  Before

  What is passion? It is surely the becoming of a person. . . . In passion, the body and the spirit seek expression . . . The more extreme and the more expressed that passion is, the more unbearable does life seem without it. It reminds us that if passion dies or is denied, we are partly dead and that soon, come what may, we will be wholly so.

  —JOHN BOORMAN, FILM DIRECTOR

  Prologue

  1979

  Fifteen-year-old Winona Grey stared out at the waterfront ranch that had been in her family for four generations, looking for something that had changed. Loss like theirs should leave a mark—summer grass gone suddenly brown, dark clouds that refused to lift, a tree split by lightning. Something.

  From her bedroom window, she could see most of their acreage. At the property’s back boundary, giant cedar trees stood clustered together, their lacy boughs draped downward; in the rolling green pastures, horses milled along the fence lines, their hooves beating the tall grass into muddy submission. Up on the hill, tucked into the deep woods, was the small cabin her great-grandfather had built when he homesteaded this land.

  It all looked ordinary, but Winona knew better. A few years ago, a child had died in the cold waters along the Washington coast not far from here, and for months the tragedy was all anyone could talk about. Mom had taken Winona aside and warned her about invisible dangers, undercurrents that could drown you even in shallow water, but now she knew there were other threats lurking beneath the surface of everyday life.

  Turning away from the view, she went downstairs, into a house that felt too big and quiet since yesterday. Her sister Aurora sat curled up on the blue and yellow plaid sofa, reading. Pencil-thin and bony at fourteen, Aurora was in that awkward stage that was neither quite childhood nor maturity. She had a small pointed chin and dark brown hair that fell long and straight from a center part.

  “You’re up early, Sprout,” Winona said.

  Aurora looked up. “Couldn’t sleep.”

  “Yeah. Me, either.”

  “Vivi Ann’s in the kitchen. I heard her crying a few minutes ago, but . . .” Aurora shrugged her skinny shoulders. “I don’t know what to say.”

  Winona knew how much Aurora needed life to be steady; she was the peacemaker in the family, the one who tried to smooth everything over and make it right. No wonder she looked so fragile. No pretty words could soothe them now. “I’ll go,” Winona said.

  She found her twelve-year-old sister hunched over the yellow Formica table, drawing a picture.

  “Hey, Bean,” Winona said, ruffling her sister’s hair.

  “Hey, Pea.”

  “Whatcha doing?”

  “Drawing a picture of us girls.” She stopped drawing and tilted her head to look up. Her long wheat-blond hair was a bird’s nest of tangles and her green eyes were bloodshot from crying, and still she was beautiful: a perfect Dresden doll. “Mom will be able to see it from Heaven, won’t she?”

  Winona didn’t know how to answer. Faith had always come easily to her before, been as natural and effortless as breathing, but no more. Cancer had come i
nto their family and broken it into so many separate pieces it seemed impossible they would ever be whole again. “Of course,” she said dully. “We’ll put it on the fridge.”

  She walked away from her sister, but it was a mistake, that movement, and she knew it instantly. In this kitchen, memories of her mother were everywhere—in the handmade canary and blue gingham curtains, in the Mountain Mama magnet that clung to the refrigerator door, in the bowl of shells on the windowsill. Come on, Winnie, let’s go to the beach and look for treasures . . .

  How many times had Winona blown her mother off this summer? She’d been too busy to hang with Mom, too cool to scavenge the beach, looking for pieces of smooth broken glass amid the shattered oyster shells and drying kelp.

  That thought sent her to the fridge. Opening the freezer door, she found a half gallon of Neapolitan ice cream. It was the last thing she needed, but she couldn’t help herself.

  Grabbing a spoon, she leaned against the counter and started eating. Through the kitchen window, she could see the dirt driveway in front of the farmhouse and the raggedy barn-red loafing shed in the clearing. Up there, her dad’s beat-up blue truck was backing up to their rusted six-horse trailer. He got out of the driver’s side and went back to the hitch.

  “Tell me he’s not going to the rodeo,” Winona muttered, moving forward.

  “Of course he is,” Vivi Ann said, drawing again. “He was up at dawn getting ready.”

  “The rodeo? You’re kidding.” Aurora came into the kitchen, stood beside Winona at the window. “But . . . how can he?”

  Winona knew she was supposed to step into her mother’s empty shoes and explain why it was okay for Dad to get on with everyday life on the day after his wife’s funeral, but she couldn’t imagine forming a lie of that magnitude, not even to spare her sisters pain. Or maybe it wasn’t a lie—maybe that was what adults did in this world, maybe they just went on—and somehow that was even more frightening, even more impossible to voice. The silence lingered, made Winona uncomfortable; she didn’t know what to say, how to make this bearable, and yet she knew it was her job to do just that. A big sister was supposed to take care of her siblings.

  “Why’s he getting Clem out of the pasture?” Aurora asked, taking the spoon from Winona and digging into the ice cream.

  Vivi Ann made a sound that was part cry, part scream, and ran for the door, flinging it open so hard it cracked against the wall.

  “He’s selling Mom’s horse,” Winona said sharply. It irritated her that she hadn’t figured it out first.

  “He wouldn’t,” Aurora said, and then looked to Winona for reassurance. “Would he?”

  Winona had no assurance to offer. Instead, she followed Vivi Ann’s lead and ran. By the time she reached the parking area by the shed, she was out of breath. She skidded to a stop beside Vivi Ann.

  Her father stood there, holding Clem’s lead rope. Sunlight hit the sweat-stained crown of his cowboy hat, glinted off the saucer-sized sterling belt buckle he wore. His chiseled face reminded her of the nearby mountains: granite planes and shadowed hollows. There was no hint of softness there.

  “You can’t sell Mom’s horse,” she said, panting hard.

  “You gonna tell me what to do, Winona?” he said, letting his gaze linger for just a moment on the ice cream.

  Winona felt her cheeks redden. It took all her courage to speak up, but she had no choice. There was no one else to do it. “She loves . . . loved that horse.”

  “We can’t afford to feed a horse that don’t get ridden.”

  “I’ll ride her,” Winona promised.

  “You?”

  “I’ll try harder than before. I won’t let myself be afraid.”

  “Do we even got a saddle that’ll fit you?”

  In the excruciating silence that followed, Winona lunged forward and grabbed the lead rope from her father. But she moved too fast or spoke too loud—something—and Clementine shied, bolting sideways. Winona felt the sting of a burn as the rope yanked across her palm and she stumbled sideways, half falling.

  And then Vivi Ann was beside her, controlling Clementine with a word, a touch. “Are you okay?” she whispered to Winona when the horse was calm again.

  Winona was too embarrassed to answer. She felt her father moving toward them, heard the way his cowboy boots sank into the mud. She and Vivi Ann turned slowly to face him.

  “You got no horse sense, Winona,” he said. It was a thing she’d heard all her life from him. From a cowboy, it was as cutting a remark as was possible.

  “I know, but—”

  He wasn’t listening to her. He was looking at Vivi Ann. Something seemed to pass between them, a piece of communication that Winona couldn’t grasp. “She’s a high-spirited animal. And young, too. Not just anyone can handle her,” Dad said.

  “I can,” Vivi Ann said.

  It was true, and Winona knew it. Vivi Ann, at twelve, was bolder and more fearless than Winona would ever be.

  Envy hit her like the snap from a rubber band. She knew it was wrong—mean, even—but she wanted her father to deny Vivi Ann, to cut his most beautiful daughter down with the sharp blade of his disapproval.

  Instead he said, “Your mama would be proud,” and handed Vivi Ann the ragged blue lead rope.

  As if from a distance, Winona watched them walk away together. She told herself it didn’t matter, that all she’d wanted was to keep Clem from getting sold, but the lies were cold comfort.

  She heard Aurora come up beside her, walking up the hill now that the drama was over. “You okay?”

  “Fine.”

  “What matters is that he didn’t sell Clem.”

  “Yeah,” Winona said, wishing that was how she saw it. “What do I care about who rides a horse?”

  “Exactly.”

  But years later, when she looked back on that week of her mother’s death, Winona saw how that single action—the handing over of a lead rope—had changed everything. From then on, jealousy had become an undercurrent, swirling beneath their lives. But no one had seen it. Not then, at least.

  Chapter One

  1992

  The day Vivi Ann had been waiting for—January 25—seemed to take forever to arrive. When it finally came, she woke even earlier than usual. Long before dawn had lightened the night sky, she threw back the covers and got out of bed. In the cold darkness of her room, she dressed in insulated coveralls and a woolen cap. Grabbing a pair of worn leather work gloves, she stepped into big rubber boots and went outside.

  Technically she didn’t have to feed the horses. Her latest ranch hand would do it. But since she was too excited to sleep, she figured she might as well do something useful.

  Without a moon to guide her, she couldn’t see anything except a ghostly silvered image of her own breath, but if there was one thing Vivi Ann knew in this world, it was the lay of her father’s land.

  Water’s Edge.

  More than one hundred years ago, her great-grandfather had homesteaded this property and founded the nearby town of Oyster Shores. Other men had chosen easier, more populated areas, places with easier access, but not Abelard Grey. He had crossed the dangerous plains to get here, lost one son to an Indian raid and another to influenza, but still he’d moved West, lured by a dream to this wild, secluded corner of the Evergreen State. The land he chose, one hundred and twenty-five acres tucked between the warm blue waters of the Hood Canal and a forested hillside, was spectacularly beautiful.

  She walked up the small rise toward the barn they’d built ten years ago. Beneath a high, timbered ceiling, a large riding arena was outlined by four-rail fencing; twelve box stalls flanked the east and west sides of the structure. After she opened the huge sliding door, the overhead lights came on with a sound like snapping fingers, and the horses instantly became restless, whinnying to let her know they were hungry. For the next hour, she separated flakes of hay from the bales stacked in the loafing shed, piled them into the rusted wheelbarrow, and moved down the uneven cement
aisles. At the last stall, a custom-made wooden sign identified her mare by her rarely used registered name: Clementine’s Blue Ribbon.

  “Hey, girl,” she said, unbolting the wooden door and sliding it sideways.

  Clem nickered softly and moved toward her, sneaking a bite of hay from the wheelbarrow.

  Vivi Ann tossed the two flakes into the iron feeding rack and closed the door behind her. While Clem ate, Vivi Ann stood beside her, stroking the big mare’s silky neck.

  “Are you ready for the rodeo, girl?”

  The mare nuzzled her side as if in answer, almost knocking Vivi Ann off her feet.

  In the years since Mom’s death, Vivi Ann and Clementine had become inseparable. For a while there, when Dad had quit speaking and started drinking, and Winona and Aurora had been busy with high school, Vivi Ann had spent most of her time with this horse. Sometimes, when the grief and emptiness had been too much for Vivi Ann to handle, she’d slipped out of her bedroom and run to the barn, where she’d fall asleep in the cedar shavings at Clem’s hooves. Even after Vivi Ann had gotten older and become popular, she’d still considered this mare her best friend. The deepest of her secrets had been shared only here, in the sweet-smelling confines of the last box stall on the east aisle.

  She patted Clem’s neck one last time and left the barn. By the time she reached the house, the sun was a smear of butterscotch-yellow light in the charcoal-gray winter sky. From this vantage point, she could see the steel-gray waters of the Canal and the jagged, snow-covered peaks of the distant mountains.

  When she stepped into the shadowy farmhouse, she could hear the telltale creaking of floorboards and knew her father was up. She went into the kitchen, set three places at the table and then started breakfast. Just as she put a plate of pancakes into the oven to warm, she heard him come into the dining room. Pouring him a cup of coffee, doctoring it with sugar, she took it to him.