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sunshine over three miles of fresh powder to Osborne’s hunting shack.
    In their packs were venison steaks, russet potatoes, two cheeses, crackers and half a case of Leinenkugel Original. In their hearts was a driving need for release from the emotions of the week. And so they drank the beer, grilled the steaks, fried the potatoes, threw salt and pepper on everything, then drank more beer and settled in to talk of Mary Lee the only way they could: through tears and laughter.
    Though Osborne had felt he was third wheel in his wife’s life—a necessary nuisance once their daughters were born—he learned that afternoon that she had held the girls at a distance, too.
    “I just never did anything quite right in Mom’s eyes,” Erin had said with a rueful smile. “Too much of a tomboy when she wanted a princess.”
    “No, no, that was me,” said Mallory.
    “W-r-o-o-o-n-g! I was the bad one,” said Erin. “You were the model child. You were a princess: you always wore the clothes she picked out.”
    “That’s true. I’ll give you that,” said Mallory. She grinned as she lifted a bottle of beer to her lips, “I remember you buying that prom dress that drove her nuts.”
    “Ohmygod,” said Erin. “I hated the one she wanted me to wear—so I bought one with my own money. I loved the pretty pink polkadots … strapless … real low in the back … and the fact that it was on sale so I couldn’t return it. Mom said it made me look like a hooker. She wouldn’t let me wear it. Had to wear that yucky green thing of yours or miss the prom.”
    Erin laughed. “I still like the dress. I have it, you know—hidden back in a closet. Guess now I can wear it for Halloween maybe, huh?”
    “That was a darling dress, Erin,” said Mallory. “I think the only reason Mom didn’t like it was because you didn’t let her pick it out. You think she was bad about a dress—try my marriage!
    “Dad, you don’t know this, but Mom waited ‘til the night before my wedding to tell me I was making a big mistake. As it turns out, she was right—but I wish she had mentioned it earlier, given me some reasons instead of one blunt statement. Life might have been a lot less expensive—I’m still paying my divorce lawyer.”
    “You think that’s bad, let me tell you the time that …” Erin jumped in with another anecdote.
    As his daughters had joked and cried through their memories, Osborne had listened with his usual sense of remorse and confusion. He had never been the husband Mary Lee needed, wanted. Never made enough money, never built a house big enough to match her dreams, never moved to a city more sophisticated where he might have had a practice that could pay for a more elegant lifestyle.
    A sudden hoot of laughter from Erin as Mallory mimicked her mother yanking Ray Pradt’s illegal PVC pipes from the fence near her rose garden caused Osborne to tune back into their conversation. “Mom was furious when she discovered Ray was emptying the sewage from his house trailer back there ‘cause he couldn’t afford to put in a septic tank. Does he still do that, Dad?”
    “Heavens, no. Now, girls, that’s enough. Your mother was an opinionated woman, but she loved you. You two were the most important people in her life.”
    “No, Dad, we weren’t,” said Mallory with a determined shake of her head, “Mom’s bridge club came first—she only really laughed when she was with those women. Think about it.”
    “Mallory’s right, Dad,” said Erin. “When it came to us, Mom was always … aloof. She certainly wasn’t touchy-feely, not with me anyway. I just made her crabby.”
    “Don’t argue with us, Dad,” Mallory chimed back in as she popped the cap off another Leinenkugel, “I know I’m right because I paid a shrink ten thousand dollars to help me figure it out.”
    “Mallory, you felt that unloved?” Osborne couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
    “Kinda like Erin just said—I always thought I was doing