Chapter 22
Joshua
The sunlight illuminated the front of my parents’ house, the flowers in the pot that hung from a hook under the eaves, and the screen door shut, but the front door beyond it open. It wasn’t a Monday, but they wouldn’t turn me away. Of course, they wouldn’t. Especially not my mother.
I’d been sitting in the truck for five minutes and no one had come out yet. My father’s Ford was parked in front of the garage. They were home, all right, and I couldn’t turn away now, even though anger and fear mixed in my gut.
I opened the car door before I could second guess myself, got out and moved up the stairs, across the porch. I opened the screen door and entered.
“Who’s there?” a gruff voice called out. My dad. In the living room.
“It’s Joshua,” I replied, evenly.
“Oh.” He didn’t sound all that happy to hear from me. “Your mother isn’t here. She took her car into Heather’s Forge to chat with that old rag bag, Beaumont.”
I snorted a laugh at that, and it did a little to ease the tension in my shoulders. “I’m not here to talk to Mom,” I said, at last.
I walked down the hall, my boots creaking on the old wooden boards, and entered the living room.
Howie Jackson had set himself up nicely in the corner. He had his feet up on an ottoman, a pipe peeking out of the corner of his mouth, and a book open on his lap. Retirement had treated my dad pretty damn well. He took the pipe out of the corner of his mouth and frowned at me. “You want to talk,” he said, and shifted in his chair.
“Yeah, if that’s all right.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Because we never talk,” I replied.
“Boy, we talk all the time,” he said, and swung his feet down from the ottoman. “Sit.”
I sat on the sofa across from him and glanced out of the window. Pale green curtains framed it and accented the view of the field. “Not about anything that means anything, Dad.”
“Ah,” he said, as if that was all there was to say. “So, it’s that kind of talk.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “I – I know it disappointed you when I didn’t marry Faith.”
My father raised both eyebrows this time. “Did it?”
“You’re best friends with Lee-Roy,” I said.
“Friends,” Dad said, and shrugged. “They come and go. Why are you talking about this now? I thought you were too busy out there, farming.”
“I know you don’t want me to be here. I can’t figure out why, and maybe I don’t fucking care anymore, but I need your help.”
“You don’t fucking care?” My father seldom swore, but his face colored now and he drew himself out of the chair. “You don’t fucking care that I near broke my back working to make sure you had the best in life and you threw everything you had out the window to come back to this godforsaken town.” The truth bubbled out of my father, along with anger. Torrents of it.
“I paid you back, didn’t I? Every cent you spent on me.”
“You can’t pay back the years of hoping you’d find something better to do than this.”
“Than what? Farming?” I asked, and my rage built, too. Both our voices were raised. Mom would have silenced us both with a sharp look. “Did you ever think that I wanted to do this because I admired the life we had?”
My father gritted his teeth.
“Maybe you dreamed of running off to be a businessman, but I didn’t want that,” I grunted. “Trust me, if I could swap lives with you, I would. If I had, I wouldn’t have lost Eve.”
“Eve?” My father’s anger finally stalled. “Who’s Eve, boy?”
This was the awkward part, the feelings part. The stuff I wasn’t good with, unless it was talking directly to the woman in question. She brought out that side in me. No one else ever had.
“Joshua,” Dad snapped, but lowered himself back into his chair. “You wanted to talk, now talk.” His tone brooked no argument.
I sat down again, dreading this more than I’d have dreaded an actual fistfight with my father. “Eve is… I love her. She was a chef at Cowboys n’ Cuts until Faith bought the place.” And then it all came out. I told him everything that’d happened – minus the saucy bits that Eve and I had shared – and how Faith had ruined it all.
“Faith,” my father said and wrinkled his brow. “I thought you two broke up.”
“We did, years ago. She left me because I wasn’t wealthy enough for her tastes, but now, she’s determined to ruin Eve’s life. And she’s running Cowboys n’ Cuts into the ground to do it. You know Cassidy, right?”
“Yes, and her mother. Nice women. Good women.”
“She fired Cassidy yesterday to spite Eve.”
My father’s eyes flashed, anger, and something else, shock? He hadn’t thought Faith was capable of this. She’d hidden that side from everyone who mattered to her. Everyone who had the ability to take away the little privileges she possessed.
“She’s ruining the restaurant, eh?”
“Yes,” I said, “and that’s why I’m here. Look, I know I don’t always see eye to eye with you. I know I’ve… disappointed you, but I need your help here.”
“What can I do? The girl will hardly listen to me,” he said.
“No, she won’t. But Lee-Roy will.”
My dad worked his lips back and forth, then eyed his pipe. “Lee-Roy and I have drifted.”
“But surely not that much. Surely, he’d hear you out if you came to him with this? Please.” It grated to ask this. It grated to have to beg my father to help me in this situation. “I wouldn’t ask unless I really needed this.”
“I’ll speak to him,” he said, at last, then lifted his pipe. “If this Eve girl is someone you care about, then yes, I’ll speak to him.”
The front door banged and my mother’s heels clicked down the hall. “Howie, I’m home,” she called, then chuckled to herself about the play on words.
“Don’t tell your mother about it. She still thinks Faith is an innocent, and it’d rock her world if she found out all of this in one sitting.” My father put down his pipe again and rose out of his seat. “In here, darling.”
I got up, too, and nodded to my father, silent thanks for his help. If it could get Faith off Eve’s back, it might give me enough time to make things right with her.
My father nodded back. “I’m proud of you,” he said.
The words struck me like a hammer between the eyes. I actually reeled and caught myself from flopping back onto the sofa. That was the last thing I’d expected to hear from the old man. Proud of me? When I’d only offered him bitter disappointment?
I didn’t get more than a minute to contemplate that. Mom bustled in and stopped at the sight of me. “Well, isn’t this a pleasant surprise. I only expected you on Monday, dear. I’m afraid I don’t have anything prepared but some leftover cherry pie with clotted cream.”
“I just popped in to see how you two were doing. No need to make a fuss,” I said.
“Nonsense. Come right through to the kitchen. I’ll fix us all some coffee and a couple slices of pie. How does that sound?”
“Great, Mom, thank you.”
My father eyed the telephone on the table beside his chair. “I’ll be through in a minute. I have a call to make, Madgie.” His nickname for her when he was in the sweet-talking mood.
“Hmm,” she said and narrowed her eyes at him. “Sometimes, I think you’re up to something, but then I remember you’re just as old as I am. Come on, Joshua, let’s go get our pie. If you’re father misses out, that’s his too bad.”
I followed my mother out of the living room and down the hall, her chatter racing past my ears rather than entering them. This was the beginning of my resolution to the problem. Now, I just had to convince Eve to stay, and work out a way to get Cassidy her old job back.
Already, an idea formed in my mind, but it was too early to hope. Too much rode on what my father and Lee-Roy would discuss in there.
“Are you okay, sweetheart? You’re a million miles away.”
“Fine,” I said, “I’m fine.”
“Some coffee will do you good.” She ushered me into the kitchen, just as the mumble of my father’s voice picked up down the hall. I couldn’t linger and eavesdrop on the conversation without alerting my mother to my intentions and peaking her intrigue.
I entered the kitchen, belly roiling from nerves.