Millie
The day after Brandon and Garratt’s stand-off, the sun was high in the sky and there was very little breeze. It was hot and humid and I was sure that I was going to melt. Addy was doing some coloring at the kitchen table while I sat opposite her, holding a wet cloth to the back of my neck.
“Sure is hot today,” Bonnie said as she kneaded some dough. “Have to be honest though, it’s not usually this hot at this time of year. You not used to the heat, honey?”
“No,” I sighed. “But when I am, it’s usually sitting next to a pool wearing a bikini with a nice cold drink. I’m not sure I could get away with walking around here in a bikini.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.” Garratt entered the kitchen, wearing sleep shorts and a t-shirt; evidently he’d just woken up. His hair was in all directions, and he was yawning while scratching at his chest.
I was just about to respond when Jesse appeared behind him. He huffed and pushed at Garratt’s back.
“Move, Garratt,” he muttered.
Bonnie looked up from her dough and looked between her sons. “Morning boys.”
“Morning, Mommy,” Garratt joked as he bent to kiss her cheek.
“Mom,” Jesse said and moved over to stand behind Addy. “Morning Addy, honey,” he said.
All of us stopped what we were doing and turned our heads in unison to see Jesse run a hand down his daughter’s long hair. Addy stopped coloring and turned a bright smile on her father.
“Morning, Daddy. Do you like my picture?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty.”
There was no mistaking the look of regret in Jesse’s eyes as his gaze raked over his daughter’s face. While he stared at her, it felt as though we were all holding our breath, not wanting to break the spell. Even I, as a newcomer, could see that this interaction was huge for Jesse. Addy, being the open hearted little beauty that she was, didn’t hesitate to climb onto her knees and throw her arms around Jesse’s waist.
“Thank you, Daddy.”
Jesse raised his hand, looking as though he was going to stroke her hair again, but he allowed it to hang for a few seconds before dropping it to his side.
“I need to go,” he said and pulled away from Addy.
“Bye, Daddy,” Addy sing-songed, totally unaware that her father was struggling with the closeness of her.
“Bye, honey,” Bonnie called with a break in her voice.
As he strode to the door, Jesse said nothing but held a hand in the air to indicate goodbye.
“Shit,” Garratt said softly as the door slammed. “Do you think he’s finally got his head out of his a-hole?”
Bonnie shrugged and Addy went back to her coloring. I reached across the table and gave her forearm a little squeeze.
“That’s really good, Addy,” I said as she looked up at me.
“I know.” She grinned. “Daddy said.”
“Excuse me,” Bonnie croaked as she wiped her hands and practically ran through to the lounge.
“Is she okay?” I asked Garratt quietly.
“She’ll be good. It’s just since the accident he’s been a total douche to everyone, especially her.” Garratt pointed at Addy who was still busy. “That’s the first time he’s touched her in…well a long damn time.”
“Maybe he’s realized what he’s missing out on,” I said, affording Addy another glance.
“I hope so, Millie, I really do, because if he doesn’t change soon he may just lose her forever.”
Later in the day, the heat had intensified and we were all flagging, even the Connors’.
“It’s real hot today, hey?” Ted said to me as he appeared from his office. “Haven’t known it to get this hot for a long time, ‘specially this time of year.”
“I know,” I replied, fanning myself with a magazine that I’d bought at the airport. “I’ve been to the Bahamas on holiday and it wasn’t this hot.”
“You could always put on that itty bitty bikini of yours,” Garratt laughed as he stood in front of me in thigh length swimming shorts. “I’m setting the hose up for Addy.”
Addy had already stripped down to her swimsuit an hour before and, slathered in sunscreen and wearing a hat, had been helping Bonnie in the garden.
“It’s not ‘itty bitty’ as you call it,” I replied. “With the size of my boobs and bum, there is not a chance of me wearing anything remotely ‘itty bitty’,” I joked.
“It’s tits and ass, honey,” Garratt said with an exaggerated twang. “But whatever size it is, you need to get your swim suit on and come outside. Even Mom is thinking of stripping down.”
“She is?” Ted asked, his attention suddenly elsewhere and his eyes shining with excitement.
“Ugh, Dad, really?”
“What? We might be older than you son, but we ain’t old. These days, men in their early fifties are in their prime.” Ted actually flexed his muscles and sucked in his stomach a little – not that he was in bad shape, because he wasn’t. Years of working on the ranch had done wonders for his muscle tone, and it wasn’t difficult to see where his sons got their looks from.
“Seriously, Dad. If you keep talking like that, Millie will be on the next plane home. It’s making me feel sick, and I’ve lived with you for almost twenty-one years.”
“Okay,” I interjected with a giggle. “I’ll come out and play with you, as long as you stop picking on your dad.”
“Why thank you, Millie, I appreciate it. It’s nice to have someone respect me for a change.” Ted’s eyes shone with humor and it was great to see. Between his two sons and their troubles, Ted Connor still had a lightness about him.
“I respect you, Dad.” Garratt’s words were said with sincerity and a huge smile on his face.
“Yeah I know, Garratt.” Ted smiled back and then disappeared into the garden, presumably to find Bonnie.
“I disappoint him so much,” Garratt sighed.
His hands were hanging off the back of his neck and he was staring in the direction that his father went.
“I’m sure you don’t,” I replied. “He’s maybe a little mad with you at the moment, but I doubt whether you disappoint him. Has he said much to you about the college thing?”
“I got a lecture from him and Mom. He told me that I get a week to decide what I want to do after summer break. Either try to find another college, which will probably mean me having to go to some godforsaken place that no one in their right mind would attend, get myself a job, or, the icing on my cherry pop tart, work on the ranch.”
“You don’t want to work on the ranch?” I asked, wondering whether it had anything to do with working with Jesse, or even Brandon.
Garratt shrugged. “I love this place, I really do, and I’m not scared of the work, but I just don’t see myself staying here my whole life. Now Jesse, he’s different. Working the ranch was all he ever wanted to do. That and raise a family with Melody.”
The way he said ‘Melody’ caused me to sit up straight. There was a harshness to his tone. It wasn’t my place to ask, but I wondered whether he actually liked Melody, because it didn’t sound as though he did. Then surprisingly, Garratt gave me the answer.
“Just so you know, Melody and I didn’t get along too well. We did when she first started dating Jesse, when they were seventeen. I was twelve and my hormones were bouncing and Melody was hot, she was a cheer leader, you know what I’m saying? So, I thought that she was amazing.”
Garratt smiled and shook his head, memories evidently coming back to him.
“So what changed?”
“Melody changed. They got married just after Jesse’s twenty-first birthday, because she was pregnant with Addy, and Jesse wanted to do the right thing. Plus he loved her. He adored her so much that he put her on a pedestal so damn high even he couldn’t reach her.” Garratt sat down on the edge of the reclining chair, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.
“After Addy was born, Melody changed a whole lot. She started taking off for the day, going shopping in the city with her friends, or spending money on days at a Spa at the hotel in Knightingale, the next town along, or sometimes in the city. Mom wondered if she was suffering from post-partum depression, but when Jesse made her go to the doctor to get it checked out, he told them both she was perfectly fine.”
“That doesn’t mean she wasn’t,” I replied. “She may have hidden it well.”
“Maybe, but it wasn’t just that, she started to get ideas above her station. Her parents were both dead, so she’d pretty much lived with us since she and Jesse got together. She lived with her uncle, officially, but he was always down at Rowdy’s getting drunk and didn’t care about Melody one bit, so she’d always been grateful to Mom and Dad, but after she had Addy, she thought she deserved better even though she’d never been to college and only every worked helping Mom doing the cooking and cleaning here. She kept going on at Jesse about the house, how it was dated and too small and that the truck needed replacing, or her clothes were too old. Stuff like that, all the time, and Jesse being Jesse wanted to give her everything she wanted, and worked his ass off to do it. As well as working the ranch, he started to take horses, too, breaking them in for people, and they paid a high price for his services because he was good at it, really good. He ended up working fifteen and sixteen hour days, just so Melody got the latest purse or fashion.”
“Jesse loved her, though, so if he wanted her to have those things, it was up to him how hard he worked, surely?”
“I know, and that’s exactly what he said, but I didn’t agree with it.”
“And so you didn’t like Melody because of it?”
Garratt stared at me for a few seconds and then stood up from the chair. “That was one of the reasons that I didn’t like Melody, yeah. I just couldn’t stand what she was doing to my brother, what she’s still doing to my brother. The man’s in love with a fucking ghost and it’s killing me to see it.”
At that moment, Addy came running into the house, screeching excitedly. “Uncle Garratt, come quick. Grandpa is chasing me with a bucket of water, we need to get the hose and get him back.”
Garratt’s sombre expression lightened at the sight of his niece with her gleaming smile.
“Okay, beautiful, I’m coming.”
“You, too, Millie,” she called over her shoulder.
“Yeah,” Garratt said on a grin. “Go and get your swim suit on, Millie, otherwise we might have to get your clothes wet.”
“Okay,” I sighed. “I’ll see you out there.”
As I made my way to my room, I thought about everything that Garratt had told me and my heart broke just a little bit more for the Connor family because of what Melody’s death had done to them.