My life is a joke.

But not one that’s actually funny.

The last time I stood in this living room, I had big dreams and an even bigger ego. Things were just going to happen for me and the only thing holding me back from all this happening was being stuck in this house.

“I’m never coming back,” I said.

I stood right where I’m standing now with my duffel bag proudly lumped over my shoulder, stuffed to the edges full of whatever the hell I felt was important enough to take with me.

And my father. He looked up at me from his usual spot on the couch, waved a calloused hand, smiled, and said, “Yeah, sure.”

Yeah, sure.

Yeah, sure?

I was livid.

How dare he not see my potential?

How dare he underestimate what I’m capable of on my own?

How dare he assume that I was going to waste my life on this dairy farm just like he did and my grandfather did and my great-grandfather did?

So, I puffed out my chest, flexed the muscle-mass I earned spending every day of my twenty years tending to his damn cows, and walked out the front door with enough motivation to make it about halfway to Portland.

Turns out, you need gas, too.

And money to pay for it.

But I’ve done well over the last five years. Well enough to keep my macho-promise to never set foot in this living room again.

Until now, that is.

I stare into the open casket and lean over to get a closer look at my old man’s cold, dead face. Is he fucking smirking?

I slide the silver flask out of my suit pocket and twist the cap. “Well played, asshole,” I say.

I raise the flask once in his honor and take a sip.

“Nate?”

I turn around, discreetly hiding the flask away as my mother raises a stern brow from the other side of the empty room.

“Hey, Mom,” I say.

She walks in wearing a black dress, a much different look than her usual colorful self. I almost smile at the pair of sky-blue heels she snuck in just beneath the edge of her skirt. No one’s going to question the shoe choice of the grieving widow after all, not even the snobbish, gossipy townfolk of Clover, Kansas.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” she says.

I shrug. “Eh, I figured I spent years sneaking in and out of here. What’s one more for old times’ sake?”

She stops in front of me and opens her arms. “Welcome home, honey.”

I give my mother a hug. I’m not completely ungrateful to the home I was raised in. I honestly couldn’t have asked for a better buffer to stand between me and my father. Might have even taken that for granted once or twice.

“How are you doing?” I ask as I pull away.

“Oh, you know...” Her face feigns pleasantness. “It was sudden but quick. I’m happy he’s at peace with our dear Lord.”

“There’s no one else here, Mom,” I whisper.

“I’m a fucking train wreck,” she says, her voice hardening. “After everything I’ve done for that man for thirty years, he up and dies on me in his goddamn sleep.”

I smile. “There’s my mother.”

“Pardon me,” she says, blowing out. Her head twists from side-to-side to confirm that we’re alone. “I’ve been holding that in.”

“Hey, let her rip. I won’t judge you.”

“Thanks, kid.” Her head tilts as she flips right back toward pleasantness. “How are you?”

I turn toward the casket. “Well, Dad died.”

She stares at him, too. “He did.”

“Hasn’t quite sunk in yet.”

“You’re lookin’ at his corpse, honey. What further proof do you need?”

I chuckle. “You know what I mean.” I nod toward the kitchen. “Keep expecting to hear the back door swing open and him stomping mud off his boots.”

“Madi!” she bellows. “When’s dinner?”

“Nate!” I dip into a deep drawl. “How many times do I have to tell you not to smoke in the damn barn?”

Her face brightens. “Hey, you’re getting good at that.”

I bow my head. “Thank you.”

“You quit smoking?”

“Yes, I did.”

She pats my arm. “Good kid.”

We laugh, but quickly go quiet again. My mother gazes at my father and her eyes soften, gently glistening over as she smiles.

“I’m gonna miss him,” she says.

I wrap an arm around her little shoulders. “Yeah. Me, too. I think.”

She rests her head against me and we stare at that cold, dead face for a few moments more.

My ears instinctively twitch toward the driveway as gravel cracks and crumbles in the air.

“Truck’s coming up,” I say.

She nods. “I said the viewing was at noon, so I expected people to start showing up around ten.”

I scoff. “Yeah, that sounds like Clover.”

I walk to the window as the white truck parks at the edge of the house. The logo on the side stands out and I raise a brow.

“VanHouten Farms?” I read, glancing back at Mom. “What do they want?”

She joins me and lets out a heavy sigh. “Christ,” she mutters, “he couldn’t wait until he was in the damn ground?”

“Who couldn’t wait for what?”

She doesn’t answer. She bolts toward the front door instead and I follow a few steps behind her out onto the porch.

A man in a black suit steps down from the truck with an over-sized envelope in his hand. He whips his aviator sunglasses off and tucks them into his jacket pocket before flashing my mother a shit-eating grin across his twenty-something face.

“No,” she says before he can speak.

“Good morning, Mrs. Scott,” he greets.

“I said no.”

He slinks closer to the house and raises his hands. “Now, Mrs. Scott, I’m not here to—”

“Get off my farm.”

I take a step forward. “Mom, what’s going on?”

“You must be Nathaniel!” he says, thrusting his open hand in my direction. “I’ve lived in Clover for three years. I can’t believe we haven’t met yet.”

I reluctantly shake his hand as I look at my mother’s annoyed expression. “Yeah, I don’t come home often.”

“I’m Curtis VanHouten,” he says.

“Nate Scott,” I say.

“I wish this could have happened under better circumstances. I’m truly sorry for your loss.”

My mother rolls her eyes.

I glance between them, slowly shifting a little closer to her. “Yeah, don’t take this the wrong way, Mr. VanHouten—”

“Curtis,” he corrects.

“Right. What the fuck do you want?” I ask.

He laughs. “I admire a man who likes to get down to business.” He turns his other hand and presents the envelope to me. “Quick pitch: I’m interested in buying your family’s dairy farm.”

“No,” my mother says.

He ignores her and focuses on me, slyly dropping the envelope into my open hand. “I’m more than willing to pay top-dollar for it, including whatever re-location expenses you or your mother require to make it happen. You can read it all in here.”

I raise a brow. “You are?”

“Nate.”

My eyes jump toward her scolding face.

She squints at me. “We are not interested in selling,” she says, stabbing every word. “It’s time for you to go, Mr. VanHouten. We have a very busy day ahead.”

“Of course,” he says, nodding softly. “It was not my intention to intrude. I’ll be on my way.” He extends a hand to me again. “It was nice to finally meet you, Nate. I hope we can speak again soon.”

I shake his hand again. He squeezes even harder this time, almost like we were sealing whatever his deal may be.

“Yeah. You, too,” I say.

He turns around and steps back up into his truck.

My mother crosses her arms, silently fuming until he’s long out of sight down the highway.

I bite my cheek, hesitating. “So...”

She spins on her sky-blue heels and walks inside, slamming the screen door behind her as she goes.

“Okay, then,” I murmur.

I release the clasp on the envelope and slide out the folder of paperwork. I scan the letterhead with curiosity, slightly chuckling at the fancy, shiny letters bulging off the page.

VanHouten Farms. Topeka, Kansas.

The undersigned, Curtis VanHouten, would like to extend an offer to buy your property for a total of no less than—

My jaw drops.

“Uh... Mom.”

I follow her inside, trailing her soft shuffle back toward the kitchen. She stands with her back to me, furiously wiping down the already shining counters.

“VanHouten Farms wants to buy us out?” I ask her from the doorway.

“No,” she says.

“Really? Because this contract says otherwise.”

“No, I mean—” She tosses her rag away with a huff and turns around to look at me. “Yes, they want to buy. No, we aren’t selling.”

“Okay, but...” I scan that opening paragraph again. “There are a lot of zeroes here...”

“No.”

“Mom, come on. Don’t you think we should talk about it first?”

She raises a pointed brow. “We?” she asks.

“Yeah, we.”

“There’s no we here, honey. There’s me and your father. You made that choice. Didn’t you?”

I open my mouth to argue, but really, I can’t. She’s right.

I close it again.

“I’ve already thought about it,” she says. “Your father already thought about it when Curtis approached us last year. And the year before that. And when Curtis’ father used to crawl up our driveway every year before that. The answer, my son, is no. It’s always been no and it will always be no until the day I’m gone. When that time comes, you’ll have the legal right to do whatever you want. Until then… Curtis VanHouten can shove those zeroes right up his ass.”

I blink. “But why?”

She stands up taller and gestures to my left. “You see that?”

I don’t look. I already know that she’s pointing to the photo on the wall by the refrigerator; the one of my great-grandfather, my grandfather, my father, and me outside the Scott’s Dairy sign on the day I was brought home from the hospital. Four generations of Scott men in one photograph. I’m the last one left.

“Yes,” I say.

“Those men understood the importance of taking pride in your name,” she says. “Of working for yourself and carving out a place in this world that’s rightfully yours; a place no one can take from you — especially not corporate twits like Curtis VanHouten. Life isn’t just about making money and getting laid, you know.”

I cringe at her saying the L-word. “Mom, believe me, I understand the sentiment completely, but if you ask me, you’re not thinking rationally about this. You can’t run this place on your own.”

“You’re right,” she says with a nod. “I can’t.”

Then, she stares at me. Long and hard.

I sigh. “No.”

“Why not?” she asks. “You grew up here. You know the business. You know how this place runs. You’ll be your own boss — when I’m not around, obviously…”

“I don’t want to be a dairy farmer,” I say. “It’s the whole reason why I left in the first place. And it’s not like I can just pack up and move back here. I have a life to get back to.”

Her head tilts with amusement. “Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Girlfriend?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Boyfriend?”

“No!”

“A fuck buddy?”

I cringe again. “Jesus, Mom—”

“How about a roommate?” she asks.

I deflate, exhausted. “No, I live alone.”

“A stable job?” Her lips curl. “Even I know you haven’t worked anywhere long enough to accrue the three days of vacation you’re using just to be here right now.”

“Okay, fine. I don’t have much but it’s better than being a damn dairy farmer!”

“All right, then. Convince me. Say we do it. Say we sell off this land, this house, everything your family has spent four generations building. What would you do with all that money? Blow it all away? Invest in your own business? Invest in someone else’s? If you were to die in your sleep a year from now, how are people going to remember Nathaniel Scott?”

“I...” I exhale. “I don’t know.”

She nods her head slowly. “I’m not selling my home,” she says. “And I’m not going to force you to live the life you don’t want, either. Never have, never will.”

“Thank you.”

“But I will ask that you stay here and help me out until I can find a few ranchers to employ full-time. Then,...” she waves a hand, “you can piss off back to whatever non-life you live out in God-knows-where. Does that sound reasonable to you?”

“Help you for how long?” I ask.

“A couple weeks?” she says. “Three, tops.”

I wince inside but it’s not like I can leave my own mother hanging out here.

“Fine,” I say. “But only if I don’t have to clean out the stables.”

She chuckles. “Oh, I have a very specific job in mind for you.”

I ease back nervously. “What?”

She lifts the white hat off the hook on the back door and drops it on my head with a wide, sinister smile.

I glare at her from beneath the shiny, black rim. “Oh, come on…”

“It’s easy!” she says, throwing her hands up.

“Not the milk route,” I say with a groan. “Anything but that.”

“What’s wrong with it? You worked it throughout high school.”

“Exactly. It was the most embarrassing experience of my life.”

She scoffs. “Oh, don’t be so dramatic.”

“Three.” I hold up three fingers. “Three housewives on my route got knocked up during my junior year and Bryan Sumner started a rumor that I did it. The milkman.”

“They were just joking, honey,” she says, chuckling.

“The council had a town meeting about it!” I say. “I got pulled out of class and questioned by the sheriff.”

“Well, did you do it?”

“No!”

“Then, who cares?” She rolls her eyes. “Don’t let the bored busybodies of Clover keep you from earning an honest living, Nate. I told you that then, I’m telling you that now.”

I pull the hat off my head and stare at the hand-drawn cow logo on the front.

Scott’s Dairy.

We’re always there for you.

“Three weeks, tops?” I repeat.

“I swear it on your father’s grave,” she says.

I blow out, accepting the inevitable. “Okay. I’ll work the damn milk route.”

She smiles. “Perfect.”

We turn our heads toward the driveway, both of us hearing that crackle of gravel again.

My mother straightens up, her expression shifting. “Lord, give me strength,” she murmurs.

I withdraw my flask from my suit pocket and offer it to her. She raises that stern brow again but swipes it from my hand and takes a quick swig anyway.