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  Chapter Five

  Darren

  The next morning, I woke up early and drove to my parents’ house.

  It was one of those perfect spring mornings where golden sunlight shone through the kitchen windows and formed pools on the floor at Dad’s feet. Mom was making one of her signature large breakfasts of leftover roast pork, mashed potatoes smothered in gravy, sausage links, buttermilk biscuits, and greasy hash browns. She gave me a peck on the cheek as I came in.

  “You been staying out of trouble?” she asked me as I slung my satchel over a chair.

  “Depends on what you mean by trouble. I haven’t been arrested lately, which is more than I can say for Braxton.” Curtis, Braxton, Zac, and Marshall were my four brothers.

  “You know Marshall is in town, right? He’s staying with us for the weekend.”

  “Is that right? Holy hell. Where is the old rascal?”

  “He’s in his old bedroom. Ought to be waking up about now, it’s almost time for breakfast.”

  “I’ll make sure he wakes up.”

  Slinking back toward my own room, I grabbed a Super Soaker out of the closet—one of those giant plastic water guns that we hadn’t used since the ‘90s. Filling it up in the bathroom sink, I held it up with its end pointed toward the ceiling as though wanting to shoot God.

  The tread of my feet on the hall carpet was muffled by the noise of Mom setting dishes in the kitchen. Slowly, I pushed Marshall’s door open and prepared to fire.

  “AGGGGHHHH!!” Before I could even aim properly, I was struck in the face by a wall of warm water that blinded me and sent me staggering back into the hallway. Marshall laughed with maniacal glee as he soaked me from head to foot until the whole gun was empty.

  “Marshall, you bastard!” I yelled, laughing. “How did you have that ready?”

  “Always be prepared, brother,” said Marshall, kissing the gun’s nozzle. “You want to try anything else?”

  “Right now, I’m feeling more hungry than vengeful, but ask me again once I’ve got a couple pork steaks inside me. There’s no use retaliating on an empty stomach.”

  By the time we emerged from the back room, Curtis had come in. He was a brawny, slightly chubby guy in his early thirties whose hair had all migrated from the top of his head to his beard like a Woolly Willy. Except that his hair was a dark reddish-brown, and he always wore a cowboy hat to cover up his bald spot, making him look like an old-school country singer. Curtis lived in a house just down the road, and he came over most weekdays to help Dad with the farming.

  “You doin’ alright, man?” I asked him. “How’s Allie been?”

  “A bit under the weather lately, so we haven’t been out riding much. I think sometimes she gets homesick for New England and wishes she was out walking barefoot over a rocky beach.”

  “Hey, we all have those days. You ever thought about maybe taking her back there?”

  “What, you mean permanently?”

  “Not necessarily; maybe just as a vacation. Get her out of Texas for a bit and let her feel the cold ocean breeze on her face again. I know we’ve got beaches down in Galveston and Corpus, but this time of year they’re packed with tourists.”

  “Yeah, and the National Guard,” said Curtis. “Would you believe they’re still cleaning up that oil spill? It’s been almost a year. I think you’re right, though; I ought to get her out of here one of these days. She’s been talking about taking a train back to Maryland to visit her parents, and maybe I’ll go with her. I’ve been wanting to meet them.”

  “You should, man. Especially if y’all are planning on getting married. You ought to get her another dog while you’re at it.”

  Curtis shook his head. “I think we’ve got enough dogs. Between Gandalf and Jasper, it’s like raisin’ a couple kids.”

  “You ought to get yourself one of them, too.”

  “We’re workin’ on it, believe me.”

  “The rest of us need to get a move on,” said Marshall.

  “I mean, none of the rest of you are even datin’ anybody,” said Curtis. “So I’ve got a good head start.”

  “Zac’s got himself a girlfriend,” Marshall reminded him.

  Curtis waved his hand in dismissal. “Zac’s all the way over in New York. He don’t count!”

  Just then, Dad came walking into the kitchen. He was wearing an argyle sweater, a pair of loose-fitting khakis, and a stiff-brimmed, blue flat cap. Seating himself at the table and reaching for the pitcher of iced orange juice, he said, “Since y’all are both here this morning, I’m going to need you to help me fix up the barn.”

  “What’s wrong with it?” asked Marshall.

  “With the amount of rain we’ve been getting lately, the foundation is corroded. There are places where the wood is crumbling into pieces because it’s so damp.”

  “And not just that,” said Mom, setting the biscuits on the table. “The ground under the barn has become a muddy quagmire, and the barn is starting to sink into it. What we really need to do is pour some cement and solidify that base before the whole building goes under.”

  “You know I’d love to,” said Curtis, “but I’ve got to meet Allie for lunch. It’s the first time we’ve been out all week, and she was really looking forward to it.”

  “Well, I’d hate for you to disappoint her, and you did plenty of work on the fence yesterday. I’m sure Marshall and Darren and me can get it done.” He turned to look at me with an expression of mild curiosity. “You’re not meeting your girlfriend for lunch, are you?”

  “God, I hope not,” I muttered. “If I don’t see her again for a week, that’ll be alright.”

  Curtis began whistling the song “That’d Be Alright” under his breath; more than anyone else in the family, he loved country music. Mom set the syrup down on the table. “Darren, you and Carlotta haven’t been having problems, have you? I noticed she’s been coming over less and less. I was thinking about having her over for dinner one night this week, but I might reconsider if y’all are mad at each other.”

  The tone of Mama’s voice made it perfectly clear that she thought I was to blame for whatever problems me and Carlotta were having. “We’re just having one of our semi-regular spats. It’ll be alright in a week or two.”

  Curtis went on humming “That’d Be Alright.” I glared at him in annoyance. “Will you cut that out?”

  Curtis shrugged and reached for the syrup. “I have to admit when you and Carlotta started going out, I really thought she was the one. I told Mom it would take a really exceptional woman to get you out of your room and working for a steady paycheck.”

  “Well, she wasn’t the only reason I got my own place. I was tired of being in Mom’s hair and figured she and Dad deserved a few years to themselves.”

  “You were never a bother,” said Mama. “Ever since you moved out, I’ve really missed having you around all the time.”

  “Wish you’d told me that before.”

  “Curtis is right, though. I really like Carlotta, and I think she’s had a very positive effect on you. I remember when you had the beard, and your hair was so long you could have cut it all off and had yourself a nice carpet. You used to sit in your room and play Halo at all hours. Dad and I were really worried about you. But ever since y’all started dating, there’s been something different about you. You’re clean and professional, you don’t look like the Yeti, and you work forty hours a week, sometimes more. It’s a huge weight off my shoulders; I can tell you that.”

  “I feel like it had more to do with you than it did with Carlotta, Mama,” I replied. “I guess I just woke up one morning and decided I wanted to impress you.”

  “Well, that’s really sweet of you,” said Mama, blushing. “But I hope if you and Carlotta break up you’ll find someone else like her.”

  “I sure don’t,” I muttered.

  Marshall studied me quietly from over his cereal bowl. “Damn, you guys must be having a really bad time.”

  “Why do you
say that?”

  “Because that’s at least the second or third snarky comment you’ve made about her since you sat down. If you really hate her that much, you ought to set her free. You’d be doing both her and yourself a favor.”

  “Maybe so. I guess I just thought we had been having some growing pains in our relationship, and that they would work themselves out in the end.”

  Marshall shook his head. “I’ve seen relationships that are just going through a rough patch, and I’ve seen relationships that are in serious trouble. When you find yourself starting to hate each other, that’s when it’s time to move on.”

  “Yeah, but it’s nothing we can’t fix, right? Mom and Dad’s relationship had some rough spots in the early days.”

  “Yeah, but me and your mom never hated each other,” said Dad. “We had our disagreements like all couples do, but there was never a moment when I could have imagined myself being married to anyone else. It was either her or nobody.”

  “Here’s what I always do when a relationship isn’t working,” said Marshall. “I shut my eyes and imagine myself taking her out on a date. Then I imagine that we’ve just broken up, and if the thought of breaking up with her fills me with peace, then there’s no real reason to stay in the relationship. I text her and tell her it’s over. I’ve never regretted it.”

  No one said anything else for a great while, and I went on eating my potatoes in silence. Carlotta and I had had so much fun when we first started, but all the pleasure had been leeched out of our relationship ages ago. Maybe Marshall was right; maybe I would be happier moving on and taking my heart elsewhere.

  “I’m not saying you need to decide now,” he went on. “But before very long, you’ll have to decide whether you want to commit or cut her loose.”

  “I guess we’ll just have to see.” I drained the last of my orange juice and set the glass down on the table with a loud sigh. “I never was very good at breaking up with girls. I sometimes worry I’ll end up married to a woman I don’t want to be with just because I couldn’t bring myself to call it quits.”

  “Sometimes you’ve got to,” said Marshall. “It’s the merciful thing to do in the long run. Forcing yourself to stay in a terrible relationship is torture.”

  “It’s not much fun, I admit.” I rose from the table and set my plate in the sink. “Y’all ready to go work on the barn?”

  Chapter Six

  Penny

  Before I went to bed that night, I pulled up one of my dance playlists on Spotify and scrolled until I found ABBA. I turned the volume down low so as not to wake my dad and spent a few minutes belly-dancing to “Dancing Queen.”

  At one point, I caught a glimpse of myself in the full-length mirror that hung over my door. I was wearing a pair of plaid shorts and a green top that went down as far as my chest, exposing my midriff. I looked like a total dork, but it was hard to care in that moment, not with the music playing and the energy coursing through me. I felt so alive and sexy as my hips swayed from side to side.

  After I had finished and crawled into bed, hugging my stuffed frog named Linus close to my chest for comfort, I thought about the conversations I’d had that day with the boys in the shop and the bar. Sometimes I felt so lame dancing alone in front of a mirror. I wished I had a boy there to dance with me, to watch me, to applaud when I had finished and tell me how much he had liked it. I wondered if there were any boys like that, or if my husband was going to be confused and weirded out on the first night of our marriage when I sprang out of our bed and started belly-dancing.

  I hoped not. If I married the right guy, I knew he wouldn’t mind. I knew he would admire and appreciate every thrust of my hips, and when I cried and told him I felt like a child, he would take me in his arms and kiss me on the neck and behind the ears and tell me he loved me just how I was, and that would be all he had to say.

  ***

  I woke up the next morning to find Margo, the nurse, knocking at the door of my room. Throwing on a pair of pants, I ran to open it.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?”

  “I need help with your dad.” Margo was a black woman in her late thirties with radiant chestnut curls. Today, her blue scrubs looked rumpled, and there were dark bags under her usually bright eyes. “He’s not acting like himself this morning. He’s being stubborn, and he called me a lot of dirty names the moment I walked through the door.”

  Panic gripped me around my middle. “That doesn’t sound like him at all.”

  “It’s not him; it’s the cancer. But I’m trying to lift him into his chair, and he won’t cooperate. He keeps thrashing and yelling, and at one point he nearly hit me in the face. Normally he’s small enough that I can carry him, but I don’t have the strength when he’s acting like this. I need you to calm him down for me.”

  I followed her into the bedroom. Dad was sitting up in bed with a look on his face that was most unlike him. There was none of the warmth that had shone in his eyes when I tucked him in bed the previous night. He looked like a toddler who had just been caught with his hands in a jar full of cookies.

  Swallowing my disgust, I decided that the best course of action was to treat him like nothing was wrong. “Good morning, Dad. How did you sleep last night?”

  “I’d have slept a lot better if that old bird hadn’t come and woken me up.” He made a rude gesture in the direction of Margo. “I only got about five hours of sleep. I don’t want to get up for another few hours, and you’re mistaken if you think you’re going to make me.”

  “We need to get you breakfast,” said Margo in a voice of remarkable calm, “and you can’t eat it in bed. Now the sooner you cooperate, the sooner this will be over with.”

  “What if I don’t want to cooperate?” He folded his arms and stuck his tongue out.

  “Then you’re just making this harder for all of us. Now we’ve got a treat for you this morning—yogurt and grapes and dried whole-grain cereal.”

  There was a tray full of food resting on the night stand beside his bed. Margo pulled the lid off the yogurt and held it in front of him as though hoping to entice him out of bed. To my horror, Dad grabbed the yogurt and threw it at Margo. It splattered all over her scrubs, leaving a sickly yellow-white stain.

  “DAD, NO!” I shouted, tears filling my eyes.

  “It’s alright,” said Margo in the same voice of studied calm. I knew she must have felt humiliated, but she was doing a masterful job of maintaining control of herself. “You’re just letting me know how you feel, aren’t you? If you don’t want yogurt, then we won’t eat it.”

  “I want you to go away and leave me alone,” Dad replied. “You old BITCH!”

  Margo stepped back as though she had been hit in the face. But Dad beamed proudly, as if thinking he had just taken a righteous stand for freedom by telling her how he really felt.

  In the almost twenty-five years I had known my father, he had never acted like this until very recently. Fighting back my own horror and humiliation, I ran forward and knelt down on the floor beside his bed.

  “Dad, please,” I said, taking his hand in mine. “You can’t continue to act like this. This woman hasn’t done anything to you; she’s just trying to help you. If you won’t cooperate for her sake, then at least do it for me. I know you can’t take care of yourself like you used to, and I know how humiliating it must be to let others take care of you, but right now, you don’t have a choice. Please just do what the woman says.”

  I’m not even sure he understood why I was crying. I just know that by the time I had finished saying what I had to say, he had leaned his head against mine and was fighting back tears.

  Before I left, I took Margo aside and apologized. “I’ve never seen him treat anyone like this. He used to be a schoolteacher and one of the most decent men I’ve ever met. Please don’t judge him by what he’s become.”

  “It’s alright,” said Margo coolly. “I know how cancer can mess with the brain, warping the personality.” Even so, I could tell she hate
d him, and I knew I couldn’t blame her much. I could never have been a nurse for that very reason, because I’d have spent the whole day crying.

  It was a relief when Nic came out of her room carrying her purse under one arm.

  “You ready to go?” she asked. “I was thinking instead of making breakfast this morning we could stop by Waffle House. I’ve been craving some of their greasy onions and hash browns.”

  “I think I might just order a glass of orange juice,” I replied, clutching my stomach miserably. Seeing the way my dad had treated Margo had completely ruined my appetite.

  Nic reached over and pulled a strand of hair out of my face? “You okay, hon?”

  I nodded. I wondered if she had had heard the yelling coming from the other side of the wall.

  But at least the worst part of the day was already over. Things started to improve a bit once we reached work. Nobody came into the store for the first hour, so I turned on the radio and did my morning workout: crunches, lunges, planks, pull-ups. Nic walked through the back room watering the aloe vera plants; once or twice she came into the front room and saw me lunging, then left again with a smirk and a shake of her head.

  “I love how committed you are to staying fit,” she told me after I had finished. I was sitting in the tall swivel chair clutching my aching sides and struggling to catch my breath. “You never take a day off.”

  “Well, staying fit is important,” I replied. “I want to stay in shape for my future husband. I don’t want to be some wuss who can’t beat him at arm-wrestling.”

  “Pen, you can’t even beat me at arm-wrestling,” Nic said with a laugh.

  “No, but I’m working on it. One day I’ll break your arm like a toothpick, and I won’t even mean to.”

  Customers began slowly trickling in at around lunchtime. A guy in his mid-twenties wearing a red sleeveless t-shirt with grease stains on his arms and forehead came up to the counter and asked for Nic. She was upstairs in the office ordering new air compressors; I waved and signaled for her to come down.