“Nice shiner,” he said, not bothering to sit down. Apparently this wasn’t going to be a long conversation. “The shirt’s a cute touch too.”
“Laundry day.” I offered a casual shrug to show I wasn’t intimidated by his disapproval. “You know how it is.”
As usual, Dad wasn’t amused by my quip. His expression hardened as he advanced a step toward me. “I know you don’t give a shit about anyone but yourself, but a lot of people worked their asses off to make today happen. Especially your sister Josie. Showing up today looking like a frat boy on the wrong side of a spring break bender is the equivalent of dropping a big, steaming turd in the middle of her desk. I think you owe her an apology, don’t you?”
Well, fuck. Now he’d succeeded in making me feel guilty.
Without waiting for me to answer, he barreled on with the lecture. “I’m sure it seems like pointless posturing to you, but this family is the face of this company. The image we present to the world is part of what people see when they’re looking at all the ice cream in their grocery store freezer case and trying to decide which one to buy. This isn’t just for my own glorification. People’s livelihoods depend on this company’s success—on our hard work and good decision-making skills. Not just the people out there—” He jerked his thumb in the direction of the door. “—your family. But the people who work for this company and the people who live in this town and rely on the tourism and money we bring into it.”
He was really working up a head of steam now. This part of the speech was a familiar refrain. The duty I owed to the family and to the company. The number of people who needed us to continue being filthy fucking rich so we’d keep injecting our money into this town. I could practically recite it in my sleep.
“But since you don’t seem to feel any sense of pride or responsibility, maybe I need to remind you of the financial stake you have in this company like the rest of us. This is your inheritance the rest of us are breaking our backs to preserve. The guarantee of your future security.”
“You think I care about your money?” I shot back. “I support myself. I haven’t asked you for a damn thing since the day I moved out.” I’d been nineteen, and he’d given me an ultimatum. Either I stayed in college, or I’d have to move out of his house and support myself. I’d chosen the latter, and I’d been earning my own keep ever since.
“Sure, you’re doing just fine right now taking odd jobs to pay your rent. But what happens the first time you get yourself into trouble? When you have an accident or get sick and can’t work? Or when you get a little older and realize life’s passing you by and you’ve got nothing to show for it? When you finally wake up and realize how pathetic it is to live your life like a disaffected stoner who’s too cool to give a crap?”
“I’ll do what I’ve always done. I’ll take care of myself.”
“You? You’ve never known a moment of real hardship in your entire pampered life. At the first sign of difficulty, I promise you’ll come crawling to me for help.”
I snorted at the thought that I’d ever been pampered. When I was little, maybe, and my mom was still alive, but definitely not since. Sure, I’d grown up in the lap of luxury, but I would have traded this big fancy house and everything in it for a living mother or a father who’d actually wanted to spend time with me.
There was no use arguing the point with him, however. His opinion of me wasn’t ever liable to change, and I’d long since given up trying.
When I didn’t say anything else he shook his head like I was the one who’d let him down. “You know, Wyatt, I keep waiting for you to show me a sign that you give a single god damn about anything at all. But you continue to disappoint me.”
“Is that all you wanted to say? Are we done?”
“I guess we are.”
I hightailed it out of there as fast as my feet would take me and spotted Tanner lurking in the foyer.
“You ready to get out of here?” he asked, pushing off from the wall.
I stalked past him on my way to the door. “Fuck, yes.”
5
Andie
“I have never seen a vagina do that before!”
My friend Mia was giving me a play-by-play of the goat birth she’d witnessed last night—and I wished she would stop because it was interfering with my ability to enjoy my burrito.
I couldn’t blame her for being excited. Growing up on our family’s goat farm, I’d seen plenty of kiddings myself. Gross as the freshening process was, there was something about the sight of a newborn kid that could melt even the hardest of hearts.
Mia was new to farm life, having recently moved in with my brother on the farm he’d taken over from our parents, so this spring was her very first kidding season. “And then Josh just reached his arm in, all the way to his elbow and—”
I held up my hand. “I’m trying to eat here so I’m going to stop you right there.” Next she’d be talking about the placenta, and I’d dealt with enough goat placentas to know it wasn’t a good topic for mealtime conversation.
We’d come to Groovy’s Tacos, one of our favorite lunch places, during Mia’s break between classes today. Despite the name, no one came to Groovy’s for the tacos. If you wanted those you went to Rita’s Taqueria down the street. The giant burritos were the star attraction at Groovy’s, made to order with your choice of ingredients, and wrapped in a fluffy flour tortilla still warm from the griddle.
“Oh, right.” Mia looked down at her own burrito, which she’d barely touched because she’d been so caught up in her goat birthing story. “Sorry.”
We both taught at Bowman, the local university—Mia as a full-time soon-to-be assistant professor in the math department, and me as a part-time lecturer in the college of forestry and agriculture. I only taught one class—on forest insects and diseases—as a side gig to go with my full-time job as a resources specialist with the state parks and wildlife department. As part of the deal, my students got to do their field work at Gettinger State Park, the thousand-acre forest just north of town, and I got to use the university’s lab space to do my research for parks and wildlife.
“But I’m glad you’re excited about it,” I added, so she wouldn’t think I was annoyed. “It is pretty cool seeing a new kid come into the world.”
After a bit of a bumpy start, Mia and my brother seemed really happy, which was a huge load off my mind. I’d been rooting for them to get together almost since the moment I’d first met her, after she’d moved to Crowder last fall.
My brother had been through some stuff back in college that had left him sort of closed off afterward. After our parents had retired to Maine and Josh had taken over the farm, he’d withdrawn from the world a little too much for my liking. For the last several years, he’d mostly kept to himself except for a small, trusted circle of people that included me, our aunt Birdie, and his best friend Wyatt.
Shit, now I was thinking about Wyatt, which I’d been trying not to do.
I hadn’t heard a peep from him since I’d slipped out of his apartment Sunday in the early morning hours after staying up half the night watching him sleep. He hadn’t really needed me to stay, but I’d enjoyed being close to him too much to leave. Wyatt didn’t often let his guard down that much, and it was hard to walk away when he was like that.