I paused, not sure what to say to Jake anymore, which I fucking hated. We’d been close for so long, but now I felt like I’d let him down. Worse, I was second-guessing myself all over the damn place. Should we have gone ahead with canning? I was beginning to think so. But I’d been worried and hesitated. Now we’d lost out on that loan.
Me:Have fun and let me know what you learn.
There. That was a subtle way to let him know I was still interested in learning more, right? Maybe? Damn if I didn’t feel like an indecisive kid right now. I shook my head and headed into my parents’ place.
“Mom, Dad?” I called out as I entered the farm kitchen.
“Out in a second,” I heard my dad call from the direction of their bedroom. I grabbed one of my mom’s chocolate chip scones off the counter and took a bite. I closed my eyes to really savor it since I hadn’t had one for a while. It was a good thing I didn’t live at home anymore. I’d easily weigh ten more pounds, minimum.
I headed down the hall to the family room, thinking I’d meet up with Dad. Halfway there, I slowed, my eyes catching on one of the photos Mom had framed on the wall. Mom often joked that her decoration style was photos. She didn’t like them to be posed but candid shots where she got to see people as they really were, or so she said. As a result, there was a shit ton of photos of someone taking a bite of food at various family gatherings over the year. I asked her about that, and she said she was always trying to capture the blissed look on someone’s face when they had a bite of food that they really loved.
The photo that caught my eye, however, was after some Little League game. I was still in my uniform standing with my dad and facing the tall corn, grain elevator in the distance. The sun was going down, bathing the whole sky in gorgeous colors. I was guessing my mom was behind the camera, and she had captured the shot that had my dad resting his arm on my shoulder as we watched the sunset. I’d put money on some Dairy Queen ice cream in my hand, since that was the tradition after most games.
Emotion flooded me as I stood there. From my spot in the hall I could see many pictures in either direction with my dad giving Emma or myself his quiet support. Hell, even Max and Emma began to show up in these pictures at some point, and he did the same for them. How did he know how to be what we needed? I went frame to frame, seeing Dad cheering us on at a football game, pitching the ball to me in the yard, encouraging Emma in a cross-country meet, dancing with Emma in the kitchen when she was small.
I came back to the picture of us at sunset. I was about eight, which was at the tail end of what I considered the lean years here. Years where I remember seeing my dad at the dining room table late into the night, trying to figure out how to make ends meet. I’d put money on Emma having no memories of those times. Hell, I bet my parents would hate like hell that I even knew about them, but they’d impacted me, clearly.
Looking at that photo, though, I didn’t see that stress reflected in him. I saw my dad standing by my side after watching my game. A dad that somehow scraped enough together to pay for my fee to be on the team, my uniform, my ice cream treat after the game, even though it probably hurt. Did I appreciate that enough then? I dropped my head and put a hand on the back of my neck as I considered the wood floors. Do I now?
This morning I’d woken up with Maggie curled around my body as I lay on my back. Opening my eyes, I’d looked down to see her strawberry blonde hair spread out over my chest, and I’d wondered briefly how in the hell I could get this to be a regular thing. Before I got to enjoy it too much, she’d woken up and teased me mercilessly over the fact that I’d put her in my bed instead of hers. She seemed to have moved me firmly back into the friend zone, and while I treasured her friendship, it might kill me.
A throat cleared, and I looked up to see my dad at the end of the hall watching me. “You good, son?” he asked, moving down the hall to my side.
I felt myself relax just being near my dad. Just being with him made me feel like a little kid, safe in the knowledge that he had me, even when things were tight. Though I was certainly worried then that we might have to move, that he would have to find another job, I always knew we’d be together. Looking at him now, I smiled. He’d clearly been finishing a chapter in his latest book. He was wearing his reading glasses with a book in hand. “Yeah, Dad. What did you want to meet about today?” I asked.
“You working tonight?” he asked, ignoring the question. Looking at the picture I was standing in front of, he snorted. “Shocking that your mother would have a photo of a sunset up here.”
“She does love them,” I agreed. Then I answered his question, even though he’d ignored mine. “And yeah, I’m working. Jake’s down to Knobs Brewery to check out their canning process.”
He nodded. “That’s right. When are you two kicking off your first batch?”
My heart sank. I didn’t want to have this conversation today. Searching for another topic, I seized on the one I didn’t think we’d ever talk about. I tapped the sunset picture. “I think I was eight here.”
He nodded.
Gathering some courage, I continued. “I remember those were some lean years for the farm…”
Dad turned to face me. “You do?”
I still faced the picture, it was easier than looking at him for this. “Yeah. Heard you and Mom talking some back then.”
Dad must have decided looking at the picture was easier too because he turned back to it. “Shit, Cole. Wish I’d known.”
We stood in silence for a bit. I wondered briefly where Mom was. I’d put money on her being out back, gardening. The silence of the house felt like a spell that I didn’t want to break. Eventually, I did. “Why didn’t you talk to us about it?”
Dad let out a big sigh before placing an arm over my shoulder just like he had in the picture. Turning me, we headed back toward the kitchen. He dropped his book on the counter and let go of my shoulder. “Want a scone?” he asked.
“Had one,” I replied.
He grabbed one for himself and took a bite, letting out a quiet moan. “I swear, your mom is trying to kill me with her baking. I mean, how is a person to resist these?”
“Dad…” I hopped up to sit on the counter and watched him.
Leaning against the other counter, he regarded me. Mom and Dad were in their late fifties, but both were still extremely active. I figured if their genetics worked out for me, I was looking at a mirror image of myself in a bit over twenty years.
“Didn’t want to burden you, son,” he quietly said. “Man is any kind of man, he makes life easier for those he loves, doesn’t weigh them down. Your mom and I examined the cards we were dealt by Mother Nature and worked like hell to get us to a good place.” He looked over my shoulder out the window, lost in thought. After a minute or so, he looked back to me. “I hope like hell that you didn’t dwell on it.”
“Oh no,” I blatantly lied.
