He paused and smiled. “Well, maybe not as much, but you know what I mean.”
“I know exactly what you mean.” He shifted in the lounge chair and turned his body to face Brad. “And Tyrone?”
Brad’s heart lurched in his chest. “Yeah. I need to forgive Tyrone.”
Phillip put a hand on his knee. “You need to. Not for Valerie. Not even for Tyrone. You need to let it go for your own heart and soul.”
“I know.” He let out a breath and looked at the sky. “I know that more than you know.”
“You’ve never kept your feelings for Valerie secret. Your mama and I worried about your heart when she left, when she moved in with Tyrone, when she was hurt so badly. We pray for you, and we pray for your future wife, whomever that may be. God already knows. We love you and we love your eventual wife. If you ever need anything, someone to talk to, someone to pray with, I am here and so is your mom.” He pushed himself to his feet and started back inside, pausing with his hand on Brad’s shoulder. “Buddy will be less encouraging. Be prepared for that.”
Phillip knew Buddy had issues with Brad’s lack of skin pigmentation. He wanted Valerie’s husband to come from what he called her “own people.” He had pulled her away from their home and put her into a different school on that very basis. Brad didn’t understand it, and Phillip didn’t understand it. Despite their lack of understanding and their disagreement with the notion on its face, they respected Buddy as Valerie’s blood kin. “I’ll pray about that.”
“Good. That is the right answer.” He put his hand on the door but stopped again. “Quit worrying so much about Jon. He’ll make it through. Don’t try to father him. That’s my job. He needs a brother who loves him, not another parent.”
Phillip waited while Brad let that sink in. Finally, he said, “Yes, sir.”
After another twenty minutes, Brad went inside and locked the door behind him. As he poured his glass out into the sink, Ken walked into the room. “I have a team of eight going out to the lake tomorrow. They’ll have it taken care of in a matter of hours.”
“Great. That works.” Brad rolled his head on his neck. “I was not looking forward to doing it.” He laughed.
“Me, either.” He pulled his keys out of his pocket and hung them up on the hooks by the back door. “I’m ready to move into the apartments whenever you are. Got an offer on the house today.”
“Send me the plans so I can look over them.”
“Already in your email. I was going to ask Valerie to give me some insight into the color samples.”
“Yeah, good idea.”
“There’s an office that has its own bathroom. We can install a shower then use that as living quarters.”
“Sounds good. How much money do I owe you?”
“I’ll finish up the estimate after getting with Valerie and let you know what your half is.”
“Maybe Jon wants in on a third of it.”
“I checked. He was about half interested. I’ll check again and make sure before we divvy up costs.”
“Looking forward to it. As sore as I am after prepping for the party, I clearly need to get back to some manual labor on a regular basis.” As he left the room, he called over his shoulder, “Goodnight.”
He double-checked the doors then went upstairs. On his way to his room, he paused at Jon’s room, seeing the glow of his light from under the door. He rapped two knocks with his knuckles and opened the door. Jon lay against pillows in his bed watching a replay of a Braves game on his television. “Hey,” Brad said.
“Hey, yourself.” Jon pointed the remote at the tv and paused the game.
“The rope swing was a huge hit. Great idea.”
Jon smiled. “It was fun. The older kids liked it. Made them put their phones down for five seconds.”
“Brilliant.” Brad chuckled. “Sami even had fun on it.”
“Yeah, until Val scared her off.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “You should have heard her goading some teenagers about snakes and alligators. Suddenly, it became a challenge and the more that went on, the more everyone had to keep going. Hysterical.”
“Goodnight, bro.”
“‘Night.”
Feeling like maybe he had reset their relationship before it had gotten too far out of bounds, he went to his room to get ready for bed. As he brushed his teeth, he thought about Valerie, his dad, work, Valerie. Turning off the bathroom light, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes, willing his mind to settle down and take a break from the thinking and worrying.
