“Are they super close?”
“No more than any other dad and son. They get along and like each other, but they’re not joined at the hip.”
“It seems like your dad puts up with a lot from him.”
“He does. Way more than the rest of us. Sometimes I wonder if there wasn’t some kind of mix-up in the birth order lineup and Gage was supposed to be the youngest.”
The dust the goats kicked up made my eyes water a little, and that was the absolute only reason I was a little teary-eyed. No other reason. None.
“I don’t know much about birth order, but he does seem to have…a vibe.”
I shot Daddy a rueful grin. “A vibe? Someone’s been hanging out with me too much.”
“But I like hanging out with you, sugar.”
After a few minutes of silence and watching the goats eat, I gathered up the courage to give Daddy the apology I owed him.
“I’m sorry for leaving you in the family drama.”
“Meh, don’t worry about it, sugar. You already apologized for it, and you didn’t owe that one. We all have family drama sometimes.”
“Even you?”
“Well, not drama. More like low-key family angst.”
“You don’t talk much about your parents,” I observed.
“What do you mean? I talk about Faust and Bert all the time.”
“But they’re not your actual parents.”
“Yeah, I forget sometimes. My actual parents run a part-time bait shop down in Galveston. They fucking love their life as beach bums. Sometimes I forget they’re my actual parents, and Mom and Dad aren’t just nicknames.”
“You guys don’t get along?”
“When my parents graduated from high school, they lived in a small Texas town in the middle of nowhere. My dad’s family owned a ranch. There was no question—he was going to get married, have kids, and run the place. And that’s what he did. He married the woman he loved, and they had a kid.”
“I don’t think I’m following where the problem is.”
“My dad had absolutely no fucking interest in the ranch. He never wanted to be a rancher, but he didn’t feel like he could tell his parents he wanted something different. They had a kid because that’s what you did—not because they necessarily wanted one. And they sure as shit never wanted more than one. Once they had me, their duty was done. They still loved each other fiercely, but it was hard for them to find space in there for me. When Faust and Bert came along, they were more than happy to hand that part of life over to them.”
“I can’t tell if you’re sad about that.”
Daddy shot me a rueful grin. “I’m not. Because I think you can love people and not understand them.”
I let his words marinate in my brain for a few minutes. “I’m so tired of my family thinking I’m a perpetual screwup who needs to be protected from myself because I’m too incompetent to figure out my life.”
“Seems to me you’ve already proved you’re not a fuck-up. Gage may have stolen credit from you, but that didn’t erase the work you did. And I think it takes a hell of a lot to go out, experiment, and figure out what you want instead of just doing what you’re supposed to do. That takes a shit ton of guts.”
“I’m not sure it’s the same thing.”
“Well, the good news is I’m your Daddy, and I’m saying that it is. You don’t need to worry about whether you agree with me.”
“Is that the way it’s going to work?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
“That’s the way this one is gonna work.”
“Then I guess that’s that.”
