At least I’d stayed on top of the situation, but as I eyed the Argyle land across the fence line, I saw that, as per usual, the horse stud prioritised aesthetics over practicality. Beautiful horses cropped emerald green grass and not for the first time did I wonder how they kept their pasture so green, when we each had the same water allocation.
Bloody Arygles…I grumbled to myself, pushing the loader onwards, only for my phone’s ringer to break me out of my foul mood. Irritation gave way to fear when I looked at the screen, because I was imagining one of a million possible scenarios in my head, right up until I saw who was calling.
Bloody Dad.
“Troy,” I said, answering the phone as I brought the loader to a stop.
“How’s it going, son?” That jovial tone, it had my teeth grinding together, just like it always did when he rang. “Farm keeping you busy?”
If anyone should know the answer to that question, it was Dad. After Nan and Pa died he took over at the farm, so he knew intimately what it required to keep the place running.
“Always,” I ground out. “There’s a heat wave about to hit. Seven days of over 40 degree?—”
“Yeah, well, if I know my son, you’ve got it handled.”
The blithe way he cut me off was all the reminder I needed of what kind of man my father was. He’d been the exact same way when Mum was dying.
“And he’s not going to change anytime soon,” she’d explained, lying in bed looking too small, too frail to the be the same woman who bustled around the kitchen, ruling her brood with an iron fist. “So you’ll just have to accept him as he is.”
Accept? Yes. Like it? Absolutely freaking not.
“So, I’m gonna need you to send me my share of the farm earnings early this quarter.”
For a moment, I just stared at the phone, unable to believe what I was hearing.
“What?”
“Well, Lisa’s been dying to go overseas and son.” Which one was Lisa? I thought his girlfriend’s name was Melinda. “I promised to take her. Young, beautiful girl like her. She’s not gonna settle for an old fart like me, not unless there’s a suitable incentive…”
His words washed over me like waves, each one threatening to push my head under and drown me. I sent him a big chunk of money last quarter. More than I should’ve if I was being honest.
“You said the last lot would be enough to keep you going for six months,” I said. “Dad, you swore?—”
“It’s hot there at the moment?” All the good humour was gone from Dad’s voice. “I remember what it was like.” Here we go, I thought, sitting back against the loader seat. “Working from sundown to sunup, every day of the week, because there was no time for weekends when you had a farm to run and four kids to provide for.”
Mum was right. Dad would never change, because we had this conversation at least a couple of times a year. My teeth ground together as I let him go on.
“When you have kids, it’ll be your turn,” he assured me. “But right now, it’s mine. I wanted to sell the farm when your mother got sick.”
“Putting her out of the only home she’d known as an adult,” I growled.
“It was my farm, not hers.”
God, I’d heard this argument over and over, but it was the first time that hurt the most. Barely twenty-two and with three siblings still in school, I’d asked him what he expected us to do.
“We made a deal.”
A deal with the devil, I realised afterwards. Work harder, faster, put longer and longer hours in to keep the farm afloat and make sure I could afford my dad’s increasingly insane demands.
“You’ll get your fucking money,” I snapped, my fingers almost cracking my phone case. “But if I don’t get back to clearing the fire breaks, there won’t be a bloody farm for you to bleed dry.”
Ending the call, then blocking his number temporarily, I tossed the device into the centre console of the grader, then started it back up again. Suddenly tearing every bit of vegetation from the earth felt like a fine thing to be doing. Better my destructive impulses be directed at the ground than anyone else.
Hours later, I stood outside the main house, staring at the wide verandas, the big front door. The muffled sounds, the smells of good cooking, threatened to lure me inside, but instead I sank down onto the bench, unlacing my work boots. I couldn’t walk in there, not in the mood I was in, so I performed the task slowly, focussing on my breath rather than my infuriating day. Sparky came snuffling around, wondering what the hell I was doing, then started ‘helping’ by grabbing the laces with his teeth and tugging.
“Sparky!” I said in a sharp voice, but those big brown eyes rolled up and stared into mine, right as his whole body dropped low. “Don’t you bloody…” Too late. He was pulling with all his might, thinking this was a fine game of tug of war. “Sparky! Sparks!”
He was in his element, wrestling me for control of the boot laces and letting out a playful growl as I grabbed the laces at their base and started pulling them from his grip. When I wrestled them free, he leapt back, barking and snapping at me, wanting more fun. I was trying some breathing technique I’d heard on a podcast when driving a harvester, but in the end, this was what I needed. Who could be mad when your damn dog was spinning around in circles from excitement?
