“I’m sure it does, but you wouldn’t want it to feel easy, would you?” Daddy’s mouth quirked up in a half-smile. “Hard things help us grow into the people God wants us to be.”
“Another life lesson,” Trap said, his lips also tipping up.
“Have you talked to Lila Mae?” he asked.
Trap shook his head. “We went out on the weekend, but it was—well, it was a little weird. It felt like starting over.”
“Well, if there’s one thing I’ve learned,” Daddy said. “It’s that once things change, they don’t just go back to what they were before.”
“But that’s what I want,” Trap said. “I just want to go back to what we were before.”
Daddy smiled and shook his head. “That’s not going to happen, my boy. The only way is to get through it, and while you’re doing that, you make a new you. A new the-two-of-you. A new future.”
Trap ran his hands through his hair. “I don’t know how to do any of that.”
“You didn’t know how to build a house either,” Daddy said, and Trap thought he should be a motivational speaker. “Anyway, you have to build and rebuild your relationship with a woman, Trappy. Things you didn’t like about the previous relationship, you can change. And then you’ll have the kind of relationship you want.”
Trap blinked, thinking through his parents’ love story, and how they’d actually had to try twice before things worked between them. Maybe three times, if he counted the fake marriage.
“Dad, I don’t even know how to bring up the things I want to talk to her about.”
“Surely she knows something’s a little bit off with you two,” Daddy said.
“Yeah, I’m sure she does.”
“Then it’s not going to be a surprise,” Daddy said.
“We were getting along so well.” Trap moaned and finally spun away from the room, his father, all of it. The sun shone outside, and Trap’s fingers itched to be holding a knife or a hammer. “I don’t want to ruin what I still have with her.”
“Yeah, sure,” Daddy said. “But you need to know if you can work past problems like this in the future, because this isprobably something minor, and you’re going to have alotbigger issues than a busy schedule and someone who can’t make a decision in a marriage.”
Trap nodded. “I sent Sawyer to deal with the cement today, and I haven’t heard anything from him.”
“That means it’s probably going fine,” Daddy said.
“Yeah.” Trap reached up and ran his hands over his face, then turned back to his father. “I’m not good at talking the way you and Momma are.”
“You get better at it the more you do it,” Daddy said. “You just can’t worry that much about what might come out of your mouth. If it doesn’t land right, you use different words, right?”
Trap couldn’t even bring himself to agree verbally.
Daddy sobered, and he reached up and stroked one hand over his beard. “I know you’ve spent your whole life trying to please others and make sure that we’re all happy. You do things, because you think I’ll be happy, or your momma will like it.” He raised his eyebrows, challenging Trap to contradict him.
Trap couldn’t.
“Trappy, you have to ask yourself—what makesmehappy? What doIwant?” He leaned forward and rested his forearms on the front edge of the desk. “You deserve to be happy too, son.”
Trap nodded, his emotions swirling through him. “I don’t think I’munhappy.”
Daddy grinned and chuckled. “I’ve seen you with Lila Mae, and you seem really happy with her.”
He was fishing, but Trap didn’t mind so much. He reached up and wiped his face, cleared his throat, and nodded.
“If Lila Mae makes you happy, then you have to figure out a way past the weird.”
“Yeah,” Trap said.
“There will be things about her that irritate you, and that’s okay. It’s called life,” Daddy said. “You can love someone andstill not get along with them every second of every day.” He grinned from across the desk. “Your mother still doesn’t close the kitchen cupboards and drawers, and I can always tell exactly what she’s been doing in there, just by what’s open when I walk in.” Daddy clapped his hands. “Drives. Me. Crazy.”
