She lifted herself up onto the tailgate and scooted into the back of the truck, sitting on one of the blankets, wrapping herself in another. The early morning air was cold, frigid, and she could just sort of see a little bit of pink pushing up the edges of the velvet black sky down below.
“It was,” he said. “But also, not as much as you would think. In the end, he was alone. And a man with his kind of pride, his ego, that’s not a good thing for him. I can’t claim to understand that man. He’s my father genetically, but I don’t know him. Now I never will. But I really believe that he thought he was immortal. That all the shit that he did all of his life was never going to come back around on him, because what could possibly take him down? You know, standard narcissistic stuff. For a standard narcissist. In the end, though, not even he could outrun death. And I think the idea of having no one to leave the ranch to, I think that got to him. So suddenly it mattered that I was his son.”
“Did it have anything to do with how well you did in the rodeo?”
“Probably.”
He went back over to the fire and, using a mitt, grabbed the kettle back out from the flame.
“It’s a percolator. You put the grounds in the basket and the water in the bottom. Good old cowboy coffee.”
“I thought cowboy coffee had grounds in it.”
“I think you’ll find there are more grounds in this than you might like.”
He set two tin mugs on the edge of the tailgate and poured dark coffee into both of them. The lack of milk or cream was going to be a problem for her, but his preparedness was so hot that she didn’t want to ruin it by whining about not having a latte.
She leaned forward and took hold of a cup. It was so warm it nearly burned her hands, but it was comforting in the chilly air.
“Yeah, I expect one of the reasons that he called me in was because of that. I was the one he talked to. He never saw Walker or Lila. Which isn’t fair to them. They deserve a chance to tell him what they thought of him.”
“Did you do that?”
He shook his head. “No.”
He climbed up into the back of the truck with her, and they both settled back against the back of the cab, legs straight out in front of them, holding their coffee. “I didn’t because I wanted the ranch. That’s part of being the oldest. You do whatever the hell you have to do to smooth things over, to get what you need, even if you don’t feel like it.”
“That must’ve felt… really unsatisfying.”
“Maybe. I could’ve been awful to him. I could have told him everything I thought, but the thing is, he would never have believed it. Like I said, narcissist. He was always going to believe that he was in the right. The one thing I could do was just not engage him. Not ask him why he did anything. I never asked forhis side of the story, because I didn’t want it to matter. Whatever he says, it’s all lies. I don’t want to have anything to do with it. All I wanted was this place. I didn’t want him to be in my life, I didn’t want him to try and give himself some kind of redemption arc at the end. A reunification with his son, or whatever shit he might’ve tried if I hadn’t just been… Neutral.”
Just thinking about that made her stomach feel sour.
“I don’t know if I could’ve done that.”
“Did you see your dad when he was dying?”
She shook her head. Her eyes filled with tears. Completely unexpected tears. “No. I didn’t. He was in a nursing home. He had liver failure. He was only fifty-eight. I didn’t go see him. Because I couldn’t bear it. Because I only had angry things to say to him about how he killed himself with his drinking. About my childhood. And I just… I didn’t want to.” She hadn’t expected guilt. Not ever. But right then, she felt overwhelmed by it.
At least her dad had raised her. Maybe that was the bare minimum. A very low bar. But her mom hadn’t even stuck around for that.
“Maybe I should have. Instead. He died alone.”
“A man dies how he lives, Marlowe, you don’t have to feel guilty.”
“But I do. My dad wasn’t like yours. My mom was. Or… I don’t know. I don’t know. My mom just left. Maybe it was because she didn’t want me, maybe it was because she couldn’t handle my dad.”
“You said he was a drunk. Was he a danger to her?”
She shook her head. “No. She was more volatile than he was. My dad… He would just get drunk and check out. She would get all angry and punch holes in the wall, trying to get attention and things like that. I don’t know. Maybe she was drowning. Maybe she couldn’t stand it. But I’m not sure why she thought her nine-year-old daughter ought to be able to endure what she couldn’t. I try, now that I am an adult, I try to see it her way. I tried to see what she might’ve been struggling with that I couldn’t see at the time. Because I do know that generally speaking, a woman isn’t going to leave her child unless the circumstances are really, really grim, but I just… can’t.”
“You don’t have to be endlessly understanding, you know.”
“What’s the alternative? Being bottomlessly angry?”
He chuckled. “Yeah. That’s about right.”
“Well, what’s the point of that?”
