Twenty minutes later, with fresh clothes and damp hair, I knocked on their door. Patricia led me to the screened-in back porch where they often ate.
“What did you get done today?” Daniel asked.
“There’s good hardwood under that ugly carpet, so I removed a bunch. The floors might be too much for me to handle on my own, but it’ll keep me busy.”
“You’ll be great,” Patricia said with a pat to my shoulder. “You have ambitious plans, but you follow through. Some people have grandiose ideas but never get past the planning stage. You’re already doing the work.”
“Speaking of bloviating fools, you should hear some of Patty’s stories from when she volunteered with the chapel’s rummage sale,” Dangrumbled. “Some of those women had big plans, but did they do any work to make it happen? No, they did not.”
I interrupted what I suspected could be a long-winded rant.
“Speaking of the rummage sale. I don’t suppose there’s one coming up any time soon, is there?” I asked hopefully.
“There’s one later this month to raise money for the Arts Fest. What do you need, hon? We might have extras.”
I chuckled self-consciously. It was one thing to sleep on the floor and eat off paper plates; it was another thing to admit it, especially to them.
“Nothing urgent.”
“Jacob.”
Patricia’s unflinching gaze and stern voice melted my resolve.
“Everything,” I mumbled.
“What do you mean everything?”
“Pots and pans. Dishes. Coffee maker. Silverware. Table and chairs. A bed. Everything.”
Patricia gasped.
“Don’t tell me all you have is what was in your truck. I thought the rest was being delivered soon.”
Ashamed, I hung my head.
“Don’t harass the boy,” Dan said. “Men don’t collect doohickeys and doilies the way you women folk do.”
“Silverware and a bed aren’t doohickeys, Dan,” she smarted off at him.
She turned back to me with a smile.
“Sweetheart, how did you go so long without having anything but your clothes?”
I shrugged, feeling like a child who’d been called to the carpet.
“I’ve lived in the barracks since I left, and they’re furnished with a bed, a desk, microwave, and some dishes. Most of the time, I ate at the mess hall,so I didn’t need my own pots and pans. And there was always plenty of coffee everywhere. It was terrible but plentiful.”
“See,” Dan crowed. “He didn’t need them, Patty. You made the boy feel like he wasn’t living up to your expectations when he had no need for any of that stuff.”
Patricia gasped again, but this time she engulfed me in a firm hug.
“Dear boy, I never want you to feel bad about the choices you made. I’m the one who was in the wrong here, not you. It never occurred to me, and it should have.”
My head spun at her words. Never once had either of my parents apologized to me for a mistake or misunderstanding.
“I have the best idea.” Patricia clapped her hands in a way that reminded me so much of Dani it hurt. “I’ll take you shopping. We can go to the city and get what you need. As much as I love Sierra Rose Ridge, it has its limits.”
“I don’t know,” I said.
