Page 127 of Carson

He takes off his work gloves. “Yeah, your mom’s been working me all day. I could use a break.”

“Oh, I have not.” She tosses a clump of dirt at him, but he manages to sidestep it.

“Missed me.”

She smiles and goes back to her flowers.

“How about a beer?”

“Sounds good.”

We head into the kitchen, and each crack a cold one before going back out to the patio and sitting down at the table.

“What’s on your mind?” he asks before taking a long drink.

“Well, I was wondering why you haven’t encouraged Luna to come out of that room.”

“She does.”

“Dad, going across the hall to the bathroom doesn’t count.”

He laughs, and I don’t know why, because I don’t see anything funny about it.

“Why, Dad?”

He looks out at the sunflowers scattered across the backyard. “Because right now that’s where she needs to be.”

“She needs to be with Carson,” I argue.

He takes another long drink, thinking about it. “Do you know her mother prophesied that I would save her?”

My head pulls back. “What are you talking about?”

“On her deathbed, she told Luna that a big man with a beard would save her. That I’d be waiting on a rocky path by the sunflowers.”

I relax back in my chair. “That’s fucking nuts.”

“It is,” he agrees.

My mom smiles as she walks past us with a handful of them. “I’m going to take these up to Luna’s room,” she says, stopping to give my dad a quick kiss on the cheek.

He pats her on the back side as she walks away.

I’m used to it.

“But what does her mom’s vision have to do with letting her hibernate upstairs?”

Dad looks around again. “If it hadn’t been for your mom moving out here, there would be no sunflowers … no cabin out back … no church filled with Kelsie’s little family. None of this would have existed. Not even you.”

I still don’t get it.

He shakes his head as if trying to clear past memories. “I remember when there was nothing back here but weeds and that little shed over there.” He points to the building Mom keeps her wood projects in.

“What’s the point?”

His laugh scares a squirrel that came up for a drink out of their bird bath.

“I don’t know if there is one.”