Page 38 of Tiger Queen

On her third run, Rachel waved to me to turn the band saw off. “Jake’s out by the scrap yard. On the far end of the zoo.”

“Huh.”

“You know what he’s doing?” she asked.

“Who knows? Probably got it into his head that the gate to one of the enclosures needs to be replaced. I try to stay out of his way. Only way to keep him from complaining.”

Rachel lingered by the food trays. “Can I ask you something?”

“Depends.”

“Anthony said that Jake got stuck working here.”

“That’s not a question,” I pointed out.

“What happened? How did he get stuck?”

Old guilt rose up in me like a geyser, making me nauseous. I tried to keep my voice level but it was a battle.

“Dad always wanted this to be a family business. We worked here as teenagers, and he intended for us to stay on permanently. Especially for me, his eldest son. I was supposed to be the crazy prince to the crazy empire. That was never my plan, though. Dad wasn’t the most nurturing father. I wanted to get away. Jake felt the same way. We wanted to do something with our lives rather than stay at the zoo until we grew old.

“I got interested in Crossfit. Put feelers out. Found someone who wanted to open a franchise up in Virginia. We lined up some investors and I prepared to break the news to dad.”

“Then what happened?”

I chuckled. “Then Anthony got accepted to Duke. By then I was already on track to leave the zoo. I didn’t mean for the two of us to bail at the same time. Just shitty luck.”

I examined the chunk of meat on the table because it gave me something to focus on other than the words coming out of my mouth.

“The two of us told dad together, at the same time. He was heartbroken. Begged us to stay. Yelled at us. Even cried a little. But Anthony and I had made our decisions.”

“And Jake…”

I nodded. “He was left behind. Stuck helping dad, and he felt too guilty to leave. Dad got more bitter as the years went on. Wouldn’t answer the phone or reply to emails. We came down for Christmas one year and he barricaded the place. Wouldn’t let us in.

“Jake resented us for it. Like we had planned to bail at the same time. Once my Crossfit gym was up and running I asked him to come work for me, but he said it would destroy dad. He refused to be the last one to leave. He stuck around for a few years, tolerating all the hard work and dad’s shitty attitude day in and day out. Jake finally did split when it became too much. Dad never forgave him.”

I turned back to Rachel to gauge her reaction. She was right next to me, a sad look on her face. She hugged me, and didn’t care that the blood on my butcher’s apron was smearing on her shirt. The hug meant the world to me in that moment.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Yeah, well, that’s how life goes sometimes.” Suddenly I laughed.

She pulled away. “What’s so funny?”

“I just had a thought. It’s ironic that dad wanted us all to work together at the zoo as adults.” I gestured around me. “Here we are. All it took was his death to make it happen.”

She leaned up and brushed her lips against mine.

“What was that for?”

“Just because.” She smiled, gathered up the next batch of food trays, and carried them out to the Mule.

As I resumed my work, I felt a lot better than I had before.

18

Rachel

---