Page 11 of Stone Cold Sinner

“Nash?” There was an underlying threat in Dillon’s tone.

“Ah, geez. This ain’t right, and y’all know it,” Nash defended.

“What’s not right is knowing our mother is dying and not saying a damn word to anyone. It’s selfish,” Coy said. “We all could’ve come home, spent time with her?—”

“Selfish? I’m selfish? I was the one who actually noticed something was wrong and then saw to it she didn’t go through it alone anymore because none of y’all could be bothered to come home and visit just because you missed her. No, this is your conscience, your guilt to carry, not mine. You don’t get to push that off on me. You could’ve been here more despite her being ill, but since you weren’t. That guilt’s eatin’ each of you alive, and you aren’t blamin’ me for that.”

Nash stood and marched toward the door.

“Wait!” Coy hollered. “You’re right. Come back. Sit down. Please tell us what you know. I can’t speak for everyone, but I can tell you that you’ve hit the nail on the head with me. I do feel guilty. I do wish I’d done better, been a better son.”

Nash’s shoulders sagged, and he made his way back to the table and rejoined his family. “That’s exactly why she didn’t want no one to know. It would’ve uprooted all your lives and changed everything. Everyone would’ve been here out of obligation, and she didn’t want to take nothin’ from anyone.”

“Take? She’s our mother. We would gladly drop it all for her,” Dillon said.

“She knew that. Didn’t want that for any of you,” Nash said. “She was mad, I knew.”

“How’d you find out?” Coy asked.

“Too many trips to the next town over for things. Oil changes, brakes on the car, tune-ups, shopping with the ladies.”

“Mama hated shopping, and since when did she go to the next town over for service work on her car?” Coy snickered.

“Exactly my point. I followed her when she was off to get a new set of tires when I knew she’d just bought some last spring from old man Jenkins in town. I thought she was visiting a friend at the hospital or something. Followed her inside, saw she was at the cancer center, and when she didn’t come out for quite some time and was wearing a bandage and lookin’ pale as a ghost when she did, I confronted her right then and there.”

“I bet she loved that.” Coy smiled.

“Told me I wasn’t too old for a good whoopin’.” Nash snorted. “Then I reminded her she’d never whooped a single one of us, and it was too late to start now.”

“I bet that really got her going.” Cut laughed. “She didn’t like being caught or told nothin’.”

“Sure didn’t. I took her to lunch—bad idea, she got sick. Then, I drove her home and went back for my rig the next day.”

“Wait a minute.” Cut leaned forward over the table and propped his elbows. “Is that…”

“Yup. You took me to get my truck.”

“I remember that. You said you’d been too drunk to drive and left it. I gave you a good lecture all the way there,” Cut said.

“Sure did. Couldn’t get out of your truck fast enough after that,” Nash admitted. “But I couldn’t tell you. She’d sworn me to secrecy, and y’all, even sick as she was, I was still a little afraid of that woman.”

They all laughed and agreed –– you didn’t cross Delilah Stone.

“So, I started taking her to all her appointments. I told her the only way I would keep her secret was if I got to take her and make sure she made it there safely and made it home safely. She called me a nosey trouble makin’ hooligan, but she let me.” Nash paused, his expression softened with emotion. “It was real rough on her. The treatments… They made her pretty sick.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that alone,” Coy said, landing a hand on his brother’s shoulder for support. “But I’m glad she wasn’t alone.”

“I’d do it a hundred times over. Rough as it was. I wouldn’t give up those times,” Nash admitted. “She was a tough woman, the strongest I ever met, but seeing her go through that and then act like she was fine and dandy… Man, she was stronger than any of us thought.”

“So those trips you would take with her to go antiquing or hit the big box stores a few towns over…” Cut began. “Those were…”

“Treatments, procedures, you name it.”

“That’s why you’d stay over every now and again and not come home for a few days.” Cut was piecing it all together. “You were taking care of her.”

“She didn’t want y’all to see her that sick. So, while she was in her treatments, I would go buy some random antique items somewhere or hit the big box stores and buy big quantities of random things. Then I’d go get her, take her to the hotel where she’d get sicker than a dog, and then we’d come home when she thought she was well enough to fool y’all. She’d tell you she was tired from the trip, but it was from the treatments and, ultimately, the cancer.”

“It worked,” Coy said.

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