Page 49 of Dumbstruck
My phone buzzes, and I look at the screen even though I won’t be able to read any texts that come in with my mangled screen. But it’s a call, and I can see just enough to know it’s my dad calling.
Leaving the dinners on the small table, I slip out of the trailer and answer the call. “Hey, Pops.”
“Cinco! How’s Colorado?”
I chuckle at the nickname. He’s the only one who still uses it, and I love it every time he does. “Colorado is…” How do I sum it all up? “An adventure. How’s Mom?”
“She was out in the garden today.”
“That’s amazing! But isn’t it too early to plant anything?”
“You know your mother. She has to make sure the soil is good and fertilized.”
I’ve always loved the way my mom tends to her garden as dutifully as my dad handles the potato fields. I love more that she’s strong enough to be out digging in the dirt. “Do you think she’s over the worst of it?” I ask, though I’m afraid of the answer. She was still pretty weak when I was there, and the doctors still haven’t fully figured out what laid her low in the first place.
Dad grunts. “I hope so. I’m not ready to be without her. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.”
I don’t think my dad has ever said anything like that before. Not to me, anyway. I grip my phone tighter, leaning my back against my trailer. I don’t especially want to talk about my mom dying after the day I’ve had, so I change the subject. “So what’s up? How areyoudoing?” I wince as soon as the words leave my mouth.Way to be sensitive.
“Gettin’ by, same as always. I just had a feelin’.”
“About what?”
“About you. Thought you might need some advice or somethin’.”
“A feeling,” I repeat, rolling my eyes. My dad always has ‘feelings’ that are often lucky guesses.
Grunting again, Dad seems to struggle getting through the words when he says, “You don’t come home as often as you used to.”
No, I don’t, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon, especially if June gives me a chance. “You know me. Always busy with something.”
“You work too hard.”
“Look who’s talking.”
“Your mother and I worry about you.”
“I’m fine.”
“We worry about you getting lonely out there in California.”
I snicker, thinking about the population difference between Los Angeles and the town where I grew up. “Nah, I’ve got Richie,” I say lightly, though I know it won’t make them worry any less. “And now there’s…” I trail off, surprised by the knowledge that I was about to tell him about June. I’ve never talked about my love life with my parents, and I’m not sure I want to start now.
Unfortunately for me, Dad seems to have understood the words I didn’t say, though he takes the conversation in a direction I don’t expect. “You rushed off to California so quickly when you were a kid. You and I never had the…you know,the talk.”
I grimace. “Are you about to have the sex talk with me? Over the phone? When I’m over thirty?”
“Notthattalk! Unless you need—”
“No.” Definitely not. At this point, I’m pretty sure all my bases are covered, and that is not a conversation I need to have out in the open. With my luck,Hollywood Hot Scoopwould show up again just for that. “What talk are you talking about?”
After a few uncomfortable grunts and coughs, Dad says, “The same one I had with your brothers and sister before they got married.”
My stomach twists. “I’m not getting married.”
“Not yet, maybe, but soon you’ll—”
“Dad, why did you call me tonight?” I don’t know why I’m nervous to hear his response, but I am.
