Page 9 of Almost True
“Sounds good. And what are you doing?” he asked, head in his book, placing one foot in front of the other with his shoulder lightly brushing my arm. He’d mastered this positioning, as it let me steer him, if needed, but avoided holding my hand or hooking his arm in mine becausethe horror.
What would I be doing? Thinking about Maddie. This wasn’t altogether different than any other night of the last eighteen months, but it would certainly take a different tone. Rather than a mildly hopeless sense of longing, I’d be looking forward to something real. We had plans to meet on Saturday. No, I didn’t have her number, but I had an appointment with her.A date.
That was the first time I’d thought those words without a hefty amount of dread coating them in I didn’t know how long. A date with Maddie sounded like a dream—yes, I’d had actual dreams about it.
Her voice. Her eyes when they’d dip down to my lips and flicker with desire. The way she looked at me like a man—just a normal, red-blooded man who was talking and flirting with her, and not damaged goods.That kiss.How I’d dreamed of it.
But would I tell my sweet summer child that? No. And in reality, I did have a few other things to do. “I’ll be at the farm, which is part of the reason you’re going with the grands, especially since you’re feeling better. Right?”
I reached up and pressed my hand to his forehead. He jerked away like I’d scalded him with my touch, a dramatic scoffing sound issuing from his formerly strep-infected throat.
“No, I’m not still sick. I’ve felt fine all day. I can go.”
I waited for him to register the words. For our discussion this morning when he rolled out of bed and looked so deeply pitiful when he said, “I just can’t go back yet” to come to him. To recall me saying, “You haven’t had a fever for more than twenty-four hours. You’re going to get behind. I shouldn’t have let you skip a grade and take advanced math if you were going to miss school for no reason.”
I saw the moment when he did, and his eyes slid to mine. I blinked slowly and, had we been standing in the kitchen where most of these types of conversations tended to occur, I would’ve crossed my arms and leaned against the counter, perfectly at my leisure. But just now, since I had a number of other things to do before returning to work and finishing up all manner of things before sending Luca to my in-laws’ house, I simply waited as we walked.
He snapped the book in his hands closed. “Fine. I’m sorry. I should’ve gone to school. But you were finally coming into town, and I’ve gotten every bit of work done that they’ve sent home.”
I didn’t bother stifling my sigh. Eleven-year-old going on twenty logic sometimes wore on me. I couldn’t blame him for wanting a change in the routine, but school would be out inside the month. We were almost there. “The issue is never whether you can complete the work. You and I both know you’re smart enough and you’re diligent. But part of the issue with skipping a grade, especially as we’re about to end seventh grade and you’re going into eighth before you even turn twelve, is maturity. And showing up, doing the thing you say you’ll do… that’s part of the equation here.”
Somehow, he managed to avoid rolling his eyes, though I would’ve bet a month’s farm revenue he wanted to at my use ofequation.
He exhaled loudly, the flair for the dramatic never far from reach. “I get it. I’m sorry.”
My heart squeezed. Damn, he was such a good kid and I loved him. And because I loved him, it was my duty as his father to publicly humiliate him at times like this. So I reached around and hugged him to me, my arm smashing him against my side.
“Dad!” He pulled back, shoving me away lightly, but I caught his grin as he brushed off his sleeves.
“Just doing my job,” I said.
He shook his head like he was so fed up, but he glanced my way with a look I knew well. It wasn’t humiliation or frustration, which I certainly got often enough these days. This one was love, and knowing I could still harass him and get such a response reminded me yet again how thankful I was for him.
* * *
I eased the storm door shut, hoping Luca was passed out on the couch. When I saw Martha, who was sitting at the small kitchen table with her book, raise her finger to her lips to keep me quiet, I had my confirmation.
“He went down around nine,” she said in the same way we used to when he was little.
“Good. Thank you.”
She nodded. “You know we love it.”
I did. “Still. I’m sorry it’s so late.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry there’s so much for you to do.”
Her eyes tracked past me as though she could see the farm office from her seat. She couldn’t, but knowing the way Rich had worked all their lives, I wondered how often she’d sat right here like this and waited for him on late nights.
“Get those reports in?” Rich asked as he entered the kitchen.
“Yep. All set.” I’d submitted our water usage for April, which was monitored and partially subsidized by a grant. Then I’d done a handful of other total drudgery tasks that had to be done, and in the last few years, they’d fallen to me. When Rich’s office administrator moved away and the work got too much for him alone, I’d stepped in even more than I had been after Vivienne’s death. And there’d been no going back.
“Good. ’Preciate ya, son. You’re a natural with all that.”
After decades with the man, I knew this was a genuine compliment from him. It also often felt a lot like when people say they’re not good at something and then expect someone else to do it because they do it better. Like men saying women cook better, so they should do it. “Honey, you do the dishes and laundry and cleaning so much better than I do, so it just makes sense for you to do it all.”
I couldn’t help hearing it that way from Rich, but I knew that wasn’t right or in any way fair. I’d stepped in. I’d taken over. It was my actual job, and yes, I was good at it, even if I wasn’t great at simultaneously managing the actual tree farm and workers and paperwork and parenting my son and trying not to lose my mind—ohand making some feeble stab at my own business. My sustainable landscaping firm had come dead last in recent years, and though I picked up a job here and there, it simply couldn’t get as much of my time as I wanted it toandmake sure things were covered at Templeton Tree Farm.
