Page 54 of Boston
“Don’t think that I missed the part where you said, ‘Everyone’s actions have spoken volumes.’”
“Well, they have,” Cash said. “What do you want me to say? Mom has a new husband, and he still had little kids. She doesn’t need me in her life anymore, and neither do you. You have a whole new wife and a whole new family, and it doesn’t matter. I don’t matter.”
“Cash, that isnottrue.”
“Well, it’s how I feel,” he said, the words surprising him as much as his dad. Cash had not come here to tell him how neglected and abandoned he felt, but the broken pieces of his life suddenly came together into a bigger, better picture.
“Rowley moved on,” he said, also something he hadn’t told his father.
“He did?”
“Yeah, and it’s fine. I get why he’d want to go work with the Texas cowboys, but he took a couple of guys with him, and I wasn’t one of them.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” Daddy said.
“What would it have changed?” Cash asked. “Would you have left your wife and your four little kids to come train me in Jackson Hole? I don’t think so, Dad. You didn’t when I turned pro, and you won’t now.”
“Is that what you wanted me to do?” Daddy asked. “I have tried to be with you every step of the way.”
“Yeah, I know youthinkyou have.”
Daddy fell back against the back of the booth, his surprise turning to disgust and then anger. At least one thing about him was he couldn’t really hide how he felt anymore. He’d done it so much on the rodeo circuit, and Cash had actually heard him say to Faith that he was tired of it.
“I could have quit the rodeo circuit,” Cash said. “And not said anything to anyone, and no one would have noticed.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Daddy said.
“Really?” Cash asked. “What? You and Uncle Jem are getting together and watching all the local rodeos?”
Daddy’s jaw jumped, but he didn’t say that they were. Of course they weren’t.
“Mom doesn’t care. You don’t care. None of the uncles care. Faith doesn’t care. The little kids don’t care, and it’s fine,” Cash said, though it really wasn’t.
His stomach boiled, and he hated how his eyes grew hot. He would not cry here, not over this.
“You have your own life. Everyone does,” he said. “And maybe Rowley leaving has just been hard for me, but I’m just really tired of never being a priority for anyone.”
“Son, you’re a priority for me.”
“That’s just not true, Dad.” He spoke softly, but with plenty of conviction. He shook his head and scooted to the end of the booth. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to have this fight.” He pulled his wallet out and threw a few bills on the table.
“Where are you going?” Daddy asked.
“Somewhere else.” Cash shoved his wallet in his back pocket and glared at his father. “I know that you’ve done the best you could,” he said. “But I also think you’retotallydelusional if you don’t think what I’m saying has some ounce of truth and some merit.”
Daddy simply glared, and his silence was usually acquiescence.
“There’s a reason Harry has cousin night with everyone from the first marriages. Wedon’t fit, Dad.” He waved his arm through the air. “We’re like this, this—this long chain of islands that everyone has forgotten about once they got their new wife and their new kids. You know, the ones that really matter?”
“Cash, that’s not true.”
“It doesn’t really matter if it’s true or not,” Cash said. “Don’t you get that, Dad? It only matters how I feel about it, and how Boston feels about it, and how Harry feels and Joey and the others.”
He really needed to leave, but Cash had gone all-in and might as well finish. “And look, I’m real happy for you and Uncle Jem and everyone else who’s gotten their happily-ever-after. But if you think that didn’t come at a cost to someone, you’re wrong, and those someones are still here.”
He shook his head, trying to tamp down the anger running through him. “I didn’t think this conversation would be this. It’s fine. I was just going to let you know I’m not doing the rodeo the rest of the year. I don’t know if I’ll go back. I don’t know what my life is supposed to be, but I know one thing. There’s only one person on this planet who cares and puts me first, and that’s me.”
“Cash, I care about you.”
