Page 64 of Returning Your Love
“Got this month’s payment,” I told him, setting the check on the island, shoulders back, feeling a hint of pride in myself for the first time since closing on my house.
Dad nodded and continued on with his task as though unimpressed I’d put pen to paper before its due date.
I should have known better to expect anything other than indifference over my finally meeting an expectation, but his dismissiveness still stung.
Fuck him and his high horse.
I turned away from him, done for the night and ready to leave. “What can I do to help, Mom?” I asked even though I could see the dining room through the archway. She’d already set the table, had ice water poured and everything.
“If you wouldn’t mind carrying in the potatoes.” She handed me a white serving bowl, steam rising off the fluff of white and glob of butter at its center.
It’d been days since that meals on wheels thing had ended. I hadn’t had a warm, home-cooked meal since, but I’d only agreed to dinner because it was long overdue.
We sat at the dining room table built for eight, Mom and I bracketing Dad at the head like we used to do every night when I’d been a kid.
Dad said grace while I grimaced over the bowl Mom had set down beside my plate.
Fucking peas.
After his deep and reverent, “Amen,” Dad nodded as though giving us permission to begin.
I managed to keep the disgust off my face this time even though I hated their old traditional values of the man ruling the roost.
Made me want to vomit.
“How are you doing, Charles?” Mom finally asked what I’d expected the second I had walked into the house.
At least one of my parents showed concern of my well-being, but having zero wish to repeat the last conversation she and I had in my kitchen, I decided to keep it short like I did with everyone else who asked.
“Fine.” I scooped mashed potatoes onto my plate even though my stomach wasn’t feeling up to food no matter how good it looked or delicious it smelled.
Her disappointment in my answer lay heavy in the air. Imagining her pursed lips was disheartening enough, so I didn’t bother glancing across the table.
“We heard you were at the bar last night.”
I closed my eyelids briefly, fighting off the need to shake my head. Of course they would catch rumor of the grieving husband finally showing his face outside the auto shop—and find my choice of where I decided to socialize distasteful. Dad’s tonemade that clear as the brilliant green balls of shit in the bowl beside me that I ignored.
“I met up with Jamie for a few drinks,” I said, not feeling the slightest bit guilty.
“A few?”
I ignored Dad’s inquiry. He obviously already knew I’d been slamming back shots of whiskey. Choosing dark meat, I stabbed a thigh off the platter of chicken and set it onto my plate. “Gravy, please?”
Mom handed the boat over, and I covered everything on my plate. “Have some peas,” she suggested with her mom tone I didn’t often ignore.
I shoved a mouthful of potatoes in my mouth instead. Creamy, buttery perfection coated my tongue, but I struggled to swallow while waiting for the disproval to rain down.
“You have a reputation to uphold, Charles.”
There it was, right on target and on time.
Dad’s stern voice sounded as though I were nothing more than a child, his words exactly as I’d heard from him steadily throughout my life. “Henderson is a respected name worth protecting.”
“There’s nothing wrong with going to Frenchie’s, Dad,” I said even though I knew better than to argue with anything he said. Annoyance and feeling at the end of my rope had given me the balls to stand up for myself for a change, so why curb my tongue? “Everyone else in town has gone there at one point or another,” I tacked on before he could speak.
“Not everyone,” he snipped, and yeah, he had a point. He and Mom hadn’t ever stepped foot into that place. “I would appreciate it if you considered possible consequences before making that kind of decision in the future. As a grieving widow, you don’t want people believing you need alcohol to cope. A Henderson ought not to show such weakness.”
“AndIwould appreciate if you would mind your own damned business,” I shot back, the words spewing because fuck him and fuck being treated like a stupid kid.
