Page 15 of Family Forever
Dylan lowered his head. “I feel like everything I do is wrong. I can’t keep the boys happy to save my life.”
The old man lifted his hand and clumsily touched the top of his grandson’s head. Dylan didn’t move. His grandfather grunted loudly, causing Dylan to lift his head to meet his grandfather's gaze. The old man touched Dylan's cheek and grunted at him in a tone that sounded reassuring.
Dylan raked his hand over his face. “You keep saying that, but I just don’t know if I should be the one…” His voice squeaked and his grandfather grunted again.
How on earth did Dylan understand what his grandpa was trying to tell him? They seemed to understand each other clearly through just their glances. And what was Dylan even talking about? He was wonderful with his brothers. Anyone with half a brain could see how much he loved his brothers and cared for them.
Dylan stood, leaned forward, and hugged his grandfather. It was the most caring display she’d ever seen by a man of Dylan’s age and stature, showing such affection to the sweet old man he loved.
After reaching for Luke’s tractor on the bedside table, Dylan stepped toward the doorway, paused and looked back at his grandpa. “I love you.”
Marissa spun around and hightailed it out of the building barely making it into the truck before Dylan stepped out of the building. Her heart still thudded in her chest. The man walking toward the truck was as kind and caring as he was handsome, but she’d already figured that out.
Dylan parked in the garage attached to the house and the boys sprang from the truck nearly as fast as he cut the engine, except for Luke who slept in the center of the back bench seat. His oldest brother carried him and his tractor into the house. The young boy yawned and rubbed his eyes. Dylan set him on a kitchen chair as the others raided the fridge for lunch. The older boys quickly ate their sandwiches and then disappeared upstairs to change out of their Sunday clothes.
* * * *
Marissa stepped toward the built-in cabinet that lined the long kitchen wall separating the kitchen from the living room. The glass doors needed cleaning. It took her longer to get the big house spring-cleaned than she had anticipated, but now a few weeks into it, the cabinet was next on her list. The shelves were full of antique looking dinnerware, serving pieces, and family artwork. She wondered which pieces Dylan had made.
She glanced over her shoulder and looked at Dylan who was still sitting at the table with Luke. The young boy was almost done with his lunch. “This china set is beautiful.”
Reaching in, she snatched up one of the plates. The center of the plate was white. Pale green leaves lined the edge, and brilliant gold inlay bordered the rim.
The warmth of Dylan’s body seeped into her as he stepped to her side.
“Those were Grandma Jacobs’s. My mother loved to use them on holidays.” He spoke softly, sadness filling his gaze.
She remembered when his parents and grandma were killed in that horrific accident. They had been driving on an icy county road when a milk truck skidded out of control and hit them head on. It was said all three died at the scene, and the truck driver went without injury. She recalled the awful weeks that followed for Dylan’s brother, Cole. He was a senior at the time and she was a sophomore, and though she didn’t know him well it broke her heart every time she saw him walking aimlessly in the halls at school. At the time, Marissa knew there were younger boys, Aric, Braden, and Nate, she’d seen them on occasion but she didn’t really know them with them being in grade school. Then there was the toddler who was about three at the time. Lastly, there was Dylan. How awful it must have been for him to get that call while away at college. She supposed he kind of grew up overnight, becoming the responsible party at the drop of a hat.
Her tear dropped and hit the plate. She quickly swiped it away with her sleeve hoping he wouldn’t notice as he stared into the cabinet.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, his dark eyes filled with concern.
Her heart swelled, and then swelled even more when she recalled the conversation she overheard between him and his grandfather at the nursing home. He stared at her, waiting out her pause.
“It’s nothing.”
“There’s obviously something. What is it? Your dad?”
She shook her head. “I was just thinking about how terrible it must have been for you, all of you, to lose your parents and grandma the way you did. Especially for you, to have to take over here with both the parenting and the farm at such a young age yourself.”
* * * *
That certainly wasn’t what he had expected to hear from her. He would have thought she would have been trying to figure out what to do about her living arrangement. She had two weeks of school yet, then her class trip, and then college, but not until the end of August. As he told her earlier, she could stay as long as she wanted. Adding another person into the mix of chaos wouldn’t make a hill of beans difference. At any rate, he wasn’t quite sure how to respond to her. He didn’t like talking about what had happened to his parents, and how he’d come to be where he was today.
“You’re doing a wonderful job with your brothers, you know that, right? I can see how much they love you and look up to you.”
A lump the size of a golf ball formed in his throat. His comfort level plummeted to an all-time low. He wasn’t good at talking about this kind of stuff with near-strangers. His grandfather, yes, others, no. He had always been close to his grandparents but he’d become especially close to his grandfather after the accident. He would never in a million years forget the sadness in his grandpa’s voice when he called him at school to tell him of the accident. Dylan's whole world crumbled down in that split second. His pounding pulse echoed so loudly in his ears he couldn’t hear, he couldn’t breathe, and he was sure his thudding heart would crack his chest cavity. When he finally regained some of his senses he still didn’t know what to say or do.
He drove home and he and his grandfather took care of the funeral arrangements, and then worked to come up with a game plan for the farm business and the boys. His grandfather insisted he return to school where he was set to graduate in May. In the meantime, his grandpa would tend to the children, and stay on at the farm to help Dylan when he returned. It seemed like a reasonable plan. Not that long ago his grandfather still owned the farm, and then worked for his dad and mom after they purchased the farm from him and his grandma.
Dylan returned in May to find that his grandfather had things on the home front, and farm, running like a fine oiled machine. All was going well until about two weeks later when his grandfather suffered a stroke that landed him in the nursing home. So there Dylan sat with five younger brothers to care for by himself, as well as the family farm.
Marissa touched his arm, knocking him out of his reverie. Thank goodness, it was an unpleasant one anyhow. The sympathy in her gaze was heart-wrenching. Here she stood before him, feeling sorry for him, when she herself had suffered the loss of her mother at a young age, and ended up in the care of a man who thought more about the whiskey bottle than his own daughter. Though he knew she meant well, he despised that look of sympathy he received all too often since his parents passed.
Unfortunately for him, she seemed unable to leave the silence alone, and he was unable to walk away from her and the conversation.
“Not everybody would do what you are doing, make the sacrifices you’re making.”
