I rubbed my forehead with the heel of my hand. “And he doesn't want me again. He's made that clear.” Yet Gretchen wants me to save him. From his own family? I can't.
“He's a stubborn goat, same as you. Because he believes you don't want him as a dad. Now listen, Jordan. If you let him walk away-if you walk away-it's going to leave a terrible hole in your life. You and he both deserve better.”
“But I-”
She stilled me with a kiss. When she spoke her lips were soft against my own. “Don't judge him so harshly. It's hard to know what you would have done in his shoes.” She hugged me and her throat warmed against my own.
I held her, feeling the heat of her, the soft bellows of her lungs setting the pace for my own breathing.
“I told Gretchen that I love him.”
She hugged me tighter. “Then why don't you go talk to him again?” She caressed my face with her fingertip.
“Yes,” I said softly. “I think I will.” I stood, and paused at the foot of her bed. “Were you in your room late this afternoon? When the storm kicked back up?”
She shook her head. “No. I went down to the den and watched television with Deborah.”
So my prowler would have had access to the attic through Candace's room. And Candace provided an alibi for Deborah. I knew Sass was in the garden when I heard the footfalls. And I didn't believe Uncle Jake spry enough to navigate a trapdoor and steps; plus, there was no sign of his cane in the dust. At least three I could scratch off my most-likely-to-be-skulking-about list.
Maybe after I talked with Bob Don, I needed to go examine the shoe selection in this house and see who wore a particular tread.
I found Bob Don in the television room on the ground floor. The TV was tuned to the Weather Channel and the perky meteorologist described the rapidly moving tropical depression surging up toward Texas. Hurricane season had not kicked into gear, but we were due for an onslaught of rain and wind.
Rufus Beaulac lay slumped in the leather recliner I knew was Uncle Mutt's regular roost. A beer tottered in his loose grasp.
“Hi, Rufus,” I said. “Would you please excuse us? I'd like to talk to my father alone.”
Bob Don's head jerked up at the label I'd used. Rufus flashed a look of annoyance. “Just as I was gettin' comfortable.”
“Sorry.” I didn't budge.
Rufus roused himself from the recliner. He regarded Bob Don with a smirk. “No good drinkin' buddies round here since Gretch sobered up. Sass is a snob and the twins don't drink near enough.” A faint hint of malice colored his words, and I wondered for a moment if his had been the hand behind Gretchen's drunkenness.
“You go and get a head start, Rufe,” Bob Don said, “and maybe I'll join you in a few minutes. I could use another shot of bourbon in the worst way.”
Rufus regarded me with his murky hazel eyes and his scarred lip formed a crooked smile. “Later, boys.” He saluted, ambling out of the room. I shut the door behind him.
“I don't much like him,” I announced.
Bob Don kept staring at the television, watching a report on a forest fire in Oregon. “I don't think you much like anyone.”
I came and sat on the couch next to him, tendering a foot over the hard borders separating us. “That's not true.”
“Maybe not. You actually referred to me as your father. Rufus doesn't know the honor he's received.” Sardonic was not Bob Don's usual style of repartee and he stumbled over his own words.
“You are my father,” I said softly.
“Accident of biology, just like you said.” He stared at the televised inferno.
“True of every child, though, isn't it?”
“Jordan-”
I tentatively touched his arm, and a cascade of images from the past year flooded past my eyes: Bob Don lying in the hospital after taking a bullet intended for me, his blue eyes bright with pain; Bob Don standing over my other daddy's grave, telling me in a soft voice to realize the good fortunes in my life; Bob Don pleading with me to give Gretchen a volunteer job at the library as he subtly tried to knit us into a family; the hurt look in his own eyes after he'd slapped me on the porch. I grabbed the remote from his hands and silenced the television.
“I made a rotten mistake. I felt so angry when I found out that you were my biological father and I wanted to punish you, I suppose, for being part of the conspiracy of silence.”
He turned reddened eyes toward me. “Don't blame your mother. She did what she thought best-”
“She did what she wanted. She wanted to save her marriage. She wanted to protect my sister. She wanted you out of her life. I don't blame her any more than I blame you. I don't want to blame anyone anymore. I just want-” My voice broke, and he waited in the sudden silence.
“I just want you to be a father to me. And a friend.” The words came in a rush, as though I'd been holding them in my mouth for months, sampling their unusual taste.
He didn't throw his arms around me. He didn't whoop for joy. “Why now? Why the change?”
I couldn't admit to him that I knew he'd killed his brother. Not now. Perhaps not ever. I took one of his hands in mine; his was large and warm and every finger was cal-lused from the hard work he did on his property on the weekends, ridding himself of the stress of the car dealership. And no doubt, the stress I'd inflicted on him over the past months.
“Because I need a dad. And I need to be your son.”
“But you already had a father. You told me you didn't need another.” His voice was hushed. I couldn't blame him for not accepting my turnaround immediately. I'd dithered and railed too long for him to risk the hurt of me changing my mind.
“Candace has pointed out to me that I've tended to put my father on a pedestal. One does that with the dead sometimes.” But not in this family, I silently added. “Daddy wasn't perfect. If he was, he would've saved some money so that we weren't in such dire straits when Mama got so sick.” I shrugged. “He was a good man, but he wasn't an ideal man. Only I made him that way.”
Bob Don was silent, staring at my hand clasping his. His pale face might've been carved of ivory.
The memory rose to my lips before I could stop it. “When I was twelve, I stopped confiding in Daddy. I'd come home from school one afternoon and told him”-I smiled a little at my folly-”that whenever I looked at my English teacher-she was a beautiful young woman named Pamela Guenther-my pants hurt because they got too tight because my talleywhacker got hard.” Bob Don didn't smile, but I thought I saw a brief, flitting bit of mirth in his eyes. I continued: “Daddy took all this quite seriously and sat me down and gave me the sex talk. He was very kind and factual and told me I had nothing to be ashamed of.
“That night, Daddy and his poker buddies had their weekly game at our house. They played out on our enclosed porch when the weather was nice, and it was a beautiful night. I'd come down to say good night before going to bed, and Mama asked me to take the men a tray of beers. So I did.
“I came out and began setting the beers down and-they could hardly keep their laughter in. I'd set the last beer in front of Royce Collins and he said, 'Hey, Jordy, your pants hurtin' you these days?' I froze. And then Bertram Wells asked me, 'You gonna be the teacher's pet, Jordy?' They all exploded in laughter. Daddy couldn't even look at me. Lucas Behr informed me that if I put grease on Captain Tal-leywhacker and stayed out of school, maybe my pants wouldn't hurt me so bad. And they all laughed again, and the sound drifted past our porch screens and across the whole neighborhood.” I stopped for a moment. Bob Don squeezed my hand tightly.
“I'd never felt such deep humiliation in my life. I laughed along, because that's what you do to be one of the guys, backing away from them with the tray. I wanted to kill Daddy for breaking our confidence. He saw something in my eyes and just stared down at his hand of cards. The others laughed and wished me a good night. I'm sure they didn't mean harm; it was their way of acknowledging me as a growing man. But I'd told Daddy a secret I wanted him to keep, and he hadn't kept his mouth shut for a whole five hours. Maybe I was a hypersensitive kid. But it hurt, all the same, and Daddy should have known how I'd react. That night, lying in bed, I decided the only people I could ever entirely trust again were Mama and my best friend Trey.”