Things I Want to Say (34 page)

“What’s going on?” Tom asked.

“Dad’s mad because I made him wait. Now he won’t cooperate.”

“Stop acting like a spoiled baby.” Tom put his hand on Martin’s shoulder and glared at him. “She wears herself out looking after you. If she wants to sleep in one morning, she’s entitled.”

Karen looked away, afraid she might blush or otherwise give away the fact that she hadn’t exactly been sleeping.

“Go…a way!” Martin shouted.

Tom took hold of her arm and pulled her up. “Come on, Karen. If he’s going to act like that, he can just sit here in his pajamas.”

“Tom. He’ll get cold.”

“It’s ninety-five degrees outside. He won’t get cold.” He pulled her toward the door.

Once they were in the hallway, she jerked away from him. “What’s wrong with you?” she demanded.

“I’m not going to stand by and watch him treat you like some hired servant and not say anything.”

“He’s a sick old man. He doesn’t mean anything by it.”

“He’d behave better if you made him.”

“So now this is
my
fault?” Rage rose in her like lava, threatening to erupt all over both of them. How could she have believed last night that everything was all right between them, when nothing had changed? Tom still wanted her to choose between him and her father. He still refused to understand why he was asking too much. She balled her hands into fists, fighting the urge to beat against his chest. She glared at him, struggling for some way to express her feelings that didn’t involve violence or swearing.

“I’m going to make some coffee,” he said, and turned on his heels.

The fact that he’d walk away in the middle of an argument enraged her further, but short of running after him and dragging him back, she didn’t know what to do. Instead, she headed across the hall and barged into Casey’s room.

“Get up,” she said, shaking her sleeping son.

“Wha—?” He opened one eye and looked up at her.

“I need you to get up and help Grandpa dress,” she said.

“Why don’t you do it?” he mumbled and rolled over, his back to her.

“Because I want you to.” She jerked the covers off him. “Just do it. Now.”

She left Casey’s room and went into the kitchen. Afresh pot of coffee beckoned, but Tom was nowhere in sight. He’d left before she had the chance to confront him again about his boorish behavior.

She poured a cup of coffee and sat at the table, exhausted already and it wasn’t even nine o’clock. The weight of unfinished business made her chest hurt. She hated fighting with Tom—hated it so much she usually gave in and did what he wanted. Saying what she felt was much harder than letting him have his way.

But years of swallowing words had left her feeling choked, and fearful there were some things that were too broken to fix.

Sunday afternoon, Casey found himself standing beneath a ladder, holding a section of gutter while his dad worked on connecting it to the eaves overhead. It was amazing, really, how his dad hadn’t been in Grandpa’s house twenty-four hours and he’d come up with a list of things that needed repairing or re placing. That said a lot about the kind of man his dad was. He was a man who fixed things. The kind of man who hated any kind of disorder or uncertainty.

Which was probably why he clashed with Casey so often. The way Casey saw it, the world was all about un certainty. Instead of wearing yourself out trying to set everything and everybody straight, you were a lot better off taking things as they came and dealing with them the best you could.

“I talked to the counselors at school and they’re going to let you take your finals the week before classes start this fall,” his father said as he fit anew screw into the tip of the drill driver.

“What if I’m not home by then? Grandpa—” But his words were cut off by the scream of the drill as the screw bit into the sheet metal of the gutter.

“You’ll be home by then,” his dad answered when he’d shut off the drill. “You can’t afford to miss any more school.”

End of discussion, at least as far as Dad was concerned. But Casey had more to say on the subject. “I’ve been thinking. Maybe I could finish school online. They have this stuff called distance learning, where you study at your own pace.”

“You don’t study now, with your mom and I and all your teachers on your case. I’m supposed to believe you’ll volunteer to do it on your own?”

“I don’t mind studying if it’s something that interests me. The teachers at school make everything so boring.”

“I don’t see how a computer is going to make math and history and English any less boring. Hand me another one of those screws.”

Casey handed up the fastener. “We could try it.” Yeah, the subject matter would be the same in the online courses, but he liked the idea of being more in charge. For instance, he could decide whether to do English or math first, and how long he’d spend with each class, instead of having a schedule dictated by others.

“No. I don’t see why I should pay for you to take special classes when there’s a perfectly good high school not two miles from our house.”

Casey could have argued that the high school wasn’t all that good, but what was the point? Dad had made up his mind. He was always right.

The thing to do now was to wait and go to Mom with his plan. She at least considered his point of view. Maybe she could sway Dad to let him give this a try.

“I know you think I’m too hard on you, but it’s because I know you can do better. And I know life will be easier for you in the long run if you apply yourself more.” He leaned back and studied the gutter. “Does that look straight to you?”

“Yeah, it looks good.” Casey didn’t know what to say to
the
apply yourself
remark. It was one of those clichés parents and teachers threw around, but what did it mean, exactly? If he preferred to focus on things that interested him, how was that not applying himself?

“Your mom says you’ve been a real help with your grandfather.”

The change of subject caught him off guard. “Yeah, well, he cooperates a little better with me on some things. Maybe he’s embarrassed because Mom’s his daughter.” It had freaked him out a little, the first time he’d helped the old man change clothes, or worse, when Grandpa wet his pants and Casey had to clean him up. He didn’t do that so often anymore and besides, after the first time it had been sort of routine. He’d gotten into the habit of talking them both through it, making like it was no big deal.

“I’m not happy about the way you ran off without telling anyone, and without finishing school,” Dad said. “But I’m glad you’re a help to her.”

Dad wasn’t the type to go around handing out praise left and right, so having him ac knowledge that his youngest had done something good for a change made Casey feel about a foot taller. “I’m glad I could help her, too.”

“Good.” Dad nodded and climbed down the ladder. “That should do it. Now let’s see about getting that porch light replaced.”

“Right.” One job done, time to move on to another. Casey would never understand this kind of methodical approach to life, but he guessed that was okay. He’d just do like he did with Grandpa—keep talking and keep moving along. It saved everybody from a lot of awkward moments that way.

Karen returned from shopping to find Tom, Casey and Martin on the back porch, arguing. She followed the sound of raised voices and found the three of them gathered around the back steps, scowling at each other.

“What’s going on here?” she asked.

“I’m trying to repair this broken light over the back steps,” Tom said.

“Don’t want…fixed,” her father said, shaking his head.

“Why wouldn’t you want it fixed?” Tom’s voice was full of scorn. “Do you
want
everything to just fall down around your head?”

“Hurts…birds.” Martin’s chin jutted out and his eyes were dark and agitated.

“What? How the hell does the light hurt birds?”

“Re-flex.” The old man shook his head. “Like mirror.”

“I think what he means is, when the light’s on, it reflects on the glass on the sunporch and the birds think it’s a mirror and fly into it,” Casey said.

“You stay out of this,” Tom snapped.

“Leave…him…alone!” Martin roared.

“He’s my son, I’ll—”

“Tom, please.” Karen stepped between the two men and urged Tom into the house. Once inside, she pulled him into her bedroom and shut the door.

“What’s going on?”

“I’m trying to help the old man and he picks a fight.”

“It’s his house. If he doesn’t want the light fixed, leave it alone.”

“It’s his house, but you’re living here. Not having alight over the back steps is unsafe.”

“It’s okay. I won’t be here that much longer.” She hoped. She had a feeling Tom’s anger wasn’t so much over the lack of alight as it was over her father not appreciating his efforts to help. That, and a continuation of the argument he and Karen had started this morning.

“You won’t leave here soon enough to suit me,” he said.

“I’m hoping by the end of the summer Dad will be able to look after himself. Or be able to manage with a house keeper or other help a couple of days a week.”

“I don’t know why you didn’t put him in a nursing home in the first place.”

“He’s my father. I couldn’t do that.”

He looked past her, toward where her dad sat on the other side of the wall. “Why not? He’s an antisocial introvert who relates to numbers, not people.” His eyes met hers again. “You think I don’t know how he’s hurt you in the past? You can’t expect me to be happy you’re choosing to look after him, in spite of all that, when you could be home with your family.”

When you could be home with me.
If that’s what he meant, then why didn’t he say it that way? She ducked her head, blinking hard. She didn’t know if the tears that threatened were because of Tom’s outrage over her father’s past neglect of her, or the way his words reminded her of those old hurts.

But since coming here, she’d discovered another side to her father. In the hours he’d spent teaching her about birds,
she’d discovered a sensitive soul who appreciated beauty for beauty’s sake. She’d thought birding was all about the numbers for him; this spiritual aspect had surprised her.

“He
is
introverted. And sometimes antisocial,” she conceded. “But now, while he has to depend on me, is the best chance I’ll ever have for us to be close.” She struggled to find the words to make Tom understand why this was so important to her. “All my life, I’ve felt like…like I loved my father more than he loved me.” She closed her eyes, squeezing back the tears that painful truth brought forth.

“Then you know how
I
feel.”

The words floated on the top of her consciousness, like black oil spilled across a pristine lake—dark and ugly and shockingly out of place. She stopped breathing for a moment, stunned. “Wh-what do you mean?”

“I mean our marriage has been one-sided for years.” The pain in his eyes forced her to take a step back. “Practically from the day I met you, I loved you,” he continued. “I told myself it didn’t matter if you didn’t feel as strongly about me—that we’d grow into love. But it never happened.”

“I
do
love you!” she cried. “You must know that.”

“How am I supposed to know it? You never say it.”

“I know.” Why were three little words so hard to say? She could talk about loving chocolate or loving a song on the radio, but to say she loved her husband seemed too risky—as if saying the words out loud would tempt fate to take away everything she prized most. “It wasn’t a word I heard a lot growing up. I took it for granted you
knew.
”

He shook his head. “Be honest with me. When I asked you to marry me, did you love me then?”

She swallowed hard, a lie on the tip of her tongue. But pre tending things were wonderful when they weren’t hadn’t made her any happier over the years. “I liked you, but I didn’t have any idea what it meant to love someone that way. I
only…I wanted to escape the life I had and I saw that you were the best chance I had at another one.”

“That’s what I thought.” The disappointment in his voice made her stomach ache.

“Tom, wait, that doesn’t mean I don’t love you now.”

But he had already stopped listening. He threw down his work gloves and pushed past her, out of the room. A few moments later, she heard the car start, gravel flying as he spun out of the driveway.

She sank down onto the bed, feeling as if the world had just tilted. His words hurt, as he must have meant them to. But his anger at her didn’t wound nearly as deeply as her own recognition of how she’d let him down.

She thought she’d done a good job of hiding her true feelings in those early days of marriage. She’d wanted him to believe she returned his love for her right from the first, and she’d fooled herself into thinking she’d succeeded. Over the years, she had grown to truly cherish him, but she had never been one to express her emotions easily. She had thought it enough that she worked side by side with him at their business, kept their home and looked after his children. She hadn’t seen the need for words, hadn’t realized he felt their lack.

Oh God. Could it be she was truly her father’s daughter, distanced from those she loved by the emotional reserve he had passed down to her?

How could she find her way across that chasm? How could she be anything other than the woman she was?

Casey couldn’t believe his mom and dad could get so upset over a stupid porch light but then, he’d stopped trying to understand parents a long time ago. Whether it was the disagreement over the porch light or something else entirely, his dad ended up getting Mr. Wainwright to take him to the airport early.

His mom walked around the house for two days with red eyes, insisting she was “fine,” in a clipped tone of voice that made it obvious she was anything but. Grandpa re treated to his computer and threw a shoe at Lola again. The physical therapist didn’t even blink; she picked up the shoe and threw it back, narrowly missing Grandpa’s head. “You see how it feels, Mr. Engel,” she said calmly. “Now let’s try the arm raises again.”

So when Uncle Del called and asked Casey to go fishing, he was thrilled. “Anything to get out of the nuthouse for a while,” he said.

Del laughed. “I guess things haven’t changed much since I was your age.”

He picked Casey up early the next morning. “Is the dog coming?” Del asked as he loaded Casey’s fishing gear into the back of the truck.

“Nah. I took her last time and she got bored in about five minutes. Drove me crazy whining and running around.” Cradling an extra-large cup of coffee in both hands, he slumped against the passenger door of the truck and studied the road ahead through slitted eyes. The rising sun was a pinpoint of light glinting through the dark pines. “Where are we going?” he asked.

Del climbed in beside him and started the truck. “A place up on the river I know.” He glanced at his nephew. “You’re not a morning person, I guess.”

“Nope.” He slid farther down in the seat, knees braced against the dash.

“If you want to catch fish, you have to get up early.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s when the fish are biting. They wake up hungry and you want to be there with breakfast on your hook.”

He wrinkled his nose. “I’d for sure sleep in if I knew breakfast was a bunch of worms.”

“Nobody ever said fish were smart.” He reached over and switched on the radio. A country singer mourned the girl who got away. Casey shut his eyes and tried to go back to sleep.

But the increasingly bright sun in his eyes and the coffee in his system overcame the last vestiges of sleep. By the time they turned onto the gravel track leading into the woods, he was sitting up straighter, and beginning to feel hungry. “You got anything to eat?” he asked.

“We’ll have some breakfast when we get to the river,” Del said.

He slowed the truck to a crawl as the road narrowed further. Casey grabbed hold of the door handle as they jostled over bumps and wallowed in ruts. Trees arched overhead, forming a canopy that shut out the sun. It looked like the setting for a creepy movie—
The Blair Witch Project
or
Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
“How did you find this place?” he asked, wincing as they plunged into a deep rut.

“You just have to know the right people.”

What kind of people? Casey wondered. Satan-worshippers? Boot leggers? Marijuana farmers? But before he could ask, they emerged onto an open bluff that over looked the river. Del parked beneath an arched live oak and shut off the ignition. In the sudden still ness the only sounds were the pinging of the cooling engine and the trill of birdsong some where overhead.

“Where are we?” Casey asked.

“About five miles down from the power plant dam.” Del opened the door and climbed out. “Grab that cooler and we’ll head down to the river.”

Casey picked up the cooler, which must have weighed about thirty pounds, while Del grabbed the poles, a tackle box and a faded blue backpack. He led the way down a steep path to a wide sandy beach beside the river. An old fire ring sat between two bleached cottonwood logs. Del dropped his
gear beside one of the logs and stretched his arms over his head. “Don’t you feel sorry for all the bastards stuck behind desks on a day like this?” he said.

“Yeah.” Casey opened the cooler and stared at what must have been a case of beer on ice. He looked up at his uncle. “I thought you said you had food.”

“It’s in the pack.” He grabbed a can of beer and popped the top. “Help yourself.”

The pack held afoot-long sub marine sandwich wrapped in wax paper, a pack of beef jerky and another of corn chips. “This is more like it,” Casey said, unwrapping the sandwich.

While Casey ate, Del untangled lines and baited hooks. He handed one of the poles to Casey. “You ready to catch some fish?”

“Sure.” He folded the wax paper over the remains of the sandwich and stashed it in the pack, then followed Del to the river.

Sunlight gilded the water to a bright copper color, the reflections of the cottonwoods and pines along the bank showing black in the still surface. “You want to cast over there by that old log.” Del pointed across the water. “Let your hook rest almost on the bottom. Catfish are bottom feeders.”

He managed to cast into the general area Del had indicated, then cranked the reel until the red-and-white bobber floated on the surface. “Now what?” he asked.

Del sat on the bank and leaned back against a tree trunk. “Now we wait.”

They fell silent, the rising heat and still ness lulling them into a half doze. Casey focused on the red-and-white cork bobbing in the gentle current, allowing the rest of his vision to blur. Overhead a mocking bird ran through a repertoire of whistles and clicks, varying the calls for several minutes, then repeating the sequence again. Casey leaned forward,
elbows on knees, and felt as if he was sinking into the soft sand of the riverbank, like a tree, rooted in place.

He decided all those people who studied yoga and consulted gurus and tried to learn how to meditate just needed to take up fishing. All those rednecks who spent every Saturday at the river, drinking beer and baiting hooks, probably never realized they were doing something so zen.

After half an hour or so, Del got a strike. He grabbed up the pole and began reeling it in, letting it out periodically, then taking it back up. He hauled in a good-size catfish, hooking a finger through the gills and pulling it up on the bank. “That’s a good three-pounder,” he said, un hooking the fish and fastening it to the stringer, which he dropped in a deep pool farther down the bank.

“I’m not getting a thing,” Casey said.

“Put afresh worm on and try casting over to the left of that old stump.”

He did as Del suggested and they both settled down to watch their poles once more. “Where’s Mary Elisabeth today?” Casey asked.

“She’s working.” Del winked. “My advice is to always find a woman with a good job. If she has her own money, she won’t be spending yours, and you can borrow from her if you need to.”

“I thought the idea was for the man to support the woman,” Casey said.

“You’re behind the times, son. Women these days like to be in dependent. I say we should let them.”

“Then what’s to keep them from running off with some rich guy?” Personally, he thought Mary Elisabeth could probably have any man she wanted, so why had she picked Uncle Del?

“Because a rich man wouldn’t really need them.” He sat up straighter. “women—most of ’em, any way—like to
be needed. They’ll devote themselves to a man who needs rescuing from himself.”

“Why would they do that?”

Del shrugged. “Who knows? But it’s true. You take your mama. She hadn’t hardly set foot in this place in twenty years and the minute she heard the old man was sick, she rushed down here to look after him.”

“But he’s her father. That’s different from a romantic relationship.”

“Not that different. Trust me. Women want a man who needs them. That whole nurturing thing is in their genes.”

Casey didn’t think this philosophy painted either men or women in a very flattering light, but he kept this opinion to himself.

“So what’s going on at the nuthouse?” Del asked. “Dad giving you a hard time?”

“He’s giving everybody a hard time. But I don’t blame him. I’d be ornery, too, if I was stuck in a wheelchair.”