Before we left New Plymouth, Bill and I stopped at a restaurant and had lunch. I looked around at the Western memorabilia and tried to imagine a place like it in my old neighborhood near U-Dub and almost laughed out loud. And the closest thing Sacramento has to offer looks like a palace in comparison. The guy who took our order was under 60, unlike most of the locals, and the food was okay. Gravy, gravy, gravy.
We sipped our iced teas and talked for a while. I hadn’t actually thought about the fact I would get money from the sale, maybe enough to make a dent in my student loans. Bill thinks it would sell for close to $400,000, maybe more, before some expenses were paid out. That kind of blew my mind, but then he told me something even more bazaar. Some years, the farm earns more than enough to pay off my student loans and to pay for graduate school! I had no idea. I don’t even know what to do with that information.
When we got back to the farm, Bill didn’t get out of the car but seemed like he wanted to tell me something. After a moment, I thought I had read him wrong and started to get out. He motioned for me to wait.
“I just want you to know. If you’ve heard any rumors, they’re probably not true.”
I told him I hadn’t heard anything.
“I just want you to know nothing ever happened between your dad and me, even if your mom thinks it did. He was like a dad to me, that’s all. We were all really close back then, and I may have gotten confused about some things, but he and I worked it all out. I miss your mom a lot, even now. And they didn’t break up because of me. I left long before that happened.”
I stared at the dashboard. A couple of goats were shoving each other around out in the field.
“And it wasn’t my idea to name you after me. That was your mom’s.”
?!
“But look. I resolved my feelings over the years. There is no way I could have anything but love for both of them. How could I after all they did for me? Anyway, seeing you brings a lot of it back, both the good and the bad, but I want you to know that if you want to stay, I will do anything I can to help you succeed. If you sell, I’ll do anything there, too, of course. Anyway, I want to have you up to the house to meet my wife and kids, after you get back from your trip. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Dumbfounded, I got out and waved goodbye.
I changed my clothes and caught up with Elliot, who was pulling some hay off a tarped stack and dragging it over to the buck pen. “Elliot? What do you know about Billie and my parents?”
“Ah, no, ain’t gonna talk ‘bout nobody else’s business. You better talk to your momma on that one.”
Man!
I was just finishing up collecting eggs when Liv and Nate showed up. They agreed to take Frodo for the week. I am really unsure what’s going to happen to Frodo if I sell, since he has become increasingly spoiled. Jodie even gave him a chicken strip the other day. Goddess knows what will happen after Liv has him for a few days. He’ll start snubbing his nose up to tap water, in favor of coconut water. Liv and Nate and I went into Emmett for dinner and ate at a nice little Mexican restaurant, Nate’s treat. He said he is really happy with my work, and I thanked him for the referral he gave me. He said there were a couple of other people he might float my card to if I had time to work for them. I told him I’d know more after my meeting. They have made a couple of offers on houses that didn’t work out, but they have an offer pending on a place now, and hopefully, they will know by the end of the week.
I waved goodbye to them and Frodo, who could see me through the bars of his little kennel in the back, if he cared to, and then I went inside and prepared for my adventure tomorrow, trying to get a standby seat on a plane headed for SEATAC. I searched through my clothes for items that weren’t ripped or stained and found a few things. My poor hiking boots looked like garbage in the mud room. I had scraped off the dirt and bird crap but never fully cleaned them, and I was too tired to do it now.
I shoved my backpack next to the back door, turned the TV on, and fell asleep watching City Slickers for about the thirtieth time. I keep wondering if I’ll figure out my one thing, like the cowboy in the movie talked about. One thing. Is it possible to do that?
March 6, 2013
I got up at 3 a.m. so that I could get to the airport with time to spare. I know it’s overkill, but I wanted to be there two hours early to increase the chances of getting on the early flight. The house was quiet, no roosters crowing or dogs barking. I brushed my good shoes off one last time, grabbed my bag, and headed out the door. As I waited for the car to warm up, I saw little bird legs moving inside the
