“Nah, she’s cool,” George said.
“Okay,” Ricky said, starting his car. “We’ll see.”
They pulled out onto the road and Ricky took a left at the Wendy’s.
“One of the guys at work is selling his father’s car. You want to take a look at it this weekend?”
“Nah. I’m good,” George said. He was tapping out a message on his phone.
“You don’t have any interest in being able to drive yourself around?”
“What for? Everything I need is within walking distance. I’ve got the Walmart and movie theater if I feel the need to leave my room, which I rarely do.”
“When I was in school, we used to like to get out of town every once in a while.”
“Uh huh,” George said.
“One time we just decided to grab a canoe and we rode all the way up to Moosehead in the middle of the night. It was amazing. You think you can see a lot of stars here, but up there… I couldn’t even…”
“Uh huh,” George said, interrupting.
“You’re growing into a really personable young man at that…”
“Uh huh.”
Ricky turned on the radio and George put in his headphones. They drove the rest of the way home without speaking.
# # #
“Your dog chased the chickens again this morning,” Mary said as Ricky came into the kitchen.
“Okay, Mom, I’ll have a word with him,” Ricky said. At the sound of his voice, Tucker came bounding in from the other room. The dog was followed by his father.
“Where’s your brother?” Mary asked.
“Outside. Trying to air out his clothes, I think,” Ricky said. He was down on one knee, scratching Tucker until his back leg thumped against the floor.
“Back when I was a kid, we used to have to sneak around to smoke that stuff,” Vernon said. He grunted as he slipped into the booth in the corner of the kitchen. “Now they just smoke it right out in the open.”
“Oh, who cares, Vernon,” Mary said. “If it’s not one thing, it’s another. His grades are good and he doesn’t even drive.”
“It wrecks your brain,” Vernon said.
“That’s true,” Ricky added.
“Is that why you asked me out? Because your brain was wrecked?”
Vernon blinked and shut his mouth. He seemed to realize that there was nothing he could say that didn’t have the potential of getting him in trouble. Ricky sat across from his father and Tucker squeezed under the table.
“Did he get any?” Ricky asked.
“Who?” Vernon asked.
His mother answered, “He means Tucker. No, he didn’t get any, but he got Rosie all worked up. Her eggs come out funny when she’s worked up.”
“You want me to walk him over from now on?” Ricky asked. He already knew the answer to the question.
“No.”
One of his mother’s favorite things was how Tucker would leave Ricky’s house in the morning and find his way down the path to join Mary and Vernon for breakfast. No matter how many chickens the dog chased, his mother never wanted that to end. It always tickled her when Tucker would stand up on his hind legs with his paws on the window. The dog would bark once to be let in. Mary liked it because Tucker had taught the trick to himself.
“What do you hear from the Hoopers?” Vernon asked.
George came through the door and Mary pulled him into a quick hug.
“It’s the Harpers, Vernon. Georgie, go change your shirt, you smell like a commune.”
“It’s my cologne, mom,” George said.
“Yeah, right.”
She turned him towards the stairs and gave him a farewell pat on his back to get him going.
“Well?” Vernon asked. “The Hoopers?”
“Harpers.”
Ricky gave his father a quick shrug and said, “I don’t know. Nothing, I guess?”
“If it’s nothing, why do you have to guess?” Vernon asked.
“They don’t talk, you know? They really prefer not to say anything out loud,” Ricky said. “It’s like a… I don’t know, a superstition they have?”
“Huh,” his father said, rubbing the stubble on his chin. “She’s good people. I remember her grandfather. Him, I’m not so sure about.”
“I was going to say the opposite,” his mother said. She took a seat in the booth next to Vernon. “I liked him. She seemed a little distant. I’m not sure this whole thing is such a good idea, anyway. We don’t need to dredge up the past. We’ve been living with it just fine without having to talk about it all the time. What’s the point?”
Ricky knew the question was rhetorical, but he still felt the need to answer.
“I think talking might help you get back to the way things used to be,” Ricky said. “Ten years ago, you guys were very social. Everyone was. There were parties and clubs. There was hardly a Friday in the winter when you weren’t going to one dinner or another, or having people over here.”
“That was when everyone had kids of the same age,” his mother said. “You kids were the glue that held us together. Now that everyone has moved on, we just don’t need to stay so tight. I like the privacy.”
“Do you?” Vernon asked.
She shot her husband a look. To Ricky, it seemed like she was telling Vernon that she didn’t want to be challenged on this topic.
Vernon shut his mouth, so Ricky was the one who had to challenge.
“Mom, you used to thrive with all of your organizations and stuff. The community was tighter back then and it seemed like everyone was happier,” Ricky said. “I want it to be that way when I have kids, but if the community doesn’t heal, it doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen here.”
“So you’re threatening me? Go out to dinner more or no grandkids?” his mom asked.
“Ricky,” Vernon said, interrupting the burgeoning argument, “the thing with these Hooper folks…”
“Harpers.”
“…is that you’re right—they’re a bit superstitious. Doesn’t matter how much we want to talk to them if they won’t talk to us.”
“Yeah, I hear you, Dad. I think they will talk. We just might have to put
