He gently placed his hands on her shoulders. “Forgive me. Please.” The words were raw and ragged, tripping over the lump in his throat. “Things are going to be different.”
Surely they would. They had to. Nothing else mattered.
She looked down as a tear escaped, then pulled away so that his hands fell to his sides.
“I don’t know if I can.”
Her voice was hollow. Lost. He reached for her, but she pushed past him, opened the sliding door, and disappeared into the house.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-NINE
Gerrit scanned the sky and took a deep breath. It smelled like grass and sunshine with a hint of apples and spice from the pie he’d baked that morning. Only a single cloud loomed on the horizon, the shape and color of an elephant.
He narrowed his eyes at it. “You stay over there.”
Daisy tilted her head to look at him, tongue lolling out.
He sniffed the air again. “It doesn’t smell like rain.”
Satisfied, he checked the yard for dog droppings one last time and returned the shovel to the shed. The ribs were already on the grill, having been marinated overnight and rubbed to within an inch of their lives shortly before going on the rack. The ziti was in the oven. He’d gotten up early and gone to town for two cases of Sprite from Olsen’s and another bunch of asparagus so he could wrap the one he already had in prosciutto and leave the second one meat-free. Everything was going well.
Shrieks and laughter came from over at George’s house. Must be half a dozen cars parked over there. Two jacked-up trucks. A minivan. A red Jetta. Gerrit huffed. George couldn’t come up with his own ideas. Had to steal his, just like he’d stolen everything else. Then in a couple of weeks, when his granddaughter was born, he’d probably throw an even bigger bash.
Well, his party was going to be just as good as George’s. Even better. Surely his food would be.
Hannie called from the house, “You ready to flip the ribs?”
He checked his watch. A little after three. “I’ll look at them.”
There were a hundred and one ways to barbecue ribs, according to Chef Kellan, but Gerrit had chosen a fairly traditional method. The trick would be to keep an eye on the meat so it wouldn’t dry out.
He made his way around the house and climbed the three steps to the back deck, where Evi and Noah were hanging out. The tantalizing smell of barbecued pork was already seeping out from under the hood of his grill.
Evi pulled her phone from her ear and slid it in her pocket. “Travis is on his way.”
Noah smiled. “Good. He owes me a game of cornhole.”
Gerrit scowled. “We don’t have cornhole.”
“I brought mine.” Noah waved a hand. “It’s in the back of my car. Have you ever played?”
Of course he hadn’t. He’d never had time for games. But admitting it felt like defeat. He shrugged.
“Who would he play with?” Evi said. “Mom?”
Noah laughed. “Mom would smoke him.”
Evi gave him a look Gerrit could not interpret. “I guess he could play with his new friends.”
Something about the way she said the word friends rolled like a stone in Gerrit’s gut. Did she not believe he could ever make a friend? No, that wasn’t it. Something else.
“They’re not really my friends.” He didn’t know how to explain. “They’re just kids. It just kind of happened.”
“Do you help them with their homework?” Evi leaned her back against the rail as if trying to act casual, but an undercurrent of tension droned in the warm air.
He looked at her and saw the set of her jaw and heard the real question she was asking. She wanted to know if he was giving Rae and Morgan the pieces of himself he’d never given her and Noah. The pieces of himself he could never quite spare before.
“No.” Urgency buzzed in his ears. He needed her to see the truth. “I—”
“Do you go to their basketball games? Their choir performances? Take them to the movies?”
How had this become about Morgan and Rae? They weren’t the kids he lay awake at night thinking about. “I don’t care about them like—”
“No, Dad.” Evi pushed off the rail. “It doesn’t matter what you say.”
“They don’t matter.” He had to make her understand. “Can’t you see—?”
A clatter interrupted his explanation. He jumped and spun around to see a flowerpot tipped over and a figure in a hoodie disappearing around the corner of the house. No. This couldn’t be happening.
“Morgan?” Gerrit hurried down the stairs, Daisy at his heels, and called after the boy, “Stop.”
His heart raced, even as it tumbled headfirst into the big black hole he’d dug with his own big fat mouth. He wasn’t expecting Morgan until four o’clock. What was he doing here? How much had he heard?
The boy ran for the hidden shortcut trail behind the barn, but then stopped with his back to Gerrit before reaching the tree line.
“Don’t go.” Gerrit caught up and waited for Morgan to turn around.
He didn’t. “Were you talking about me?”
Gerrit’s heart shriveled like petals wilting in the sun. “Yes, but—”
“I thought you were cool because you didn’t seem to care about my family or my past.” Morgan’s fists were clenched at his sides, his voice resigned. “I thought you just liked me for me. But I guess I was wrong.”
He plowed into the woods without once looking back. Gerrit wanted to run after him, wanted to defend himself, but knew he could never keep up. His body could never maneuver the roots and branches and winding trails fast enough. And Evi and Noah were at the house on his invitation, already wondering where they stood in comparison to Morgan and Rae.
He held up a hand and shouted, “Wait!” But a west wind kicked up and snatched the word
