Carl opened the passenger door to beatme to Gil. Already starting his ass kisser routine. Gotta love a goodbullshitter. Somehow I always managed to find them, too. “Mr. Russell, nice tomeet you, sir.”
I watched him from the car, foottapping the gas pedal though I’d cut the engine. Gil allowed Carl to pump hishand like he was trying to draw water from a well, but his stony gaze foundmine and he cocked one eyebrow and pulled a face that only his daughter wouldrecognize as a smile. “Who’s this yahoo?” is what that smile said.
I blew out a sigh and laughing softly,opened the door and got out. “Dad. Gil.” I went to him, let him pull me into thecircle of his arms and hug me. Even after decades, I always floundered withthat Dad-Gil thing. It felt natural on one level to call him Dad and on anotherGil. Ours was an odd relationship.
“Girl,” is what he said in my ear.Soft like a whispered prayer. He tugged me tight to him and hugged me like hewas dying. For a moment I worried that he had bad news for me. About him, aboutmom, about something. But I realized, feeling his heartbeat banging against mychest, that Gil was lonely. It broke my heart.
“How are you?” I said in his ear.
“I’m still here. Who is this joker?”he said into my hair and I had to swallow a laugh.
“Give Carl a chance. You might likehim.” I pulled back a bit and kissed his stubbly cheek. At forty-six he worethe rugged, working man handsome of small towns.
“How many beers will that take?” heasked. Carl was making busy by taking some small duffels out of the trunk.
I shrugged, rubbing my hand to hisback as he turned to help with the bags. “Four? Five?”
His laugh was dry and soft. “I can dothat. How long you here for?”
“Firstly, I should ask if we canstay,” I said, glaring at Carl. He’d started to unload as if I had alreadycleared it with Gil. My cheeks flamed hot red and annoyed with my boyfriend.
Gil just looked at me, those stormyeyes pinning me with a look of surprise mixed with disgust. “Of course you can.This is your home, Jenny.”
Carl glanced at me and I grinned,shook my head. “Only Gil’s allowed to call me Jenny. Right dad?”
“Guess so,” Gil said and laughed againas he left Carl standing there looking somewhat put off.
Chapter2
We grilled fish for dinner. I madecorn and potato salad the way my mother had all the years I grew up. I put outpickles and pickled onions with the dinner, just as she had. It made me kind ofsad, her not being here. It also pissed me off. Who the fuck was she, anyway,to up and leave a good man who had pretty much worshipped the ground she walkedon.
Gil came in the kitchen while I wascleaning up. “I can do all this.” He put his hand on the crown of my head andjust left it there. The way he always had when I was small. When we’d firstmet, Gil and I, he’d done it to sort of irritate me. I’d been a miserable bratto him at first, not wanting to share my mother’s attention with a stranger.But over the years, his hand on my head had become a sign of affection for mefrom him. Something we shared that spanned time.
“It’s fine.” I watched Carl, thatgoon, picking out a Lynard Skynard song on his guitar out by the fire pit.
“She left with Marty McMurtry, if youwant to know. They went off on his boat he got with the life insurance from hisold man biting the big one. Thomas McMurtry was a mean son of a bitch, but whenit comes to life insurance, the man bought so much I’m surprised there’s anyleft for the rest of us.” His voice was thick and clogged with emotion and Giltousled my hair before opening the fridge.
“What a fucker,” I said and rinsed thepotato salad bowl so roughly, I was afraid I might crack it in the sink.
Gil laughed and took the bowl from me,gently. He dried it and set it in the dish strainer. “He always had a hankeringfor your mother,” he said.
“I meant my mother,” I said.
“Jenny.”
“Don’t Jenny me, Gil.” Now the tearshad arrived. Hot and angry and overwhelming. I bit my tongue to stave them off,tasted blood.
Gil pulled me into the safe circle ofhis arms again. “It’ll be okay.”
“How could she?”
He smoothed my hair and kissed myforehead. “She left me. Not you, girl.”
I pulled back, my eyes flowing freelynow. He wiped the tears with his thumbs. “She won’t call me back!” I yelled.“She left us both!”
“That’ll change, that’ll change,” hewhispered. “She knows you’re going to give her a raft of shit, so she’savoiding it all for now. Even you. But Jenny, I promise you, that will change.”
“She has to come back to you,” I said.
“I’m starting to think she stoppedloving me way before now,” he said, letting me go and putting the bowl backwhere it belonged. “And Jen, I’m wondering if we maybe fell out of love a longtime ago.”
That made my throat close up and Ishook my head. “But it’s okay,” he said.
“No it isn’t. Don’t say that. Don’t.You guys…I thought you loved each other. It’sthe thing that made me think that one day I could be in love.”
“Goober boy out there is in love withyou,” he said, forcing a chuckle. But his face was a bit closed and he lookedhurt. There was something under it, too, that I couldn’t quite read.
“I don’t love him, Gil. He’s justalong for the ride. Figuratively and literally,” I said with a vibrant bite ofanger in my voice.
“Hey, now. I don’t want to know thatstuff,” he said and turned from me before I could really see
