Weekends in Carolina

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Weekends in Carolina Page 25

by Jennifer Lohmann


  He couldn’t keep one small promise to you.

  “I don’t care about where you found it. What did you say was in it?”

  “He kept his promise to Max. The new will stated that you were to inherit the land on the condition that you offer Max another three-year lease.”

  “And what if I wasn’t willing to?”

  “Then the land would go to Uncle Garner and Aunt Lois.”

  Who would have offered Max another lease without being asked.... “I’ve sold the land. This shouldn’t matter.”

  “I thought you’d want to know. Dad wanted Max to have the land.” Why was his brother’s voice so chipper?

  “You thought I’d want to know that by forcing Max to buy the land instead of leasing it, I exceeded Dad’s hopes and expectations?” Trey’s teeth were tight around the words coming out of his mouth. “Why would I want to know that?”

  “I don’t know. I...”

  “Does it piss you off? To know that Dad wasn’t going to leave the land to you, no matter what? Even if I had refused to obey his explicit wishes and he was still going to leave the land to someone else because you were the ‘gay son’?”

  “Fuck you, Trey.” The curse hammered at Trey’s ears through the phone. “You think you know everything about me and everything about Dad because you have bad memories. You probably even think what you learned being at the farm with Max confirmed your beliefs about Dad. Sure, he wasn’t a drunk, but he was the same old bastard he always was and the proof of that is that he wasn’t going to leave the family farm to the gay son. Fuck you.”

  “What? Am I wrong?”

  “While he was revising his will, Dad asked me if I wanted it. I told him that he should sell it to Max and use the money to pay for his medical bills when he got older. He said he’d think about it.”

  Trey didn’t believe a word of it—and yet, the laughing stories Max and Kelly had told at her party floated around in his head. “You’re telling me that when you challenged the will, you did so actually believing he left the farm to you?”

  “No. I’m telling you that he liked what was being done with the farm and wanted Max to keep farming, but also that he was too set in his ways to sell the farm and be done with it. I didn’t know if he left me the farm, you the farm or even if he willed the damn thing to Max. But for the first time in his entire adult life, Dad had a vision beyond the next beer can.”

  The hard edge to Kelly’s voice softened. “Dad didn’t fully have the guts to carry out his or Mom’s dream of the land. Hell, maybe he even thought you’d appreciate owning the family farm and being a part of its rebirth. I’m not saying the old man was perfect or even a winner of a guy, just that he’d changed, and maybe it’s time you stop letting who he was run your life.”

  Trey pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it. There was a photo of his brother on the screen. Even in the thumbnail photo, behind Kelly’s stupid face, Trey could see the farm. That goddamned farm that would never let him go, even after he’d sold the thing. It looked like a recent picture. This photo might have been taken by Sean, or even by Max.

  The image he’d been fighting floated through his mind—all curly, red hair and freckles and hypnotic, green eyes. Strong and sure, brimming with vulnerability and fight. No matter how far he ran, he couldn’t escape the images of Max his mind could conjure. And her presence was enough to overwhelm any audiobook he listened to.

  And Dad had finally kept his promise. For Max.

  Standing in Max’s fields, Kelly stared back at him. Trey knew his brother couldn’t actually see him, but the reality of life didn’t matter. His field of vision narrowed until all he could see was the farm and Max’s face and all he could hear was his father promising to quit drinking and then the click of another beer can opening.

  Somewhere in the room a man called out, “Hello? Trey? Are you still there?” Trey swiped the screen and the voice disappeared. The phone clattered on the floor and the room was silent. The floor was no longer cool. The wall he leaned against was no longer cool. The entire room burned. He banged his head against the wall behind him. All that did was add to his headache.

  Trey took off his shirt, balled it up into a damp, stinky wad and threw it across the room. It barely made any noise at all when it landed. Having not gotten any relief, he kicked at his phone. It sailed across the smooth floor before crashing against the tower of aerobic steps. He hoped the damn thing was broken. Then he lowered his head onto his knees and cried for a man he’d never known and would never know.

  * * *

  MAX WAS FIXING dinner when the phone rang. It was the house phone, so she couldn’t check the caller ID. But she didn’t have to check to know it wasn’t Trey. He wasn’t calling her back. He wasn’t going to email her back. He wasn’t coming back. No matter what the deed said, in Trey’s eyes, this would always be Hank’s farm, and he could never come back to Hank’s farm.

  She kept looking at the handset, almost willing it to flash red like a superhero’s phone. So she would know it was important. But all it did was ring. Finally, she picked it up. “Hello?”

  “Max?” Kelly’s voice was at the other end of the line. “You’ll never guess what I found.”

  The key that would unlock Trey’s anger? “No, I probably won’t.”

  He sighed, but didn’t make her continue to play the game. “The will. I found Dad’s will.”

  “Oh.” And did Hank disappoint her in the end, like he had done to both of his children? “Where was it?”

  “Mom’s Bible. I’d taken it home with me and didn’t think to look there. Dad kept his promise to you.”

  “I didn’t have to buy the farm.”

  She didn’t realize that she’d spoken aloud until Kelly responded. “No, you didn’t have to buy the farm. Trey may have said he would’ve sold the farm out from under you and paid the penalty, but I think he would have changed his mind.”

  “Oh.” Max sat in a chair, not quite ready to process what Kelly was saying.

  “I’m sorry you had to go through the hassle, but I’m glad the farm’s in your hands. I think it’s probably what Dad wanted to happen eventually. But I don’t think he had the courage to do it while he was living.”

  He’s not the only one who lacked courage. “It doesn’t matter any longer. I own the farm. We can’t really go back.”

  “No, but...” Kelly sounded disappointed. “I guess I thought both you and Trey would be happy. You know, that Dad eventually kept his promise.”

  “You told Trey?”

  “I found out this weekend. He finally stopped ignoring my calls today. Neither of you seem as pleased about the will as you should be.”

  Between the bad summer season she’d had and the nearly empty bank account, Max wasn’t sure why she should be pleased that one small, different decision by Kelly to look in a different box may have meant that she wouldn’t have had to buy the property. She hadn’t been ready to buy the farm. She’d wanted those three extra years.

  But you don’t want those three years any longer. Max leaned into the back of her chair. If Kelly had found the will, she wouldn’t own Max’s Vegetable Patch. Trey had been intent on selling. She’d have been so focused on holding him to the lease that she wouldn’t have thought she could buy the farm. She wouldn’t have the Kickstarter money going to fix up the second barn, nor would she have the new customers the Kickstarter had brought in—partially making up for the ones she knew would leave because of the bad CSA year.

  “I’m glad you didn’t find the will earlier, Kelly.”

  “It would have saved you all this hassle.”

  She shrugged. “It would have created new and different hassles. But I’m glad to know Hank kept his promise to me.”

  On the other end of the line, Kelly snorted. “Knowing he kept his promise to you h
elps me, too. If he was able to keep his promise to you, then maybe he was being honest to me.”

  “About?”

  “About not caring that he had a gay son. About learning not to care that anyone had a gay son.”

  “I didn’t realize...” Her words trailed off as the import of what Kelly was telling her sunk in. “You were just a good actor.” All those years Max had watched Kelly and wondered how he could be so easy with his father, knowing Hank as she did. Kelly hadn’t been easy with his father. Kelly had been acting with his father as if his father always acted properly toward him. Kelly had made that relationship work.

  “Once Dad sobered up, I saw my chance. Not that Dad wasn’t an intolerant bastard while sober— despite his many attempts not to be—but drunkenness made his prejudice angry. Under all that anger, I hoped I had a father.”

  Max took a deep breath and let Kelly’s words soak in. “I’m really impressed. I guess that sounds condescending, but I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for you. I don’t think I could’ve stood Hank long enough to do that.”

  Hank had been a misogynist, but so long as he’d only ever saw Max doing farmwork and in farm clothes, he’d treated her as a farmer—his “lady farmer.” She’d been careful not to let him see her as feminine because wrangling that respect back from him would have been too exhausting. And Kelly had done it.

  “Dad wasn’t a great guy.” His chuckle was cynical and rough. “Even sober, he was an asshole. But he was my father and the only one I have. And, ya’ know, given another thirty years, he might have even been ready to give me away when I got married.”

  Max was stunned silent for a moment, then burst out laughing. Kelly joined her. “If you had to wait for Hank’s approval, you would have died an old maid.”

  When they finally stopped laughing, Kelly spoke. “I’m sorry I didn’t find the will in time, Max.”

  “I’m not. I would have continued to be afraid to buy the farm. And I’m glad I did. Sink or swim, I’m glad I did.”

  “I hope Trey turns around. He’s more malleable than Dad, but they have the same core.”

  The same stubborn, angry core. She took a deep breath, not willing to share Kelly’s hope. He hadn’t heard Trey’s flat, unemotional no. Heard Trey list all the reasons—most of them dead and buried to everyone but Trey—that he couldn’t move back here. It wasn’t that she had no hope, just that her hope had grown smaller. It wasn’t enough to hope Trey turned around about the farm. He had to forgive his father before he could consider being on the farm.

  She hadn’t realized that when she’d asked him to move, but she knew it now. And she was still glad she’d asked. Whether or not Trey forgave his father, she’d always know that she had asked for what she wanted. That she’d known she might be turned down and she’d taken the risk anyway. There was satisfaction in that knowledge that no empty farmhouse could take away.

  “Don’t be a stranger just because I own the farm and I’m not technically family.”

  “I won’t be.” They made plans to meet for dinner. “Do you want the will? So that you know?”

  “No. I think you should keep it, so that you know.”

  His acknowledging grunt over the phone sounded so much like his brother’s that Max’s heart hurt. “Have a good night and a happy Thanksgiving, Max.”

  “You, too, Kelly.”

  When a dial tone sounded through the handset, Max stood and walked across the room to put the phone in its cradle. She looked around the kitchen that had been Hank’s kitchen in the farmhouse that had been Hank’s farmhouse on the farm that had been Hank’s farm. It wasn’t his anymore. The bones of the place still looked like his, but she was slowly changing the flesh, and soon it would even be unrecognizable to Hank as the same place.

  Poor Hank. He’d died before he could be a good father to his sons, but he’d died trying, and that was probably all anyone could expect out of him.

  The sky outside the kitchen windows had gone from twilight to night while she’d been on the phone. She called Ashes and fed him his supper. Then she opened her fridge and began making her own.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  TREY STUMBLED THROUGH WORK. Not only was his heart not in the job, but his heart didn’t want to be on the work, or even in D.C. His mind might want to be on his work, but his heart wanted to be on the farm. And his heart was winning.

  Worse, he couldn’t think of the farm without thinking of his father. Have a little compassion for him, Kelly had said about Sean. But when Trey had looked at Sean, he’d seen a younger version of his father and still didn’t understand how Kelly managed to look at his boyfriend and see a man who had struggled, and was still struggling, with pain. Had Kelly also seen a man struggling when he’d looked at their father?

  Trey stared at his computer screen. He was supposed to be drafting a rider on the budget. He had the research in front of him. He knew what it was supposed to say. The congressman’s aide was expecting it in by Monday. And he could do the work in his sleep, so instead he opened a new tab in his browser and searched for information on alcoholism and Vietnam veterans. Nothing he read surprised him, but neither did it help him find compassion for his father. Alcoholism had been only one of his father’s many bad qualities, though it had exacerbated all the others.

  In the end, he’d kept a promise to Max. The reminder hurt, but it was also confusing. How did he understand who his father was if the man had died keeping a promise? And then there was the uncomfortable follow-up desire to discover that his father had kept a promise he’d made to Trey, especially when he knew no such treasure awaited him. You’re not a little boy who needs his father to read you a bedtime story like he said he would on the nights he was sober.

  How do you find compassion for someone who did nothing but disappoint you? Trey leaned back in his chair and replayed the conversations he’d had with Kelly about their father. Kelly had asked Trey to have compassion for Sean, but had only said that Trey should learn to accept their father for the man he had been.

  Accepting didn’t require him to like his father, or even to agree with him. And the man was dead, so accepting didn’t even require Trey to defend his own views to his father. Acceptance didn’t require Trey to do anything.

  He rubbed his hand over his chin. Shaving was one more thing he’d let slide, and the stubble was starting to itch. A coworker would comment on the growth soon—or a congressman, God forbid. Looking the part was important and the ten-o’clock shadow he’d developed wasn’t the part.

  He shifted his chair forward again, going back to his computer. But he didn’t go back to his work. Instead of staring down at a screen full of white and text, he was navigated away from a study on alcohol and veterans to the Carolina Farmers Association website. There was a bill in the local legislature regarding income taxes on businesses. Over a certain size, business income tax was being phased out. Under a certain size, business taxes were being raised. The bill rewarded employment. Hire lots of people, no income tax. Be a small operation, get taxed. Max’s Vegetable Patch’s taxes would go up because of this bill.

  Her struggling and admirable existence was about to get harder.

  The bill had been written by lobbyists. If Trey spent more time reading up on North Carolina politics, he would probably even be able to say which businesses have pooled their money for this. Since large hog and poultry farms were exempt from the people/tax ratio, he was certain agribusiness had some hand in the bill. Maybe at one time he would have been impressed at the craftsmanship evident in the bill.

  Instead, he was just tired.

  He minimized the screen and stared at the half-formed bit of pork that would add extra money to the kitty of his client. According to the aide, the congressman was drooling at the thought of this little add-on, due to Trey’s encouragement. Trey had found the man at a couple Washington events, sh
ared a few key facts with him and gotten enough constituents to call and email the congressman’s office that this pork had to be cooked and served. It was going to be a major point in next year’s primary election.

  Or that was what the constituents had said.

  The congressman was right where Trey wanted him. Right where Trey’s client wanted him. Trey reviewed his emails and it exhausted him. He couldn’t even say if the pork he was creating would have a net good, be neutral or damaging. He didn’t care, couldn’t remember the last time he’d cared.

  A few clicks and Trey was back on the farming association website. As he read more about the bill, the anger that had become so familiar to him over the course of his life roared into new life. The sense of fighting injustice, caring about the little guy—all the reasons he’d decided to enter the world of government in the first place. He’d lost that anger somewhere along the line.

  Not lost. He’d tossed it out into the world and the anger that had returned wasn’t the same. This returning anger was no longer focused on him being right and the other guy being wrong, but that the world could be made to be better. This was a long-burning anger, one that provided warmth to a family. Heat to cook a dinner. Power to turn metal into tools. An anger to construct rather than an anger to destroy.

  This anger left room for other feelings.

  Trey navigated around the website a little longer, checking and rechecking a few resources until he found the information he was looking for. Then he opened up his personal email and crafted a letter. He read over his words, let their import sink into his bones, gave himself a chance to second-guess, then hit Send.

  Rejuvenated, Trey turned back to the piece of legislation he was crafting and finished it. When he was done, he read over his words. They were as tightly written as he’d ever composed, with little room for interpretation by outside parties and enough presents to counter objectives of people who didn’t stand to win or lose too much. It was some of his best work.

 

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