“Yeah? Well, get unbusy. This is important.” Keith stepped in and closed the door.
“If it’s not about how you will be half a state away in two weeks, I don’t want to hear it.”
“You know, you could be just a little less happy about me leaving. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you already have my stuff packed and sitting in my garage.”
“I thought you said you were here to talk about something important.”
Keith held his anger in both fists to keep it from spilling over. “You told Ike to push Dragnet, and then when he got hurt, you had him put down before anyone could even assess how bad he really was.”
“Hrumph. It was a business decision, Keith. It’s called cutting your losses. Besides we had insurance, so it’s no big deal.”
“No big deal? Insurance doesn’t make putting that animal down right. This wasn’t about five dollars on a spreadsheet, Dad. This was a racehorse. A quarter-million dollar, promising racehorse that had more potential than any one I’ve ever seen trained.”
“Yeah. And he fell. Big surprise.”
“Big surprise? Yeah, no kidding. We both know you set him up for that fall. You knew he wasn’t ready and rather than having a little patience and putting in a little effort to get him ready, you pushed him into a race he wasn’t ready to run. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, you made sure he would fail by heaping your impossibly high expectations on top of an already impossible situation. What in the world did you expect to happen?”
His father stood. “I expected him to rise to the occasion.” His gaze nailed Keith. “Unfortunately, there are so few on this planet who know the meaning of that phrase.”
They were face-to-face, stare-to-stare, steel will-to-steel will.
“So everyone who can’t stand up to what you think they should be able to do is expendable then?” Ache and anger met in Keith’s gut. “Wow. There’s a great life philosophy.”
Impatience corkscrewed across his father’s face. “Look, I can’t be wasting money on some stupid horse that will never make it back to the track. I want a winner—not some crippled, money-sucking loser.”
The understanding that his father wasn’t only talking about the horse drifted through him. Keith backed up and folded his arms. “Wow. It must be nice to be so perfect you can sit up here in your mansion and make such sweeping judgments about the whole world. That one deserves to live, that one doesn’t. You are the most arrogant, selfish, egotistical jerk I’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting.”
“Keith Warren Ayer, I am your father, and I deserve some respect.”
His hatred drained down the sinkhole of capitulation. It was pointless to fight. “Respect has to be earned, Dad, and from where I’m standing, you have never done a single thing to earn my respect.”
Despite Keith’s surrender, his father looked like a mad dog ready to attack. “Are you kidding me? You have had everything you’ve ever wanted. Nice cars, more than a roof over your head, servants at your beck and call…”
Keith laughed. “And I’m supposed to be impressed with that? Gee, Dad, you aim mighty low in the providing for arena.” He had kept the feelings of never being good enough to warrant his father’s attention from ever finding the air his whole life. For the first twelve years, his mother had filled in for the absence of his father; after she was gone, the staff had tried to fill in for both. But the reality was, there was a hole in him that had never been filled because his father was always too busy. Work and other things always came first.
He had thought it was just him. Now he saw with perfect clarity that nothing other than the image he portrayed to the world was at all important to his father. If it looked good on the outside, it was worth it. If it didn’t, it was expendable.
“You’re unbelievable, you know that, Dad? If someone’s not perfect enough for you, you think they are worthless. Well, you know what? I’m tired of trying to be perfect. I’m not perfect. I never have been. We both know that. So, I give up. I do. That’s it. You can have your mansion and your horses. Run them all into the ground if you want. See what I care. I’m out of here.”
He turned for the door with a shake of his head.
“Now you listen to me. I did my best,” his father said. “I wanted to give you everything I could even though I knew it would never be enough to make up for her being gone.”
The words ran over Keith’s heart, and he stopped at the door.
“She always made up for how bad I was with you. But I did want what was best for you—even if I didn’t know how to do that.”
Keith turned slowly. He needed to know even though it would change nothing. “What happened, the night she died?”
“That was a long time ago.” His father sat slowly. “It was an accident. A stupid thing that just happened. I wish I could go back and change so many things, but the past is the past. I can’t do anything about it now.”
“Why did she go on that trip?” Keith asked, not being able to stop the question. It had been running in the background of every moment of his life for 17 years.
His father shook his head slowly. “The same reason we do everything—because she was supposed to.”
“But what was it? It couldn’t have been a meeting. She didn’t work. Did she go to see family… what?”
“No, your mother didn’t have family in Midland.” His father shook his head, first slowly, then more vehemently. “It was just some dumb thing that happened. Okay? It’s over, Keith. She’s gone. It’s time to move on.” His gaze fell to the papers as he started writing on the top one again.
Why was it so easy for everyone else to just go on with life and so impossible for him? He put his hand on the knob but stopped. He looked back over at his father, already buried in work again. “Do you miss her?”
With a look that yanked Keith’s heart to the surface, his father looked up. “Every day of my life.”
“So I guess you’re going to the wedding,” Greg said Monday night as Maggie sat in the night-darkened kitchen.
“I’m sure I’ll have to take Pete and Izzy.” Maggie held her head up from the table with only her fingers twined in her hair. It had been days since she’d seen Keith. Days, in fact, since she’d seen the outside of the house. They were already busy getting the backyard ready for the wedding, and that meant no one was allowed out there for any reason.
Two days before, workers had moved the back fence and more grass was planted and being watered even now. It was no place for little feet, so they had stayed inside and as much as possible out of view.
Mrs. Ayer was in a state, and save for dinner, Mr. Ayer made few appearances. When he was around, he didn’t talk. When he wasn’t around, there was a tension that permeated everything. Patty Ann had gone so far as to ask if it was necessary to have Peter’s karate lesson in the courtyard outside the kitchen, and when it was determined there was simply no other place, karate lessons were cancelled until further notice.
Gardeners such that Maggie had never seen had also shown up shortly after the grass. They were planting more flowers than God had created and vast teams of workers were busy even now scrubbing the walls of the mansion until every crevice was clean.
“You don’t get off even for the wedding?” Greg asked in horror. “Maggie, it’s been weeks since you’ve had a day off. I don’t know how you do it.”
You remember what happens when you do take a day off, she thought but didn’t say. “I guess you’re going.”
“Of course. I’m best man.”
Lovely. “Oh? Who’re you walking with?”
“Did you have to ask? Tracy, the Monster of honor.”
More good news. “I wish I could get out of it, but Pete and Izzy are the ring bearer and flower girl. Which reminds me, we have a fitting for Izzy Thursday. Ugh. I wish this was over already.”
“You and me both. I guess you’ve got your dress and everything already. The invites say black tie only. Thankfully Keith sprung for my tux, or that’d be anot
her $500 bucks to spend on top of the gift.”
Keith. The name knifed through her. “I hadn’t really thought about a dress.”
“Well, you’d better think about it, or they may send you to the dungeon.” He laughed. “You know how they can be.”
Yes, she did.
“Well, you know,” Greg said slowly. “I’ve been thinking. If you’re there and I’m there, maybe we could be there together.”
Would this nightmare never end? “I don’t know, Greg. I’ll have to be taking care of the kids, and you’ll be dealing with the best man stuff…”
He sighed. “Well, will you at least save me a dance?”
She smiled sadly. “You got it.”
“If I wanted to look up an old accident report, how would I go about doing that?” Keith asked Dallas as they sat at breakfast Tuesday morning. All night he had replayed the fight with his dad and one word kept sticking. Midland.
Why hadn’t he asked? Why hadn’t that word jarred his memory into gear when he could have asked? But no. As usual he hadn’t really thought about it until long after it was too late to ask.
“An accident report about what?” Dallas asked. Her cornsilk hair was pulled back from her face, revealing her perfectly chiseled nose and jawbone. She was beautiful even if not Keith’s kind of beautiful.
He shrugged. “Greg and I were talking the other day, and he was asking about something. I was just going to look into it.”
“Oh, well. If it was publicized at the time, you might be able to dig in a newspaper’s archives, or do a search for the date and the location. It’d be like looking for a pin in a gutter, but you could try.” She got up and took her plate to the kitchen. “Tracy and some of the girls are taking me out tomorrow night. Just so you know. I’ll probably stay in Houston with her if that’s all right.”
“Oh, yeah.” His mind was already back in Midland. “That’s fine.”
Tuesday Maggie went to Patty Ann’s office while Inez watched the kids. She knocked. “Excuse me. I’m sorry to bother you, but I need to ask a question.”
“Make it quick. The governor’s office will be calling with the itinerary any minute now.”
“Oh, okay.” Maggie sat down in the chair. “Umm, I was wondering. How formal do you want me to be for the wedding? I imagine I’ll just be working with the kids, so…”
Patty Ann exhaled harshly. “Let me guess. You don’t have anything formal.”
“Formal?” The word leveled her. “Uh, no. Not really.” She pushed her glasses up nervously. “I just have my work clothes pretty much.”
“Terrific.” The secretary thought for a moment. “Well, if I advance your pay and give you tomorrow off…”
“Oh, I have money from before, but I don’t… Umm, who will take care of the children?”
Patty Ann looked like she might hit overload at any second. “We have yet to find a suitable replacement for Mrs. Haga. With the wedding preparations and Mrs. Ayer’s current schedule, there just hasn’t been time for interviews or even applications.”
Maggie was twisting through the situation as much as Patty Ann was. Then a thought occurred to her. “You know, there’s a girl that helps out at the stables. Jamie something. She’s Tanner’s girlfriend.”
Patty Ann stared at her clearly having no idea who she was talking about.
However, Maggie knew for her own sanity that solution was better than hiring someone she didn’t know. “Jamie was really good with the kids when we were down there. Maybe she would be interested in babysitting.”
“Under normal circumstances I would have to check this Jamie person out, but…”
The phone rang. Patty Ann looked at it and then glanced at Maggie. “If you can get her, do it.”
The house was quiet. Blessedly, thankfully quiet. Knowing he needed more than his own wisdom for this one, Keith had spent 30 minutes when he got off work reading the Bible. All day long his mind had been twining through the possibility that he was right, but while he was reading, it was as if the rest of life dropped away. There was something so comforting about reading those words.
If he could just stay here and never go back to the real world, he would have. However, there were answers he needed, and so at just after seven, he put the Bible in the little compartment and went to the office where he clicked on his computer and set to the task at hand.
With everything in her Maggie fought calling him to find out about Jamie. She didn’t want to disturb him. Moreover, she didn’t want to get Dallas and have to explain why she needed to talk to Keith. Something in her told her that if she didn’t keep her distance, Dallas would figure out what Maggie wouldn’t even let herself admit. So, one excuse after another she whittled away the evening, hoping the world would mercifully come to an end and she wouldn’t have to make that call.
Three Dead in Two-Car Crash.
Dateline: Midland, Texas
It had taken almost two hours of searching, but when Keith read the headline, he knew this was it. Just before he could read into the story, however, the phone rang at his elbow, and he picked it up. “Hello?”
“Keith. Hi. This is Maggie.”
Breath slid from his lungs, and he turned his chair from the computer’s glare. “Maggie? What’s wrong?”
“Oh, uh. Nothing. Really. Umm. I was just calling to see if you might have Tanner’s phone number.”
Nothing in him liked how strained her voice sounded. “Tanner’s? What do you need his number for?”
“Oh, well. Umm. We’re needing a babysitter for the kids for tomorrow, and I mentioned Jamie might be interested…”
“Why do you need a babysitter?” The thought of her leaving and never coming back smashed into him.
“Well, Greg and I were talking, and I realized I don’t have a dress or anything for the wedding, and…”
The sentence continued, but Keith’s brain had stuck at the words Greg and I. After a moment, he realized she had stopped talking.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have called. I know you’re busy.”
“No!” The word jumped from him. “No. That’s fine. I’ve got his number. Hang on.” Keith stood on shaky legs and walked out to the kitchen. The fading twilight was not enough to read by so he snapped on the light. “So how’s everything up there?”
“Okay. Good,” she said. The words sounded rushed and thrown into the silence between them. “How are the stables?”
“Pretty rough. The whole Saturday thing really threw everybody for a loop.”
“I bet.”
“But they had insurance on him, so I guess it wasn’t a total loss.”
She didn’t say anything for a long moment. “Insurance doesn’t bring him back.”
Keith wasn’t at all sure if it was the softness of the words or the words themselves that ripped the façade of Keith Ayer from his guard atop his heart, but in one breath he was gone. He sat down heavily on the barstool. “I know, but they all make it sound like it should.”
“They all?”
The name hacked through his heart. “My dad. He said it was pointless to save Dragnet because he’d never race again, and what was the point of having a loser around?”
“He said that?”
“In so many words.” Keith exhaled as all the heartache from the last week surfaced. “He’s so smart in business, how can he be so clueless about life?”
Maggie didn’t answer right away. “How about you?”
“What about me?”
“Do you buy into the idea that if there’s insurance, life doesn’t really matter all that much?”
His spirit sunk. “I don’t want to, but everybody else makes it sound like that’s the only way to think. What am I supposed to do, swim upstream my whole life?”
“Well, I think that depends on if you want to look rich or to be rich.”
“Huh?”
Maggie laughed softly. “Oh, it’s something Mrs. Malowinski used to tell me. ‘Maggie, there are people in th
is world who look really rich, but they are so poor you should feel sorry for them because they are poor where it counts—in the heart, in the places only God and love can fill. And then there are those who don’t look rich on the outside, but they are because they know what’s important, and they center their entire lives on it.’
“So I guess the question is: Do you want to look rich or to be rich?”
No one had ever asked Keith that question, and although he knew what he wanted the answer to be, he couldn’t let himself believe that was the one that could be. “I’ve got Tanner’s number here.”
“Oh, okay. I’m ready.”
When she hung up with Keith, Maggie placed the call to Tanner and then to Jamie. In a matter of minutes, she had Jamie lined up, and the world itself seemed to line up right behind her.
In the dark room Keith didn’t bother to turn the light on. He sat down in the office chair and spun it slowly. The screen was black for having been neglected too long. He swept the mouse to the side, and the screen blinked to life. He closed his eyes, knowing and yet still hoping.
The story was still there when he opened his eyes, and one slow word at a time, he let it seep into him.
“A Midland couple and a Houston socialite were killed Friday night in a two car collision on Rural Route 72. James Montgomery and his wife, Christina, both of Midland, were pronounced dead at the scene. Bonnie Ayer, wife of Houston oilman, Conrad Ayer was airlifted to Midland Central where she later died of massive internal injuries.
“Conrad Ayer was also airlifted to Midland Central and remains in stable condition.”
The chair back caught Keith as his hand went to his mouth. His father was there? His father was there. Somehow, in every single thought he had ever had about the accident, he had never once had his father in that car.
“The cause of the crash remains under investigation although authorities said that alcohol was a factor.”
Disbelief, shock, horror doused Keith’s spirit, dragging it down, pushing it down, scratching huge holes all the way through it. That’s why they wouldn’t tell him what happened. They were protecting his father. Anger flashed through all the other emotions. Ike knew. All these years, Ike knew, and he had never said anything. Inez knew too. The names slashed one after another through his consciousness. It was possible everyone in the world knew—except him.
Coming Home: (Contemporary Christian Romance Boxed Set): Three Stories of Love, Faith, Struggle & Hope Page 51