by Jane Gill
“What do you mean?” Immediately tense, she clutched the back of the kitchen chair.
“I mean, you come showin’ up here after all these years like the Prodigal Son, and I’m just supposed to go out and kill the fatted calf for you or somethin’,” he said.
“What?”
“Yeah, you know the story,” he mumbled. “Take the family for granted and then just go off and live your life and forget where it was you came from. Always just thinkin’ about your own self and nobody else.”
“Oh,” she said. “That again! So this is how today is supposed to go?”
“That’s not the point and you know it,” he said.
“Well, then, what is the point? No, wait, let’s just get to the point, shall we?” Her hands were in a death grip on the back of the chair. “The point is that I chose to make a better life for myself by getting a college education and you chose to stay here on this farm. And, the truth of it is, Martin, you’ve been takin’ it out on me ever since!”
He rolled his eyes and looked toward the ceiling. “I don’t care about your education,” he said. “I never did. If that’s what you wanted that was fine and dandy, but to leave here and never come back—year after year. That wasn’t right and you know it. Once you got up north, you turned your back on your family. You made a new family for yourself, and you made sure they didn’t know where you came from. Am I wrong?”
Lu cringed. She wasn’t going to accept all the blame. “And just how was I supposed to come home on a regular basis?” she argued. “Pennsylvania’s not just around the corner from Florida, in case you never noticed! I was working and going to school. I barely had money for rent much less for train fare. What was I supposed to do?”
“You coulda’ wrote, Luella,” he said quietly. “You coulda’ called.”
She didn’t have an answer for that. She was ashamed to admit it, but he was right. It had all become so easy. The more time that passed, the easier it had been to convince herself that she was doing all she could and that the fault lay with her father and Martin, not with her.
“Well,” she said, her head down. “I know I made mistakes, and that was a long time ago. I’m sorry about that now, and if I could do things over, I would—believe me. But while we’re on the subject of mistakes, I’d just like to point out that I have never said one unkind word about you to my kids. But you had to go and bad-mouth me in front of yours, didn’t you?”
“Listen, I’m sorry about that,” he started, his embarrassment obvious. “I was wrong. How’s I to know Ashanti was listening to every word I said?”
“Because that’s what kids do,” she said.
“Yeah, well, I think we got that straightened out now. I’m sorry about that and I told her I was wrong to do that, too.”
“Thank you,” she acknowledged. “I accept your apology. Still, you just said you were tired of ‘all this pussy-footin’ around’. For your information, I’m not pussy-footin’ around being nice just for you.” She tapped her chest with a shaky index finger. “This is who I am. I’m a nice person.”
Martin blew out a breath and crossed his arms. She got the impression that he resisted rolling his eyes with an effort. “Okay, so you’re a nice person. What do you want from me?”
“I want to clear the air once and for all, that’s what! Twice now you’ve called me the Prodigal Son, first at dinner in Bunnell, and now here. Well, you’d better read that story again because if you’re seein’ yourself as some kind of saint because you stayed with your father and worked the farm then you’ve read that story all wrong!” She could feel her heart beat throbbing the vein in her neck.
“You think I didn’t see you lordin’ it all over us that night at Highjackers?” she continued. “Oh, yeah, sneak the waitress a $10 tip with a wink and a grin. The ‘good son’ that’s you—and you make sure everybody knows it! You’re so damn sure of yourself, just like the Prodigal’s older brother, puffed full of self-righteousness like he’s owed something. Yeah, Martin, the Prodigal wasn’t the only sinner in that story. I know my Bible, too!”
“What’s this, ancient history?” he asked. “I’m talkin’ about the way you show up down here and look down your nose at me!”
“I do not look down my nose at you. That’s in your head, not mine!” she snapped, pointing at him.
“The hell it is!” he spat back. “You come down here with all these plans, start right off talkin’ about realtors, about property values and lawyers like you just did a research paper. Admit it! Before you ever got here you were all over the internet lookin’ to see what the farm was worth. Am I right?”
“So what if I was?” she shouted back. “You know, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but this is the twenty-first century. The age of technology—the internet. In case you never heard of it! Of course I looked online before I came down here. I had to know what I was going to find when I got here. And the way you just dumped all the work in my lap, I was darn glad I did.”
“See, there you go,” he said. “You gotta throw things out like ‘the age of technology—the internet’. You act like I’m some hick because I didn’t go to college. I’ve got a good job with a good company. I‘ve had computer training out the wazoo! Do you think you diagnose engine problems these days without a computer? Do you think you order parts without the internet? How about keeping track of inventory, shipping records, and making out employee schedules? Huh?” He fired the questions at her then turned his back on her and stood looking out the window above the sink. His elbows were locked as he gripped the edge of the counter.
Lu started to say something, but he turned around and cut her off. “Not to mention I’ve got three daughters in my house. We’ve got two computers. I’m no dummy, Luella!”
Her throat was dry. She desperately wanted a drink of water, but he was standing in front of the sink. She swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, and I don’t think you’re a dummy,” she said, her voice shaking. “I guess I wasn’t thinking. But you give a lot of mixed messages.”
“Oh, so now we’re back to me. I give a lot of mixed messages, huh?” He stared up at the ceiling again.
“You did it just now,” she said. “I get here, and you’re just all about being my protective brother.” She pointed to the front door. “Right out there, not ten minutes ago, you put your arm around me, like I could rely on you. Then, we get in here and bam, you’re all over me about how I look down my nose at you. Explain that one.” She lowered her voice and plopped down in a kitchen chair.
“I told you in the beginning, I don’t want to fight with you,” she said. “I think a lot of things we should decide to leave in the past. We can’t change them and they aren’t worth rehashing. I think we should just go forward, that’s all. That’s what I want.”
Martin took his ball cap off and set it on the counter. He didn’t say anything for nearly a full minute. “Okay,” he finally said, “so maybe we need to talk about some things.”
“I’m not talking about anything with you if all I get to do is defend myself,” she pouted. She couldn’t look at him. “I admit I was mad at Daddy for years, because I didn’t think he understood me. Now I realize I should’ve tried harder. But he’s dead, and it’s too late. I can’t fix that.” She stared at her hands in her lap. “There’s things I’m ashamed of now that I never saw before. I don’t want to make the same mistakes any more. That’s what I want. I just don’t know what you want.”
“I just want to know one thing,” he said.
“Okay, what?” She asked, bracing herself for another attack.
“I want to know why it’s okay for you to be you, but it’s not okay for me to be me?”
His question hit her in the stomach. The sheer simplicity of it—the truth that it held. She stood up on wobbly legs.
“Oh, God,” she said, nearly choking on the words. “You’re right. You just said it all. I never realized it until just now. I’ve judged you all these years. I’ve been so busy running away from t
his farm that I forgot what I left behind.” She went to him, slipped her arms around his waist, and rested her cheek on his chest. “I left behind the best brother a girl ever had. I left behind a proud father and… .” The words caught in her throat. “I’m so sorry, I really am. I need you, my kids need you and Elizabeth and your girls.”
He slid his arms around her and hugged her tight, planting a kiss in her hair. She felt his chest tremble. After a long moment, he moved his hands to her shoulders and leaned her away from him. Despite the tear stains on his cheeks, he was smiling at her.
“Geez, Wu-Wu,” he said. “None of us ever had a problem with the decisions you made. We just wanted you to not have a problem with the decisions we made.”
His pure honesty made her laugh out loud. “Yeah,” she said. “I got it! I finally got it.”
“Hey,” he said snatching up his cap. “You want to go out and say good-bye to the family tree before they bulldoze that too?”
“No one is bulldozing our family tree,” she announced. “That’s something I wanted to tell you. After Susan and I left here she asked me about that tree. I’d forgotten all about it or I would have shown her where we carved our initials. Anyway, it really bugged me that somebody might come in here and mow it down so I called Dwight as soon as I got home. I told him any contract we signed would have to include a promise that the tree would stay exactly where it is, no matter who buys the farm. Our family tree’s gonna die of old age!”
“All right!” Martin said holding the door open and making a pronounced gesture for her to go ahead of him. “You go, girl!”
Lu kept her arm around his waist and leaned into his side as they stood looking up at the huge old pine which was held steady by the wild cactus that climbed heavenward through its branches. “This cactus has really grown up over all these years,” she commented.
“Yeah, they’ll probably chop that off,” Martin said.
“Nope!” Lu said. “It’s stays too. Remember when it flowered every year how Momma would bring us out after dark and tell us that the blossoms were the angels and saints who had gone on before us?”
“Yeah, and I remember Daddy always threatening to chop it down and Grammy tellin’ him that she wouldn’t allow it!” Martin said as he caressed the massive bark of the tree searching for the initials they carved in it so many years ago.
“Here they are,” he said. “Look, they’re still here.”
“M. S. and L. S.,” he read.
“Look.” Lu pointed higher up, and then he saw where she was pointing in the craggily bark. Just above their initials someone had carved “J. S.” Neither of them spoke. Clearly these initials were carved years after they’d carved theirs, and they could only stand for their martyred uncle.
“Jerome Stovall,” Martin finally whispered. “Our Uncle Jerome. Daddy must have carved these here after he found out what happened.”
Lu stood on tiptoe, reached up, and traced the letters with her finger. “Momma was right,” she said. “It really is a family of angels and saints.”
“Yeah,” Martin said, “And all of ‘em just as stubborn as that cactus!”
About the Author
Jane Gill was born in Saratoga Springs, NY, but has lived and worked in Florida for most of her adult life. While she fondly recalls the snowy days of her youth, she has long felt the South was “home”. She is fond of saying she had given the stork directions to be born in “Sarasota” but he misread the map and dropped her in “Saratoga”.
Jane serves on the Advisory Boards for the State College of Florida and Sarasota County Technical Institute. She is also active as a Mote Marine Sea Turtle Volunteer, patrolling the beach at dawn to record the activities of sea turtles that nest on Florida beaches. She raised two daughters, both college graduates, and attended college herself only after her children left home. Jane proudly received her National Association of Legal Assistants certification when she was fifty.
Jane began writing only a few short years ago. She has twice received recognition for her contributions to Doorways Memoirs magazine. She has also published in The Bridge magazine. When she is not doting on her grandchild, she enjoys exploring off-beat Florida places and traveling with friends.
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