“Excuse me?” she said.
“I’ve heard all of the reasons you can’t, but I can’t understand your willingness to give up before you even try. It’s annoying. How old are you? Talk to your father. Talk to your sisters. Tell them what the ranch means to you. Who knows, maybe they would agree and let you try to take the place on,” he said, continuing to work.
“It’s complicated.”
He was quiet for a moment, closing up the cartons. “Don’t try then, Carter. Quit. Go back to being an accountant, looking for Mr. Bentley.”
“Maybe I could take my share of the sale and buy my own spread, like you’ve done here,” she said, ignoring that last remark.
“That’s an option. Except the property you have here is pretty special. Doesn’t it mean anything to you that your great-grandfather, an ex-slave, purchased it for his family? Do you know how hard that must have been? And for what? For you to give up at the first sign of difficulty? Do you realize how much land has been lost in your communities? African Americans used to own over 15 million acres of land all over this country. That number is now down to less than one million acres,” he said. He’d stopped working altogether now.
“Why does it have to be me that saves the ranch? I’m not the only one in the family. My sisters are chomping at the bit to sell. I think they might need the money, and who am I to prevent that?”
“Who are you to prevent that?” he said, as he stared at her. “You may be the only person in your family that actually realizes its value. But you’re too afraid to stand up for yourself. Will it be difficult? Yes. But try it. Go against the grain for once,” he said, his voice steely and determined.
“I thought I could show you by sending Macy over that there was income to be made. Al knows someone that currently manages a dude ranch. She would connect you to him. You could make it work. But what was I thinking? You can’t even have a say in choosing the man you marry. Too busy seeking your family’s approval for something that is one of the most personal decisions you can make.”
She was quiet. He was angry. From-out-of-nowhere angry.
“Look, you have a point and I’ve considered putting my plan into motion without telling them—my family; try and make the ranch profitable before I bring up the idea of not selling,” she said.
“It will take a while; longer than you know. Why would you put your time and energy into something that’s going to be sold? Don’t sneak behind their backs.”
“I’m not sneaking behind anyone’s back,” she said, angry now.
“What did you tell me your great-grandfather used to say? When you fall off a horse… get back on.”
She took another deep breath. “You know what? You don’t know me. I’ll forget this conversation. We’ve screwed. I told you a little about the way I feel, and you think you can give me all this advice about what will make me happy.”
He didn’t say anything, just stood watching her.
“You aren’t being as helpful as I thought you’d be. Have a nice night with Stacy. I’ll see you around,” she said, walking to the door.
“Carter,” he said.
“What?” she said, from the doorway.
“This is important to you. Talk to your dad,” he said, his tone less pushy, less angry now.
She shrugged again. “I’ll see you later.”
She started crying, marching back to her house, tears of anger this time. When you fall off a horse… get back on. He had some nerve, talking to her like that! Get back on…
She’d been climbing back on since she’d stopped coming out here as a teen. Gotten back on when she had to take those stupid Ritalin drugs, so she could be calm and focus. She’d climbed back on when she’d finished high school and gone off to college, struggling to find a major that could live with her and then working at that mind-numbing job. She knew how to climb back on a horse!
Who was he to tell her to get back on a horse? Not him, with his stupid list of what to look for in a woman. So what if she went after African American men? His list wasn’t so different from hers. Stupid characteristics didn’t say anything about a woman. You couldn’t tell a person’s heart from any list or the color of their skin. Neither gave off any clues as to whether that person was of value of not.
She would talk to her dad, not because he thought it was the thing to do, but because she’d decided that horses were the direction she would take from here on out and she wanted to keep their family’s farm. And she’d made that decision without the aid of Rafael, the Latino farmer of chickens and goats.
She entered her back door, slamming it shut behind her.
#
Rafael watched her slam the door from his front yard. He had followed her out. He could hear it from here. An angry Carter he could handle a lot more than a crying one. He’d watched her march across the field, every angry step back from his place to hers.
“What are you doing?” he asked himself. “Who are you? For someone who hates interference of any kind, why are you standing here interfering?”
Stacy walked up. “How did it go?” she asked.
“It didn’t. I should leave her alone,” he said.
“That’s one option. I’ll see you in town,” she said.
“Bye,” he said a minute after she’d gone. He was still looking over at Carter’s home.
“Leave her alone,” he said out loud. Good advice that he should take, but probably wouldn’t.
#
Fifteen
Friday
Carter parked in the visitor’s parking of her father’s dealership. It was almost a week to the day since she’d argued with Rafael. She’d seen him, he’d waved, but she hadn’t waved back. He continued to wave a couple of times after that, but he eventually stopped. She’d managed to avoid him. She knew his schedule and mostly tried to work around it.
She looked around at her father’s business. It was a bustling beehive of activity, as always. People exiting cars, handing their keys off to her father’s knowledgeable and efficient staff of workers, before moving on to the plush waiting area to enjoy coffee, tea and croissants while their cars were being serviced. Nothing but the best for his customers.
From the looks of this place it was hard to tell that the country was in the throes of a recession—another argument against trying that had taken up residence in her head since she’d made the decision to talk to her father. Her love of the land, her great-grandfather’s legacy, mixed in with Rafael’s stinging Why don’t you quit? How old are you? questions were the stimuli that propelled her here today. She had to ask, she had to stand up for herself, even if she fell. She got that now, but it didn’t make her any less afraid or worried.
She’d entered the main door, smiled at the receptionist, made her way past the windows filled with salesmen and to the back where the executive office was located. She’d decided to show up in person instead of calling, and even made an appointment, just like a professional would. She hoped he would see her in that light instead of the daughter that struggled to get it together sometimes. She marched over to her father’s secretary’s desk. Alice had been with her father since the beginning of time, or at least for as long as she could remember. Carter considered her family.
“Well hello, Carter,” Alice said, looking up from her desk, her face filled with pleasure, and was that sympathy mixed in there, too? “It has been ages since I’ve seen you,” she said, standing up, reaching for Carter’s hands to hold.
“Hi, Alice. It has been a long time. How are you, your family?”
“Sweet of you to ask. They are doing fine. I have five grandchildren now. Times does fly and look at you, still as pretty as a picture,” she said.
“Thank you. Is my father in?”
“Yes. He is waiting for you. And you are on time. You know how much your father values punctuality.”
“I do.”
“Go on in then,” she said. Carter walked away, knocking softly as she reached her father’s door.
&
nbsp; “Come in,” he said.
She peeked her head in first followed by the rest of her body. “Hi Daddy,” she said, approaching his desk. She kissed his cheek before taking a seat in one of the chairs in front of his desk.
“Thank you for fitting me in to your schedule. I know you’re busy,” she said.
“Not that busy,” he said, sitting back in his chair. Her father was in one of his custom-tailored shirts and snappy ties. He was a handsome man, with a dark complexion like her. “What can I do for you?” he asked, all business now.
“I don’t want to sell the ranch,” she said, getting right to the point.
“That’s nothing new, Carter,” he said, giving her a smile.
“Yes. I know. But since I’ve been living there, working to get it back in shape, I’ve realized that I needed to ask for the opportunity to try and make it profitable.”
“This is the first I’ve heard of this idea.”
“I’ve only recently started to consider it, really, although it was always what I wanted to do, since I was a little kid. But you know that. I am tired of accounting. Don’t like it, not that I’ve ever been good at it, and I’m tired of pretending.”
“Part of being a grown-up is doing things we don’t want to do,” he said.
She smiled to cover her irritation. “I’d would like for us to postpone the sell of the ranch for a while. I would like the chance to make it profitable,” she said again, her voice firm. “Since I’m the only child related by blood to our great-grandfather, I think I should be given the opportunity to do so. I grew up with him. I knew what he wanted that place to be,” she said.
Her father was silent for about three minutes, watching her, scrutinizing her, for signs of what, she wasn’t sure.
“I’ve hired a young woman to be part property manager and salesman. You know, one of those people that specializes in cleanup, staging, helping to showcase properties in the best light. She is set to start in a week,” he said.
“You can always call her and tell her not to come,” she said.
“I’m not going to do that.”
“So that means you’re choosing to dismiss my idea?” she asked.
“You are too close to the land. It means too much to you. You can’t be objective. This is for the best, Carter.”
“Did you hear anything I said?”
“Yes, I did,” he said, sitting up calmly. He was always calm. “That property is very valuable and the funds split six ways would be very beneficial to your sisters, not just you. Your way is only beneficial to you,” he said.
“Our legacy would remain intact, so it’s not just beneficial to me. I understand your desire to help everyone, but I’m the only one that…”
“The only one that what?” he asked.
“The only one that is your flesh and blood, the only true heir, connected by blood to our land. Doesn’t that account for something? Anything?”
Her dad sat back in his chair, studying her.
“I don’t understand you,” she said, her hurt taking over. “I mean for once, would you take my side in an argument? For once, would you back me up—the child you share DNA with?” she said, pointing to herself, standing up, agitated. “I get that you remarried, and that you can’t have biases, or show favorites. How many ways have you shown that to me? I get it. You don’t have favorites. I get that, too. But just once, would you be on my side?” she said, leaning over his desk now. He was still silent. He sat back in his chair and sighed.
“I am not your father,” he said.
Silence. Carter stood back as if she’d been slapped.
“What did you say?” Carter asked.
“I am not your father. My brother is. Sit down,” he said, leaning forward in his chair, serious as a heart attack. Carter could tell. She’d seen this look often enough. Her body folded itself into her seat.
“I am not your father,” he said again.
“I can’t breathe,” she said, looking around for her purse, a little frantic now. She pulled it into her lap and dug through until she found her inhaler. She took a puff and sat back in her chair, eyes glued on the man who was not her father.
“I met your mother in high school and I fell in love with her immediately. She looked just like you and I thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen,” he said. He sat back in his chair, staring out the window now.
“I used to wait for her after school, walk her home, anything to be near her. I knew I wanted to marry her the first time I saw her. But she loved my brother Raymond, your father, with the same intensity that I had for her,” he said, staring intently at her.
“Raymond was torn between what he was and what he wanted to be, which was anything but gay. A ‘homo’, he used to call himself. So he dated Linda, pretending to be something that he wasn’t. No one knew different but me. We were as close as two brothers could be, until he started to date your mother.
He got her pregnant, which caused a huge fight with our father, who demanded that he marry her. He refused, told him he was a homosexual and left town. For good, it turned out.
So, I married her instead, and loved her until she died. She did her best to love me, to make the best of a bad start. You were harder for me to get close to. Pride, I guess. And hurt. I didn’t try with you, not at first, not like I should have. And then you took to your great-grandfather, so I didn’t have to. Two peas in a pod you two were, and so much like my brother. He and your great-grandfather loved that ranch, anything that had to do with land and horses.
So I left, and you stayed with your great-grandfather,” he said, looking at her before he continued, as if coming out of a trance. Carter put her inhaler to her mouth and took another puff as tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Why did you come for me, then, if you hated me so?”
“I don’t hate you. You take me back to a part of my life I’d like to forget,” he said, glancing away from her.
Carter stared out the window now. They sat in silence for a few minutes.
“Why didn’t you tell me before now? It would have explained so much. Why you left me when you moved here. Why you waited so long to send for me. Why you’ve never gone out of your way to make me feel like I belonged. You were always so much harder on me….” She stopped speaking and started crying in earnest now.
“When I met Gloria and her girls, she pushed me to come and get you. I’ve tried to put that behind me, Carter, to make sure you were taken care of just like my other girls,” he said. “I can’t let you have the property. I have to do what’s in the best interest of all of you—all my children—including you. It’s the reason why your great-grandfather included your sisters in the will. He valued family above all else. It was also his way of making something up to me. I knew what this place meant to you. I also knew you wouldn’t sell, and I had more than you to look after. So I didn’t tell you.”
It was quiet as her father continued to watch her.
“I’m sorry that you were hurt by this, by my silence. I only did what I thought was best. You all are mine. I adopted your sisters, and I have to look out for not just you, but them. All of you, equally,” he said.
Carter remained silent.
“Did you adopt me, too?” she asked.
“I didn’t have to. My name is already listed on your birth certificate as the father,” he said.
“But would you have if it hadn’t been?”
His silence to that question answered so much for her.
“I love that farm. You should not sell it. It’s history—our family’s history. We could find some other way to help the sisters,” she said, not giving up.
“I don’t need a lecture from you Carter. I know our family’s history, better than you ever will,” he said, sitting back in his chair, and back to his old self, all traces of softness gone. They stared at each other for a minute.
“Okay, just for grins. I’m a businessman. Let’s say I allow you to make the ranch profitable. What would you
do? Where would you start?” he asked. She wiped her eyes and took a deep breath, pulling herself together.
“We have several options. We could turn it into a dude ranch, or a bed and breakfast. I could teach horseback riding. I’ve done some preliminary research. I’d be happy to put together a business plan for you.”
“What have you ever stuck with, Carter? College took an extra year while you tried to figure out which major you could finish. Bentley, you quit. And he was such a fine young man, only to later try and break up his wedding,” he said.
She looked away, hurt.
“Look Carter,” his voice softened. “This solution is best for everyone. Sell the ranch, and take the proceeds and travel. You don’t want to be an accountant? Fine. Take some time to figure out what you want to do.”
“I know what I want to do. It’s horses, the ranch. That’s it. That’s what I want to do. Just like your father, and his father before him. And my dad, I guess…” she said.
He blew out a breath. “Carter, the new property manager will be at the ranch by week’s end. Don’t get in the way. This is the best for everyone,” he said.
She stood up. “Thanks for meeting with me,” she said. She turned and walked out the door.
Alice looked up as she hurried out, the same sympathy from earlier in her eyes. Carter gave her a strained smile and left.
#
Friday night
It was dark now. After leaving her dad, she’d spent the day holed up in her old apartment, staring at the walls, licking her wounds, trying to take it all in. He wasn’t her father was all she was able to think about.
She’d turned in her notice. She was letting go of her apartment. She didn’t plan on coming back. An impulsive decision, something the old fly-away Carter—the before Ritalin, trying to fit in—would have done, but a decision that somehow felt right. She wasn’t going back to being the old accountant, either. Ever.
“Now what?” she asked into the silence. She had driven back to the ranch and had been sitting in her car parked outside the garage for a while. The initial push of determination that had propelled her to end her lease was gone. She was proud of herself though. One small step away from her need to please her dad. Oh, but he wasn’t her dad anymore. How long before she forgot that?
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