Shy (16 page)

A cow mooed from somewhere inside the barn. Moody poked his head back through the door, and yelled, “Hold your apple butter, Mary Lou! I’ll get back to you in a minute!”

“Mary Lou?” I asked.

Moody chuckled. “Yeah, that Joe’s a card. All his cows got names. And most of the pigs. Even a few chickens, I think. The ones he hasn’t eaten anyway.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. “What about Stanley?” I asked, as we took off for the house. I still had Pedro tucked under my arm, and he wasn’t happy. He wanted to explore. Or pick another fight. Or poop. “Has anybody called him? Somebody should tell Stanley about his dad, don’t you think?”

Moody grunted. “No, I
don’t
think. Stanley’s about as useless as tits on a bull. He never helped his dad when Joe was well. I seriously doubt if he’d do much better when the poor guy’s sick. Forget about Stanley. He’s an asshole. And I’m not talking out of school. Joe would tell you the same thing.”

I stifled a laugh. “He already did. More than once.”

“Well, there you go.”

As much as I hated to admit it, I was beginning to like Jeff Moody a little. Of course, that might only last as long as I was left in the dark as to what sort of relationship he had shared with Frank. If it was the down and dirty kind of relationship, the kind Frank had with me, then Moody’s likeability quotient would probably suffer real fast. I didn’t think I could be quite as magnanimous when it came to Frank’s old love life as Moody seemed to be with Frank’s new one. Meaning me.

I followed him through a squeaky, crooked gate that led into a grassless backyard. There was a shed that looked like it was about to topple over, an old well with a pump handle sticking out of it, and a clothesline that stretched from a huge maple tree all the way across the yard to an upright board nailed to the side of a fence post. The only thing hanging on the clothesline was a single work glove. I saw the other glove lying in the dirt where it had landed after blowing off the line. Trying not to look totally useless, I picked it up and clipped it to the line with another clothespin that just happened to be hanging there. It took a bit of juggling to do all that without dropping Pedro on his head.

“That dog ever walk?” Moody asked. “Or do you carry him around everywhere you go like a purse?”

“Purse,” I said. And that was the end of that. Sometimes people ask too many questions. Pedro licked my chin. I guess he agreed.

The two-story farmhouse was in need of a coat of paint, but it looked solid and respectable nevertheless. It seemed to have been haphazardly added onto a few times over the years. A room here. A porch there. Bay windows stuck out in a couple of places, obviously afterthoughts. A brick chimney, not quite true, climbed up one side of the house. There were a couple of bricks missing at the top, making it look like a chipped, tobacco-stained tooth. The house was all odd angles and had obviously withstood more summers and winters than I had ever seen. It meandered around the yard like a drunk. But it was a happy drunk. Homey and self-satisfied. An old tractor tire, seven feet across, lay in the yard by the back step. It was painted white and filled with petunias, offering up a splash of color to the otherwise bland surroundings of dead grass and unpainted homestead.

The screen door squeaked and twanged when Moody held it open for me. I ducked my head and walked inside. Moody followed.

The house was what I call man-clean. Things were neat and tidy enough at first glance, but it could probably have used a good scrubbing in the corners and in a few out of the way places, those places a woman (or a guy with OCD) would be picking at and fussing over but a normal man tends to blithely ignore. Then, in a burst of insight unusual for me, I understood what I was seeing. The house hadn’t had a good cleaning since Frank left, and Frank had left three months ago.

The rooms were just becoming light since we were still on the verge of dawn, but a couple of table lamps were lit here and there, casting shadows through doorways and illuminating pictures on the wall. Family pictures. I stopped for a second in front of a grade school snapshot of a really cute kid with no front teeth, a few scattered freckles, and the biggest, greenest eyes I had ever seen. It took me about a second to realize it was Frank at around six years of age, a cutie even then. I was happy to note that his dimples were already in place. A swelling of love for the guy exploded in my chest like a nova.

Moody seemed to understand what I was feeling. He patted my shoulder and urged me on down a dark hallway with a long, battered runner covering the wood floor and muffling our footsteps. At the end of the hall a closed door waited. I heard Frank’s voice coming from the other side of the door. And a second voice too. A deeper voice. It sounded like Frank was cajoling and the other voice was having no part of it. The term “bumping heads” sprang to my mind.

Moody motioned me forward, trying to be polite, I guess, offering me first entry. I grasped the doorknob and gingerly pulled open the door as if peeling away a scab.

The voices stopped the minute Moody and I stuck our heads inside.

A
LTHOUGH
I had never seen Frank’s dad before, not even a photograph, I knew immediately that the face I looked at now would not have been the face I would have seen on the man a year earlier. Or maybe even a month earlier. Joseph Wells had been ravaged by his illness. And the ravaging looked sudden. His eyes, as green as Frank’s, were too big for his face. And I could see it was a face that had once been handsome. He had the look of someone who laughs easily, or did at one time in his life. But not now. The illness had snatched his laughter away from him as thoroughly as it had snatched away everything else. He looked stunned by the turn of events that had put him in his bed, helpless and weak as a newborn. People like Joe Wells don’t handle helplessness well. It’s not something they understand. It’s not something they have the patience for.

But cancer doesn’t ask for understanding or patience. It just demands its pound of flesh. Joseph Wells was in the process of finding that out, and it was a sorrowing thing to watch.

Frank was perched on the edge of his dad’s bed. They were holding hands. They both looked over at the sound of the bedroom door opening, and it took some effort for him to do it, but Joe managed to dredge up a smile to welcome us in. When he did, even his teeth looked too big for his face. But the smile was genuine, and it gave me a glimpse of the man Joseph Wells had once been, and it was a man I would have liked. I found myself hoping he knew that.

There were tears sparkling Frank’s cheek as he watched me walk into the room with Moody trailing along in my wake. Seeing Frank, Pedro squirmed around in my arms until Frank was forced to reach out and take him from me. He gave the dog a peck on the forehead, then watched as Pedro squirmed out of
his
arms and walked across Joe’s chest until man and dog were nose to nose. Joe grinned and Pedro licked the grin. Pedro immediately curled up in the crook of Joe’s arm and just lay there, obviously waiting to see what would happen next.

“That’s Pedro,” Frank said.

Joe nodded. “Figured it wasn’t Tom.”

Frank laughed, wiped away a couple of tears, and turned to me. “No, Pop.
That’s
Tom.”

I smiled and stuck out my hand. Joe Wells took it with the hand that wasn’t occupied with Pedro and gave it a weak shake. “You’re a handsome one,” he said. “It’s nice to meet you, Tom.”

“It’s nice to meet you too, sir.”

“Joe. Call me Joe.” And then he started coughing. Not only did pain light up his eyes when the coughing really took hold, but considerable fear showed up there too. Joe dropped my hand and grabbed for a tissue from the nightstand. Looking embarrassed, he held it to his mouth until the coughing stopped, then dropped the tissue in a wastebasket by the side of the bed. Following his movements with my eyes, I spotted a drop of blood on the used tissue as it lay there among a dozen others. Each and every one of them was stained with blood. By the look of concern on Frank’s face, I knew he had seen it too.

When Joe had the coughing fit under control, he took a moment to gather his strength and wipe the tears from his eyes. Then he tried to pick up where we had left off. “He met Samson yet?” he asked Frank, tilting his head at me.

And Frank laughed. “Is that monster still here?”

Joe looked shocked, but I could tell it was just for show. This was clearly a conversation they had had before, and it was clearly one they enjoyed having. Like an inside joke.

“You can’t expect me to kill off a member of the family, Frank. Samson’s here to stay, by God.” Joe turned to me. There was a speck of blood at the corner of his smile which Frank wiped away with another tissue before Joe could stop him. He obviously didn’t like being babied. “Tom, you stay away from Samson now, you hear? He’d just as soon kill you as look at you, and that’s God’s own truth. Ask Jeff there, he’ll tell you.”

I didn’t know who Samson was, but I was beginning to think it was maybe a third brother they kept hidden away. Maybe somebody like that poor banjo player in
Deliverance
who had a few scrambled genes to contend with and maybe a pet axe, and for safety reasons they kept him chained to the back of the barn like a goat.

Moody, standing behind me, spoke with such force that I jumped a foot in the air. “That fucker! I’d kill him myself if I could. Nothing would make me happier.”

I couldn’t stand the suspense another second. “Who the hell is Samson, and if he’s so dangerous why is he still hanging around the place?”

Joe laughed. Frank rolled his eyes. And Moody groaned. “Don’t ask,” they all said in unison.

Which made me want to ask again, so I did, this time with a little more desperation in my voice, “Come on now, who the hell is—”

“You all run on now,” Joe said. “I’m feeling a little tired. Think I’ll take me a nap. And don’t be hurtin’ Samson while I’m out.” He chuckled to himself and closed his eyes.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Moody mumbled. “Best go finish the milking, I guess.” And with that, he stalked out of the room.

Frank made a shushing motion with his finger to his lip and beckoned me to follow him quietly out the door. We left the room on tiptoe, leaving Pedro where he was, happily tucked away in Joe’s arms. Joe looked like he enjoyed having him there. We left the bedroom door ajar behind us, in case Pedro got the urge to roam around and maybe decorate his new surroundings with a pile of Chihuahua poop as a sort of christening ritual.

I followed Frank into the kitchen where he started puttering around at the counter. It took me a minute to figure out he was making a pot of coffee and rustling us up some breakfast. What I really wanted to do was sleep, but breakfast sounded good too.

Frank was the saddest I had ever seen him. I walked up behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist. He turned in my arms and pressed his face to my neck. I stroked his back. “I’m sorry, Frank. I guess your dad looks worse than he did when you left, huh?”

Frank nodded. I felt moisture on my neck. He was softly crying. “Way worse. If I’d known he was going to fail like this, I never would have left.”

“It would have happened either way. With you here or with you gone. You can’t beat yourself up over it. There’s nothing you could have done. Just be glad you’re here now. Maybe we can get him to a doctor.”

“He doesn’t want a doctor. He watched Mom die of cancer, stuck in a hospital with tubes poking out of her, and at the end she was all alone. She died in the middle of the night without a soul around. Pop doesn’t want that. He already told me. He wants to die right where he is. In his bed. And I’m going to let him do it. I’m just sorry I dragged you into all this. If you want to go back to San Diego and—”

“I’ve got nothing to go back to. I intend to stay right here with you. When we go back to San Diego, we’ll go back together. Besides, you’re going to need my help. Your friend said there’s a lot of work needs to be done on the farm what with the animals and all, plus we’ll have to see to your dad’s needs too. We’ll have our hands full. No way you could do it by yourself, Frank. Even if you could, I wouldn’t let you. And I imagine Moody has his own farm to run. He can’t be coming over here all the time to help us out. We’ll manage just fine on our own.”

Frank brushed his lips against mine. “Thanks, Tom. I’m glad you’re here. I love you, you know.”

“I love you too. Now, who the hell is Samson?” What I really wanted to hear about was Jeff Moody, the hunk out in the barn milking the cows with the sizable package tucked away in those skintight blue jeans, but I figured
that
cross-examination would have to wait. I’d start with Samson first and work my way up to Frank’s old trick later, if that’s what he was. Not that I doubted it for a minute.

Frank laughed. Taking my hand, he dragged me through the house to the back door.

“Come on. I’ll introduce you to Samson.”

Outside, the sun was just coming up, and I got a better look at the place. It looked like every farm I had ever seen in every movie I had ever watched about life on a farm. The four dogs Pedro had picked a fight with earlier lay sprawled out across the backyard like a flock of sheep. They raised their heads and gawked at us when we came through the back door, hoping for some table scraps maybe. “No, Shep. No, Beau. Frannie, Tige. Sleep now,” Frank said, and they lay back down and went back to sleep. I suddenly realized why Frank had been so appalled when he first saw how ill-trained Pedro was. Is. Seems farm dogs are a little more obedient than the standard spoiled Chihuahua. Come to think of it, who isn’t?

I didn’t know what to expect from this Samson business, but I knew there was one question I needed to ask Frank right away. Otherwise, I was going to have to start breathing into a paper bag again.

“Uh, tell me, Frank. Does your dad have chickens? Please tell me he doesn’t have chickens.”

Frank looked at me like I had just sprouted a second head. “You got something against chickens?”

“Well, in large groups they kind of freak me out. I don’t mind
eating
them, of course, fried, stewed, with dumplings, stuffed in a taco, I don’t give a shit how they’re cooked, but—”