Текст книги "For All You Have Left"

Автор книги: Laura Miller

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 13 страниц)

Chapter Seventeen
Moving

“Lada, have you ever thought about moving? You know, just picking up and starting over?”

I stare right at Hannah. She’s kidding. Right? How does she not know that I’ll never be in the mood to have this conversation with her?

“Well, have you?” she asks again.

I continue to glare at her, willing her to drop it. Of course, I’ve thought about picking up and starting over. I thought about it once right before college, four years ago, but it hurt so much that I pushed it away and never thought about it again.

“Why?”

“What do you mean why?” she asks.

I look at her with a straight face, daring her to say it.

“I don’t know,” she says instead. “There’s so much here. Don’t you ever get tired of seeing it – reliving it?”

I stuff a towel into my bag.

“I’m fine, Hannah.”

“Okay, okay. I was just asking.”

I roll my eyes and fling open the door.

Jorgen is at his door fiddling with his keys. He’s wearing his navy pants, white collared shirt and work boots. He stops for a second and looks up at me.

I smile because that’s what I do around him now.

“Work?” I ask.

He nods his head.

“Pool?” he asks.

I nod my head.

“Food Network tomorrow night?” he asks.

I nod my head again.

“Have fun at the pool,” he calls back at me as he makes his way down the stairs.

“Have fun at work,” I call down to him.

When he’s gone, I find Hannah lurking in my personal space behind me. Her eyes are big and staring straight through me.

I crinkle my eyebrows at her.

“You’re in my bubble,” I say, frowning and chalking off an imaginary circle around me.

“You like him, don’t you?” Hannah scolds, crossing her arms at her chest.

Despite her demeanor, I can tell she’s excited. I don’t say anything. I just walk out the door.

“Do you guys hang out?”

“We’re just friends, Hannah.”

“Mm hmm,” she says.

I know she doesn’t believe me.

We walk the rest of the way in silence. And when we get past the gates, we find two lounge chairs side by side. Hannah lays down her towel and takes a seat in one. I do the same and take a seat in the one next to it. She pulls a magazine out of her bag. I find a book in mine, pull it out and start reading. But no sooner do I get past the first page, Hannah fumbles her magazine and sighs.

“Lada, he’s gorgeous, you know. I mean his arm muscles are as big as my…”

She stops and looks at her bikini-clad body.

“As my thighs,” she finishes.

I look at her thighs.

Hannah was never really good with comparisons or proportions, for that matter.

“Gosh, now I can see why you don’t even want to think about moving,” she adds.

I glare at her again. She doesn’t seem to notice. She’s facing straight into the sun now – eyes closed, her big sunglasses threatening to swallow her face. I helped her pick them out. They didn’t look so big in the store.

Then, all of a sudden, she makes a rash movement in my direction, and just like that, she’s on her side and staring at me.

“Has he kissed you?”

She dramatically lifts her big shades from her eyes.

“What?” I ask, starting to laugh.

“Has he kissed you?” she asks again.

“No, Hannah.”

“Well, are you dating?”

“I don’t know…No,” I say.

“Has he come over?”

She continues her rapid-fire questioning.

“Yes,” I say.

Her eyes grow wide.

“Lada,” she squeals, shoving my arm.

She grabs my thick, dark hair next and gently runs it through her fingers.

“You guys would make the prettiest babies,” she says, before she sets her sunglasses back onto her nose and positions her back flat against the chair again.

“Hannah,” I scold.

It doesn’t faze her, so I give up and return my attention to my book. But I get exactly two lines read, and I hear her voice again.

“Then when it seems we will never smile again, life comes back.”

I close the book and face her.

“Did you just make that up?”

“No,” she says, laughing. “Mark M. Baldwin did.”

I set my face toward the sun again, and I think about my old life – the one I feel as though I’ve abandoned somehow. It hurts to think of it that way. And even though I know it wasn’t perfect, I look back now, and all I see is perfection. Every soft whisper, every spoken word, every gentle touch – it’s all perfect. Time won’t let me see it otherwise. They’re all just perfect memories – perfect, untouchable moments that came and went so softly that they almost feel as if they were always just a dream.

“Hannah.”

My voice is soft and thoughtful now as I wait for her attention to shift back to me.

“I’m scared it’ll never be the same with anyone else,” I confess.

She slowly shakes her head. “No,” she admits, “it won’t.”

A breath lifts my chest and then a sigh lowers it again, even though I expected her response. I expected it because I already know it won’t be. I already know that no matter what, it will never be the same.

“It’ll be different,” she goes on. “But different isn’t always bad.”

I meet her eyes behind her big shades. Then, I return to the sun and let its heated rays wash over me.

“Lada,” I hear her say a second later.

My face turns toward hers again.

“I’m happy for you.”

I smile at her because I know she means it.

“We’re just friends,” I say.

“I know. But I’m still happy.”

She says her last words and then goes back to getting her suntan. And suddenly, I feel my smile edging a little higher up my face and a soft tingle coming to life in my chest – and all I can think is that it’s because I’m starting to feel happy too.

Chapter Eighteen
Hope

“Lada, I had an extra coupon for that toothpaste you like, so I picked you up a tube,” Hannah says, charging into my apartment.

She stops when she sees Jorgen in the living room.

“Oh…hi,” she stutters apologetically. “I’m sorry; I didn’t know Lada had company.”

Jorgen laughs. “It’s fine. How are you, Hannah?”

Hannah looks as if she’s trying not to blush. She still turns into a thirteen-year-old, smitten school girl around guys that look like Jorgen. I’m not much better sometimes, but she’s definitely worse.

“Great,” she says and then absentmindedly sets the tube onto the counter.

I reach over the sink in the kitchen and pick up the toothpaste. “Thanks, Hannah.”

She looks as if she tries to respond to me, but instead uses all her efforts to fall gracefully into one of my barstools. I, meanwhile, catch Jorgen pointing to his eyebrow, eyeing Hannah and miming the word same. He has this goofy, surprised look on his face. I quickly lower my eyes and try to hold in a laugh, and I think Hannah notices.

“So, what are you two up to?” she asks.

I look up at Jorgen again. He’s still wearing that goofy grin.

“Nothing,” we both say, almost simultaneously.

Hannah sends me a suspicious look.

“No, seriously, we both just got off work,” I say.

She nods her head and pushes her lips together, seemingly satisfied.

“Oh!” she suddenly exclaims. “Lada, remember that book I said I wanted to borrow of yours – that one about the guy from Missouri. Can I borrow it?”

“Uh, sure, it’s on the shelf over there.” I gesture toward the living room. “Jorgen, can you grab it for her. It’s the one on the end with the tan-ish cover.”

Jorgen examines the shelf for a second and then slides a book toward him, sending something falling to the floor.

It catches Hannah’s attention, and I watch her face quickly turn curious as Jorgen reaches down to pick up the object.

“You still have that thing?” Hannah asks.

I look at what’s now in Jorgen’s hand.

“Hannah,” I whisper, trying to get her attention.

It doesn’t work, and she continues.

“We call that Lada’s hope,” Hannah says, gesturing with her eyes toward Jorgen’s hands.

Jorgen looks at the book.

“The pin,” Hannah clarifies. “Of Saint Michael.”

I watch as Jorgen’s eyes travel back to the pin in his hand, and I think that Hannah’s done.

“We have no idea where she got it from,” Hannah goes on. “It was just there that day.”

I freeze. I literally stop moving, breathing, all of it. In exactly five seconds flat, my mouth has gone completely dry, my mind has flashed to a blank canvas and I have lost every single one of my words – Every. Single. One. I wait for Jorgen’s eyes to find mine. They do only seconds later. He looks slightly confused.

Hannah doesn’t say anything else, and I’m more than thankful. At least she stopped at that. At least she spared him my whole life story. I’m still going to kill her, but at least she stopped before Jorgen had to witness it.

Silent moments pass, and I’m pretty sure just enough go by to make it awkward. I can feel Jorgen’s eyes still on me, while my own gaze has fallen to the pin in his hand.

“Well…I…just wanted to drop off the tooth…paste,” I hear a small voice utter.

For the first time in almost a minute, I notice that Hannah is still in the room.

“I…should get going. Lada, call me later.”

I stare straight through her then as she backs away from me and toward Jorgen. I know she realizes she has said too much.

“It was nice seeing you again, Jorgen,” Hannah says, sliding the book out of his hand.

Jorgen seems to snap out of a trance just in time to acknowledge Hannah, and then Hannah’s gone, and it’s only Jorgen and I left in the room.

I take a breath and let go of a sigh.

“Okay,” I say, “so Hannah didn’t give the pin to me. Someone else did, but I don’t know who it was. And it was a long time ago.”

He’s staring at me when I finish, and he seems pale and a little like he still doesn’t fully believe me.

I feel really stupid for lying to him in the first place. I feel even more stupid after having been caught in the stupid lie. But I feel bad too because I know I’ve skirted the truth yet again. There’s more to the story, even though I really don’t remember exactly how I got the pin. Like Hannah’s big mouth said, it was just there. But the thing is, I’ve only known Jorgen for a little more than a month now. I’m just not ready to tell him the whole story.

My stare catches on the empty counter before I meet his eyes again. They still look off somehow.

“Jorgen?”

“Yeah,” he says quietly, setting the pin back in its place on the shelf.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

He makes his way over to me without saying a word, then stops right in front of me.

“What?” I whisper.

He doesn’t seem mad or weirded out, but I feel as if he should – at least a little. I did lie to him.

In the next second, his arms are around me, and he’s squeezing me into his body. My mind races, and I try to figure out exactly what’s going on before I just give in and slowly wrap my arms around him too. I hold him tight, inhale the sweet smell of his cologne and press my hands flat against the muscles in his back. I feel as if I’m literally melting into his embrace when I hear him whisper into my hair.

“Will you come home with me?”

He pulls away from me and holds my shoulders in the palms of his hands.

“Across the hall?” I ask, timidly.

He laughs once and then slowly shakes his head.

“No, home,” he says. “The county fair’s next week. Will you come with me?”

I search his eyes until I feel genuine excitement coming to life on my face.

“Okay,” I agree.

He gives me this look then, as if he’s waiting for me to change my mind or something.

“Really?” he asks.

I nod my head and start to laugh. “Yeah,” I confirm.

A wide grin lights up his face, and then he pulls me into his arms again.

I’m not completely sure what I’ve just agreed to. It sounds awfully close to something you’d do if you were in a relationship. And though I’m not completely opposed to the idea, I’m pretty sure a real relationship with Jorgen Ryker or anyone new, for that matter, is next to impossible in my situation.

* * *

Jorgen leaves, and I find myself gravitating toward the pin on the shelf. I pick it up and caress its indented surface with my fingertips. I don’t keep anything from my old life where I can see it, but I do keep this out. Hannah was right. It was my hope; it is my hope. I didn’t think of it that way at all when I first had it in my hand. But now, looking back, it really was my hope – my tiny glimmer of hope – like something was telling me to keep going, to keep fighting, to fight back, to live. And now, I think, it’s kind of become like a testament to human survival for me – like it reminds me of just how strong we really can be when we have to be and that just when we think we can’t possibly go on, we do.

Chapter Nineteen
‘64 Ford

“Damn train,” I hear him mumble under his breath as he pulls to the side of the two-lane road.

I look up to see a train frozen and stretched across the part of the tracks where the truck is supposed to drive across.

“Okay, we’ll have to get out here.”

He smiles his crooked smile at me and then pushes open his door. I watch him climb out and shut the door behind him. And after a second, I follow his lead and do the same, even though I’m now one-part bewildered and one-part amused.

“I don’t know why the damn thing stops here like this all the time.”

He’s talking to me but not talking to me at the same time.

“I live on the other side of these tracks. Are you up for a little walk?”

I know my expression turns curious – fast. I’m not exactly sure what I’ve signed up for yet, but at least now I’m happy that I chose to wear my comfortable boat shoes earlier this morning instead of something less forgiving on my feet.

“When you say ‘walk,’ are we talking down the block or more like a day’s journey?”

I can see in between the railcars, and there’s a shed and a little, winding stretch of highway, but other than that, it’s all flat fields and nothing much else for miles.

“There’s an old truck in that shed over there,” he says, pointing at a spot behind the cars. “It’s there mostly for times like this.”

I watch lines form near the corners of his eyes as he holds out his hand. And I can’t help but smile too when I lay my fingers against his.

He swings his legs over the labyrinth of metal and chains that connects the two train cars next and then turns back toward me.

“I know this is pretty much after the fact, but this is safe, right?” I ask.

A playful expression dances to his face.

“It is until it starts movin’.”

I feel my eyes growing wide right before I scurry up onto the metal hitch, steady myself with the help of Jorgen’s hand and then quickly jump off. Immediately, I feel my feet hit the loose gravel on the other side of the tracks, and I let go of a thankful breath.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say, securing a strand of my hair behind my ear with my free hand. “There’s really no other way in?”

He slowly shakes his head back and forth. “Not from this side.”

“How often does it just stop here like this?”

“Oh, about once a month or so,” he says casually, as if it’s just another fact of life.

The way he says it makes me laugh.

“Come on,” he says, setting out down the black asphalt with my hand still in his.

The asphalt is the only thing, once we cross the tracks, that reminds me that I’m still in the twenty-first century. I mean, I’m not exactly from the most bustling of metropolises either, but we do have grocery stores and hospitals…and lines on our roads. My eyes fixate on the black highway that carves a winding path through corn fields for several miles. There’s not a single white or yellow mark on it.

“So, this is home?”

He angles his face my way. He’s wearing a happy, boyish grin, and I can’t help but notice there’s a new spark in his eyes all of a sudden.

“This is home,” he confirms.

It’s about a quarter of a mile to the shed. We reach it about five minutes later and make our way to one side where there’s a big door made of wooden slats. We stop at it, and Jorgen reaches up and lifts a latch, then pulls the door open.

“Watch your step,” he says, holding out his hand.

I lay my hand in his again before I look down and step over the raised, wooden ledge and onto the dirt floor.

It’s dark inside the shed. There are no windows, but the sun pouring in from the open door lends me just enough light to see that there’s a thick, gray tarp covering something big in front of us.

I watch as Jorgen bends down at one of the corners of the tarp and starts pulling it up. He pulls it up and then over and then gathers it into his arms.

“Ol’ Red,” he announces, once he’s got the tarp squished into a big ball.

He gestures toward an old truck painted a bright cherry red.

“What year is it?”

I can’t believe something that looks this old still runs.

“It’s a ‘64.”

I walk around the front of it. There’s a clear bug shield running the width of the hood. The words Ol’ Red are written on it in black, cursive stenciling.

“It really is Ol’ Red,” I say, pointing to the letters.

“Sure is,” he says, smiling back at me.

I take another good look at the old truck. “I love it,” I say and mean it.

I watch Jorgen walk to the back of the shed and swing open two big wooden doors. Dust goes flying every which way. I can see its particles hanging on the sun’s rays, though Jorgen doesn’t seem to notice it so much.

He walks over to the passenger’s door then and pulls on it. It comes open but not without a noisy squeak.

I peer into the cab. Inside, the seats are vinyl, and the same cherry red as what’s on the outside of the truck covers the inside too, including the dashboard. And there’s a big steering wheel on the driver’s side made wholly out of metal with what looks like a small doorknob fastened to it.

I climb onto the seat, and Jorgen gently closes the door but then gives it a good, forceful push until it latches. Inside the cab, I notice there’s a long shifter coming out of the floor and only two little metal knobs for the radio. Out of pure habit, I reach for my seatbelt, but I don’t feel anything. I look above my shoulder and notice the reason why I don’t feel one is because there isn’t one.

Jorgen hops in behind the wheel a minute later, and immediately, my eyes fall on him. I watch him reach up above his head and pull down the visor. A keychain with one key attached to it falls to his lap.

“Theft not so bad here, I guess?”

He looks at me with a wide grin.

“Not so bad,” he confirms.

He sticks the key into the ignition and purrs the engine to a start before backing out of the shed and onto the little dirt path that leads to the blacktop. From the big side mirror, I can see the dust trail that’s left in our wake.

So far, this trip has yielded a string of firsts for me – my first train hopping, my first ride in Ol’ Red, my first look into Jorgen Ryker’s life. It’s making me want to stop and stay awhile – even if it is just to see what this sexy creature beside me is all about.

I use the metal lever on the door to roll down my window. The glass seems to come down in two-inch increments and is all the way down in no time. I stare out the window then and let the warm wind pouring through it hit my skin and toss strands of my hair around my face. The dusty trail still hovers over the dirt path in the side mirror. And the train is still frozen on the tracks. We drive parallel to it for a little while longer, until we take a slight bend in the road and start heading away from it. The turn of the wheel makes an object dangling from the rearview mirror sway slightly to one side. It catches my eye and soon, curiosity claims me.

“What is that?”

Jorgen glances at me and then follows my stare to the mirror before he laughs gently and then sets his eyes back on the road again.

“It’s my dad’s tassel. This was his first car.”

The tassel is a faded red and yellowed white with the number 81 in tarnished silver at the top.

I watch the tassel sway back and forth for a moment before I return my attention to Jorgen. His eyes are still planted on the road. One arm is resting on the ledge of the open window; one hand is barely on the big steering wheel. He looks so comfortable – as if he fits perfectly inside a 1960-something truck with the words Ol’ Red painted across the bug shield. The thought makes me laugh inside, until I catch his finger lift up from the steering wheel, and I’m distracted again. There’s another much newer truck coming at us. I watch as the driver of the newer truck lifts a finger as he passes, and I can’t help but laugh out loud this time.

“Was that a wave?”

He sends a questioning look my way. “Yeah,” he says, before he plants his eyes back on the road.

“Who was it?”

He glances across the cab at me, still smiling, and then shrugs his shoulders.

“You don’t know him? But you just waved at him,” I say.

Suddenly, he beams. “It’s how you tell the insiders from the outsiders, baby. Welcome to the river bottoms.”

Baby? All of a sudden, he has this new air of confidence about him or maybe it’s more like comfort – the kind that makes baby sound so perfectly normal and also so perfectly sexy. There’s a happy, tingly feeling in my chest, but I also feel my eyebrows slightly furrowing.

“The insiders wave…,” I start.

“The outsiders don’t,” he finishes.

“Aah,” I say, allowing my head to fall gently against the back window. “I know all your secrets now, Jorgen Ryker.”

He just smiles. “Just about.”

It’s another mile on the blacktop before Ol’ Red climbs a levee and then wanders down a gravel road. It’s flat on the other side of the levee too, with more fields for miles and only a few houses in view. And one house, in the far-off distance, even looks as if it might be abandoned. Its outside is gray and through its windows, all I can see is a dark and sleepy inside.

We finally get to a long, white-graveled driveway, turn into it and eventually stop in front of a two-story farmhouse. It’s made of wood and painted white, and I think it still has a tin roof.

Jorgen gets out and then jerks open my door. It squeaks again but not nearly as bad as the first time.

“They’re all probably inside,” Jorgen says, helping me out of the truck.

“They?” I try to ask without sounding terrified.

“Oh, don’t worry, it’s just my mom and my grandma. I’ve just got to run in for a second. You wanna come?”

“Of…course,” I stutter. Of course home would mean meeting his family. I don’t know why that never crossed my mind. I silently put myself back together. I can do this. I meet new people every day in my job. I tell myself it’s just like that as I tug at the bottom of my tank top and try to brush out my wind-blown hair with my fingers.

I follow Jorgen up three concrete stairs to a little porch lined with hanging baskets full of bright red flowers.

“Mom, we’re here.” Jorgen pushes through a screen door.

There’s a room to the left; stairs in front of us; and a hallway to the right. We go right, and I follow Jorgen down the hallway, but an open door to a den-like room suddenly makes me stop. Hanging on the wall, there’s a framed newspaper clipping of the same photo I uncovered of him standing next to the cow. I stop and stare at it. Underneath the frame is another photo. It’s of his sister. She’s wearing a crown and a sash.

“What’d you find?”

Jorgen’s facing me again.

“I just…Is that you?” I feign ignorance, point to the frame and wait for him to walk back to me.

When he sees the photo, he lowers his head and chuckles, then walks into the room.

“That would be me.” He examines the photo more closely. “All one hundred pounds of me.”

I laugh and join him in the room.

“And that’s Lindsey?” I ask.

His eyes fall to the frame.

“Yeah. She was homecoming queen her senior year. You wouldn’t know it by this picture, but she hated every moment of it.”

I cock my head to the side.

“Lindsey’s not really the girly type,” he says. “And I think that’s why she won. Everyone knew that.”

I laugh again, but this time, my eyes catch another photo on the opposite wall.

“Wait, who is that?”

I walk closer to the other frame.

“Jorgen, is this you?”

There’s a little kid in the photo. He’s maybe four, and he’s holding a fish that’s almost his size.

“Yeah, my first catfish.”

“Is that your dad?” I point to a man in waders helping to hold up the fish.

“Yeah, I think he was more excited than I was. Don’t let him fool ya; he’s a sentimental old fart.”

I stare at the photo some more and then glance back at Jorgen. “You were cute.”

“Were?” he asks. He’s wearing a sideways smirk, and it’s as sexy as hell.

I playfully roll my eyes. If he only knew.

He walks closer to me and takes my hand.

“Jorgen, was that you?” A woman’s voice echoes through the hallway, but for a moment, it does little to faze Jorgen.

His stare lingers in mine, and all I can think about is kissing him. When I’m not lost in his eyes, I can make up all the excuses in the world for why I shouldn’t just devour those prefect lips of his. But in those eyes…it’s a whole different ball game.

“We should probably go say ‘hi’ before she convinces herself she’s hearin’ things and checks herself into the loony bin too soon.”

“Yeah,” I agree, slowly nodding my head. “We should.”

I don’t really agree, simply because I want to stay in his eyes, but I follow him out of the room and down the narrow hall anyway. The floors are wooden, and they creak with each step. But with each step, I’m also a little more excited. I know I’m still nervous for some reason because I still keep trying to brush out my hair, but at the same time, I also can’t wait to find out more about this man, whose stare and lips have taken over my mind.

We get to the end of the hallway, and suddenly, there’s an overwhelming smell of apples and cinnamon.

“Jorgen!” I hear a woman exclaim.

Jorgen hugs the woman and then goes to hug a shorter, older woman with gray hair.

“And you must be Ada.”

The younger of the two women closes in on me and instantly throws her arms around my shoulders.

“Hi,” I say, as she squeezes me tight.

The woman pulls away and then goes to brushing off one of my shoulders.

“Oh, I’m sorry, dear. I’m covered in flour. We’re baking for the church picnic tomorrow. That’s why I don’t have a sit-down dinner. But I did whip up a salad, and there’s some pasta that Grandma made in the Crock-Pot.”

She points to a table in the center of the room.

“Mom,” Jorgen says, “it’s fine. We’re just stopping by. We’re headed to the fair.”

“Hogwash,” the older woman chimes in. “You can’t feed this beautiful girl candy apples and popcorn for dinner.”

The old woman ambles over to me and takes my hand with both of hers.

“Hi, dear, you’ll stay and eat something before you go, won’t you?”

I look up at Jorgen. His eyes are already on mine as if he’s waiting for my response. I send him a smile to let him know it’s okay with me.

“All right,” he says. “But she’s got to save room for dessert. So, no tempting us with any of whatever you got back there.” Jorgen gestures toward a counter lined with baked goods.

“Oh, we won’t,” the older woman says, squeezing my hand, and at the same time, giving me a sly wink.

I try to hold in a laugh. Something tells me this woman was a force to be reckoned with before her first gray hair.

Jorgen and I sit down at the little table, and Jorgen fills my plate, and we eat and listen to the older woman talk about the key to a perfect pie crust, which somehow involves keeping the men out of the kitchen. And every once in a while, Jorgen’s mom finds an open space in the conversation to ask about me and what I do and where I’m from, but I get the hint that she already knows all the answers. She reminds me a lot of my mom. She seems gentle on the outside but also like one of those people, who, if you pulled back a layer, all you’d find was pure strength and determination.

“Oh, and Jorgen, your dad and grandpa finally found your old toy riding tractor. How on earth did it get to that old house on the Steelman’s place?”

Jorgen almost chokes on his salad. “I completely forgot about that.”

His mom is staring at him now, presumably waiting for his answer.

Jorgen swallows and then moves his head back and forth a little, as if he’s trying to play it off. “Lindsey and I threw it on the back of the five-wheeler one day and took it over there.”

His mom doesn’t look satisfied, and Jorgen seems to notice that.

“Okay,” he huffs. “We put a piece of plywood on the steps and took turns ridin’ down it.”

I force myself not to laugh as the woman instantly tosses her hand to her heart and shakes her head.

“I swear, I’m not asking any more questions. I don’t even want to know how many times you kids could have killed yourselves growing up.”

“They were kids, Diane,” the older woman chimes in. “They survived. You don’t want me to get started on half the shenanigans you and your sister put me and your father through when you were little.”

Jorgen’s mom hardly bats an eye at the older woman, but she does smile at me before she goes back to kneading her dough. I can only guess that smile confirms the truth in the old woman’s words.

“Why were they lookin’ for that old thing anyway?” Jorgen asks.

His mom pats the dough and then lets out a breath. “Oh, they want to ‘restore’ it.” She uses her fingers to make quotation marks. “You know, paint it, oil it, whatever they do.”

“A toy tractor?” Jorgen asks.

“Well, it was yours when you were little,” she says, bringing a plate of brownies to the table and setting them down in front of us. Jorgen takes the plate and pushes it aside.

“We’re getting dessert at the fair,” he whispers to me.

He winks then, and I just smile to myself.

“So, why are they fixin’ it up again?” Jorgen asks.

His mom stops and touches his shoulder. “They’ll never admit it, but they miss it sometimes.”

“It?” he questions.

“You’ll understand when your kids are grown someday, dear.” She walks back to her station behind the counter. “God knows your father and grandfather didn’t worry half as much as I did about just getting you and your sister to adulthood in one piece.”

Jorgen narrows one eye at me, and I just snicker. I’m beginning to see that our childhoods really weren’t that much different.

We finish our meals a few minutes later, and Jorgen takes my plate.

“Mom, where’s Dad?”

“We sent him outside,” the older woman puffs.

Jorgen looks at me and then at his mom. “Okay, well, we’re going to take off so we can get there before they shut the fair down.”

We say our goodbyes and then head out a back door off a little room attached to the kitchen.

“Dad.” I hear Jorgen say before we’re even out the door. “Truck’s in town. Can I borrow yours?”

“Sure, Son.” The man squeezes Jorgen’s arm but continues toward me.