LITMIR.BIZ

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to hear about that,” she said.

      “Well, I think it’s boring to everyone but me. I’ll tell you one or two things if you’ll eat a sticky bun.”

      “Deal,” she said, smiling.

      “Let me fetch one and put it in the microwave,” he said. “It’s better warm.”

      He took a moment to do that. Then he took her cup away and refilled it anyway, bringing the coffee and pastry to her.

      “My grandpa built this place. He left it to my dad. My dad planned to leave it to me. I didn’t have much interest in it, to be honest. I had bigger plans. But my dad needed me home, I could see that. My mother died while I was in Vietnam and the Red Cross got me home for that but it wasn’t till I was in my thirties that I found a wife and brought her back here. But she was a terrible wife and I was an even worse husband. In spite of that, we had Maggie. It took six years before my wife got fed up and left me.” He raised a thick, graying eyebrow. “Bored yet?”

      She licked icing off her fingers and shook her head.

      “She took Maggie. I’m the first to admit I was crap for a father. I sulked, yelled, wandered off without a word sometimes, argued over anything, didn’t know beans about school lessons or homework, had no patience, drank too much whenever I got irritated and I got irritated pretty often. I had a tone of voice, I’m told, that would scare bears off. I treated my dogs better than my family and it made no sense because I loved my family. Well...well, the truth is, I didn’t love Phoebe all that much after the first few months. But then, she didn’t love me much, either. We were wrong for each other from the start. I brood while she fusses. She needles and I yell. Then I sat out here in the store and drank until she was asleep.

      “But I loved Maggie and I wanted to do right by her. So I had to start my life over. I reckon you have some experience with that, eh?”

      Sierra nodded and licked the sweet icing off her lips. “How’d you do it?”

      “The hard way. I fished a lot, worked till I dropped, suffered in silence, forced myself to do things I had no use for like making a bed and washing clothes. It was one thing to keep up the grounds for the customers—even I wasn’t too stupid to know I needed money to eat. But taking care of myself? Cleaning my own surroundings? That took willpower. It was a pretty horrible process. But there were some things I had to do if I’d ever have my family back.” He rubbed a hand along the back of his neck. “I wasn’t too keen on having Phoebe back. Jesus, that woman’s the biggest pain in the ass. But I thought maybe if there was a God she’d get hit by a bus or something and Maggie would come back. I was bound to be ready if that happened. I tried to read.” He laughed at himself. “I was never gonna be as smart as Maggie or even that damn Phoebe but I was determined not to be a complete dunce.” He took a drink of his coffee. “I hung up the beer mug. No fanfare, no meetings, no bugles or drumroll. Just retired the mug.”

      She swallowed. “Are you a friend of Bill W.’s?”

      “How’s that?” Sully asked.

      “Are you an alcoholic?”

      “Hell if I know,” he said. “It probably depends on who you ask. I didn’t have a thing to drink for years, then I had a beer on a hot day and old Frank, he said I was a damn fool to even think about it. When I was a younger man I drank too much now and then...more than now and then. I was certainly headed for trouble. It was only a matter of time and I knew it. Nowadays I have limits. What I learned—what I wanted to tell you about—I learned I didn’t have to go through all the agony I went through, and I’m not talking about liquor.”

      “What are you talking about?” she asked. What she wanted to ask was, “What does this have to do with me?”

      “I didn’t have to do it all alone,” he said. “No matter who reached out to me, offered a hand, pulled up a chair to talk a spell, I froze ’em out and went my own way. It was every bit as terrible as I hoped it would be. I wanted to suffer, I guess.”

      “But you and Maggie are together now...”

      “It took a few years before I was in good enough shape to see her, to take care of her. She’s still pissed about that, by the way.” Then he laughed. “She’s a pistol. I guess she comes by it naturally. According to Maggie I didn’t fight for her. What she’d want with a father like me, I have no idea. But by the time Phoebe let her come to visit I’d laid most of my ghosts to rest.”

      “How?” she wanted to know. “If you didn’t go to rehab or meetings or counseling or—”

      “Did I say I never went to meetings or counseling?” Sully asked. “Maybe not the same ones you go to. There’s a group of Vietnam vets that look out for each other. That’s where I first met Frank and I ain’t got shed of him since! We try to do some nice things for the community, keep an eye out for our brothers. When I found out I was part of a group, things got better. Easier. Just so you know, little girl, you’re part of a group. You got people here.”

      Sierra felt that raw scrape in her throat again and took another drink of her coffee to soothe it.

      “And another thing—you got the land,” Sully said. “Now I’ll be the first to admit, I tend to take it for granted, but you get out there on the trail a little bit and you pray to whatever entity you want, whatever great being made these mountains and forests and I’m not kidding, answers come. I didn’t just make it up. All these lunatics that march through here all summer while they’re taking on as much of the CDT as they can manage will tell you the same. Your brother did that, didn’t he.” It wasn’t a question. “He got out on the trail and had a little nature, then he was square. His head wasn’t a corkscrew anymore.”

      “Sully,” she said, laughing, maybe inappropriately. “He was looking for a beautiful place to let his wife’s ashes go.”

      “He musta found it because he snatched up my daughter the minute he got back.”

      “You’re not unhappy about that, are you?” she asked.

      “Hell no. Those two are giving me a grandchild! If you want the truth, the last man Maggie got herself involved with, I actually feared what it might be if they had a child together!”

      “I can’t wait to hear that story,” she said.

      “That one ain’t mine to tell,” he said.

      “Something tells me you’d take pleasure in it,” she said, finishing the last of her sticky pastry and licking her fingers.

      “The thing that irritated me the most about Maggie’s last fella, he didn’t seem to take any notice of how lucky he was that Maggie gave him the time of day. Arrogant fool. I bet he’s suffering now.”

      Sierra grinned. “Despite what you say, I bet you were a wonderful father.”

      “I’d like to meet your parents,” Sully said.

      “My parents?” she asked. “Oh, Sully. Hasn’t Cal told you about Jed and Marissa? They raised us mostly in a converted school bus! On the road. Sometimes we picked vegetables to make ends meet. We hardly went to school. Jed has a serious screw loose. Last time I saw him he was wearing an aluminum foil beanie on his head. He was the first person to give me a joint!”

      “Yet the lot of you came up good. I met your other brother and your sister at the wedding. How do you suppose the lot of you managed to be so normal? And smart?”

      She shrugged. “Aside from Cal, maybe we’re not. Sedona is so controlling we can’t visit longer than two days and Dakota—no one knows Dakota. He’s been to war so many times, he’s gotta have some serious issues. Then there’s me...” She decided to take another drink of her coffee rather than expound.

      “You’re a little hard on yourself,” he said. “That’s okay, I understand that. But put that on your list of things to work out—what you got in your childhood to prepare you for this life. And, what you might do to give yourself a break.”

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