Page 83 of The Deadbeat Next Door

“You know them folks?” Bart asked.

“That’s my family.”

Bart actually got to his feet and smiled at my mother and brother and sister, shaking their hands and being some close approximation to charming.

“Where do you want us to start?” Noah asked.

“Back yard,” I said.

May, who’d moved in with me two days earlier, burst out the front door and wrapped her arms around my mother. “I’m so glad you’re here,” May said, a little screech in her voice. “I’ve been going crazy out here in the boonies.”

“You’ve been here for two days,” I reminded her. “And this was your idea.”

She ignored me. My mother fussed over her like she’d been lost at sea and stranded on a desert island with only a coconut for company. May claimed she was here to get better at nature photography and to prove to my mother, and herself, that she had what it took to be a photojournalist, but I had a feeling this whole thing was just some way to make my mother feel sorry enough for her that she gave in and paid for her to go back to college.

“How are you doing?” Mom asked. She wrapped an arm around my waist and gave me a squeeze.

“I don’t have any clue what I’m doing,” I said. “Except trying to create money from grapes I haven’t grown, yet.” I hated to admit vulnerability to anyone, but she was my mother and had an excellent head for business. She could also tell if I was lying and would harass me until she got to the truth anyway.

“I can create money for you,” she said.

“What?”

“Let’s talk inside.” We made our excuses to Bart and I led her into the make-shift sitting room we’d put together.

“Your father’s life insurance was for you kids,” she said. “So that you wouldn’t be stuck cleaning up any messes in his businesses, so you’d be able to walk away from the family business if you wanted. I’ve already given your brothers and sisters their shares. There’d be plenty of money there for you to get this winery up and running.”

“I told you before, Mom. I don’t want his money. I know he wouldn’t want me to have that money for a winery he never believed in.”

She placed a hand over mine. “You’re trying to live to your father’s standard, Cody, when maybe that’s not who you are.”

“You’re saying I don’t have what it takes to make this business work?” It hurt to hear, but I wasn’t surprised. I knew what my family thought of me, even my mother.

“Not at all,” she said. “I’m saying you have an enormous heart. Noah and Jill were grown when our circumstances changed, and Jared and May were just kids. I’ve always felt the change hurt you and Jenna the most.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Because you knew your father before, when you kids were his whole world and he made time for you every single day. And you knew him after when the drive for success and more money became his central focus and he spent less and less time with you kids. I felt you were always trying to prove something to him, to make him proud, to make him see you again the way he once had. We had some knock-down drag out fights about the way he stopped making time for you kids, but your father was a determined man. You have to know, Cody, you must know that he was proud of the man you are. He’d be proud of the choice you’re making today. He’d want you to have that money.”

I wasn’t going to listen to her lie to try to make me feel better. “Mom, he died because of me. He died because I screwed up and ruined his chance at peace, at retirement.”

Mom paled and her gentle smile vanished. “Is that what you’ve believed all this time?”

“How could I not? He was furious at me. I ruined everything.”

She sighed. “I wish you’d have talked to me, Cody. Your father didn’t really want that property, I was the one pushing for us to buy it, for him to retire.”

“Why?”

“Because his doctor told him he needed to slow down, Cody. The stress of his lifestyle and his poor eating habits were taking a toll on his health. I begged him to listen to the doctor, but to him a life of rest was no life at all.”

“And then I threw even more stress on the pyre for him,” I said. “I pushed him over the edge.”

My mother groaned, a smile tickling her lips. “You are so hardheaded. Why are all my children so hardheaded?”

I just gave her a look, eyebrows high. My mother was the most stubborn person I knew. She was a sort of inversion of my father. When he wanted something, he went after it with everything he had and didn’t stop until he got it. My mother loved fiercely and, when she got what she wanted, she never, ever let go.

“I have no idea what you are trying to say with your eyebrows,” she said with a sniff. “What I’m saying is that your father was only angry at you for about twenty-four hours and then he was relieved. He had an excuse not to slow down, not to take it easy, to keep running at full steam. It was his own pig-headedness that caused his death.” She pursed her lips. “I think he was probably past the point of no return long before I started wearing him down. I don’t blame anyone for his death, not even him.”

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