Page 54 of Roads Behind Us
“What is it with you and TV shows?” I asked her in a sleepy voice, batting at the bubbles with a lazy swipe of my hand. “I can’t figure out why you’d go to all the trouble to visit my dreams and then talk about television.”
“A pretty show,” she said. “I like it. It’s strong. It’s got good bones.”
Pretty? A show was pretty? Were we still talking about Sons of Anarchy, because it sounded now like she was talking about a house.
Wait. Pretty? Was she talking about Bea?
My face heated with shame and embarrassment.
“No,” Candy said. She reached out and let her fingers hover over my forearm. She didn’t make contact, but I felt her touch anyway, like she’d dragged a feather across my skin. “It’s a good show. Don’t change the channel this time.”
“Are you talkin’ about… Bea? The woman I”—my head rolled to the side, my eyes focused on the spot next to me on my bed where Bea had slept, cuddled up next to me all night—“You know?”
Of course Candy didn’t answer. Instead, as she began to fade away, she said, “He’s comin’. Say hi for me?”
And she was gone.
Another bubble burst next to my cheek, and then it dripped up my face, which was physically impossible, but it was also itchy, and it whined.
When I opened my eyes, my hand still searching Bea’s empty spot, two big, brown, glassy orbs stared at me with happy expectation. Figaro’s tongue lapped at thin air, trying to reach my face again, and I heard Athena’s voice in my bedroom doorway.
“Mornin’, sleepy head. Fig needs to go out, but I’m late for cross country. Aunt Abey’s waitin’ for me.”
Fig barked in my face to confirm that he indeed did need to pee. So did I, come to think of it.
“Mornin’. On it. Have a good day. Sorry I overslept.”
“It’s okay, Daddy. You must’ve needed the sleep. See you later.”
She whirled around, my Road Trip off on yet another adventure. Fig lunged after her and followed, and I dragged my ass out of bed. My daughter didn’t need to know the reason I’d slept through two alarms was that I was up all night fucking Bea, and then I dreamt of Athena’s dead mama again.
But I felt like a shit dad for both reasons.
If I really had moved on, why was I still seeing Candy in my dreams? And what had she meant, “He’s comin’”?
Was this, like, some Jesus thing? Candy had barely tolerated church the whole twenty years we were together. Her parents weren’t religious at all. She only went to keep the peace between her and Merv. But as the thought left my head, all I could remember from the dream were the bubbles popping and she kept talking about TV.
And where the hell was Bea? I looked at my phone. Oh, duh. She’s already at work. But why hadn’t she woken me?
Before the conversation about Candy, Bea had been so cute as she scrambled around my room, trying to find her leggings tangled up in my bed sheets. I told her she didn’t have to sleep in her clothes; I’d wanted to fall asleep with the feel of her soft skin against mine, but the anxiety she’d felt about Athena finding us naked pinched up her face, and it was so contradictory to the confident hard-ass I’d come to know.
I tugged on a T-shirt, found my slippers and stuffed my foot into one, and then hobbled down the stairs, listening to the kitchen door slam shut behind Athena when she left and to the sound of Fig yipping and running in circles by the same door while he waited for my geriatric ass. When Rye had first brought him to the ranch, Fig hadn’t left Rye’s side, but since I’d broken my leg, he seemed to want to stay closer to the house, unless Rye had him working the cows.
“I’m comin’, I’m comin’. Jeez. Hold on, would ya?” It occurred to me then that Athena could’ve let him out when she left, but she’d probably used Fig as an excuse to wake my butt up. She’d gotten creative over the last few years with ways to force me to face the days when I’d had a hard time seeing the point.
Fig zipped out the door when I opened it, and I shivered. Dang. Fall would give way to winter soon, if this morning’s temperature was any indication, but the westbound sunrise brought a warm, blanketing glow to my family’s land, and I watched as it traveled right to my porch.
The dog ran to the barn to see what Rye had gotten up to. I could hear horses and cows causing trouble out there, so I slathered peanut butter on two pieces of toast and poured myself a cup of coffee. I burned my tongue when I chugged it, but thankfully Bea or Rye had brewed it, ’cause I needed the caffeine today.
After the seriously frustrating effort of trying to get the only clean pair of pants I had left in my laundry basket over my cast, I pulled on a sweater I hadn’t worn in probably ten years and muck boots, which were the only shoes I could fit over the bottom of the cast, and I grabbed my warmer felt hat from a hook by the kitchen door. I fixed it on my head, gripped my crutches tight, and followed slowly after Fig.
“Why didn’t you call?” Rye asked when he saw me sweating and breathing hard after my dangerous hobble to the barn. He’d cleared the path like he’d promised, but I still found two rocks to trip over and almost pitched myself forward both times and fell on my face. “I would’ve come to get you.”
“Sounded like you had your hands full.”
He nodded. “Yeah. Blue decided he wanted to dip his wick when he saw Tulsa this mornin’, even though he hasn’t been the proud owner of balls for a long time. And then this damn bull decided to kick off again. He’s got the rest of the herd in a tizzy.”
When Red Pepper and I made eye contact through the fencing around the solitary pen Rye had him in, I shot daggers at the animal, but if a bull could smirk, he was, and he tossed his head, like he was saying, “Oh yeah, I remember you. And I know that you know that I’ll kick your sorry ass to Hell and back if I want to.”
