Page 266 of Love in Riverbend
“Not willingly,” he says with a scoff. “As a teenager, my dad made me help at the Gordons’ farm. I think everyone in town did their time there.”
“Mrs. Gordon is still keeping it going,” Jill says. “She has to be a hundred if she’s fifty.”
I laugh. “Jack is over fifty, and I’ve heard him talk about working that farm as a kid.”
“Yep. She’s a hundred,” Jill says. “Why are you asking?”
“Ricky was talking about Justin’s recovery and how he’ll need help.”
“He won’t ask for it,” Todd volunteers. “Justin Sheers has always been stubborn.”
I laugh. “That seems to be the general accepted description. But he will need help. Do you think he could hire someone?”
“Randy will do what he can,” Todd says. “And Dax will help when he can.”
“Will that be enough?”
“Probably not,” Todd says, telling me what I already know. “It sucks. Justin took on a lot of work, combining the two farms. If he only had half the acres, but damn, I think there’s about a thousand.”
That was what Ricky said.
I lay my head back on the seat and watch the world pass by the SUV windows, feeling like every mile that I go is a mile away from Ricky that I’ll never get back. Closing my eyes, I send good thoughts to Devan, hoping the surgeon comes out with favorable news.
“Marilyn.”
Jill’s voice comes to me in my dream seconds before I realize she’s waking me. I startle awake, seeing that we’re parked in front of my apartment building.
“Sorry,” I say. “I fell asleep.”
“You were both sleeping,” Todd says. “And I’m not going to say which one of you was snoring.”
“I don’t snore,” Jill and I say in unison.
She gets out of the car and gives me a hug. “If you hear anything…”
I nod. “If you do.”
Climbing the steps to my second-floor apartment, I wish above anything that I had a way to communicate with Ricky. For the first time in years, I yearn for a house phone. If I knew which house he was staying at. Inside my apartment, I see that it’s after midnight.
Is Justin out of surgery?
By the time I’m ready for bed, I still don’t have any new messages on my phone. I send Devan a heart emoji and turn in for the night. In the morning, I wake to multiple text messages from Devan.
The first one is time stamped after 1:00 a.m.
* * *
Justin is out of surgery.
* * *
The next one is time stamped just before 3:00 a.m.
* * *
They finally have him in a room.
* * *
