Page 99 of Make it Real
“I think I confused you, asking you to take over the farm and then not letting you. Maybe you thought you’d done something wrong, or I didn’t want you to have it.”
“Something like that.” Didn’t need to go into details, especially not here and now.
“I was afraid I’d pushed it on you too fast. For years, I thought I might wind up having to sell when I retired, and then you came home from the Army, and we were back in business. But I never really asked you if you wanted it. I just took it for granted that you would.”
“I do want it.” No doubt in my mind. I wanted the farm he and Mom had loved into existence, built from the ground up. Fears still lingered, but I couldn’t see myself doing anything else. “I don’t know how to do it all, but I want to carry on the farm, Pop.”
He clasped my hand tighter. “The closer I got to stepping away, the more afraid I became of being useless. I was afraid of losing what I’ve been doing for forty years. I clung to it tighter, and in turn, I pushed you out a little bit.”
“I never wanted you to leave.” It didn’t line up with the way I’d been hounding him to get out of the orchards and into his comfy house. Exactly where he hadn’t wanted to wind up. “I thought you wanted to retire.”
“I know. I’ve been of two minds about it. Maybe this is God’s way of telling me to step back a bit.”
He laughed, but his smile strained. It hurt just to see all the things taped to his chest—it couldn’t feel good to move around with them on.
“What do you think? Can we find a way to keep me busy and still let you take the reins?”
I nodded, and for a minute couldn’t speak for fear the crush of emotions of the last twenty-four hours would come tumbling out if I did. “I’d like that.”
“Good. Now get on out there and give Callie a hug for me.”
The happy moment fizzled. “Pop, Callie and I…we aren’t…”
I couldn’t even say the words. Didn’t want to agitate him by confessing the whole thing had been fake. Although, looking at it now, I couldn’t say for sure just what between us hadn’t been real. But his eyes sharpened like my hesitation gave him all the information he needed.
“I know you’ve got fears there, too. Maybe losing your mom was part of it, maybe something you experienced in the Army. But I see you living your life like it’s all going to be stolen from you. Like you’re living on borrowed time, so you don’t look very far into the future in case it gets taken away.”
My heart spasmed so hard in my chest, I probably should have hooked myself up to one of Pop’s machines. I’d never been very good at planning ahead, but since Zach and Mom’s deaths, it’d felt wrong to try. They’d died and I’d lived, and expecting more would just make me presumptuous and greedy.
“I don’t know if I deserve a future.” Couldn’t even be sure he’d heard me over the beeps, my voice came out so tiny and afraid. Hard to admit the thing that’d been dogging me for years.
He ran a hand over my head the way Wade sometimes did with his kids. That sweet gesture finally brought my tears out. They made Pop blur out of focus, but they felt cleansing, too, like I’d held onto them far too long.
“Jed, you deserve a whole lifetime of happiness. Full stop. You know better than most that we don’t get guarantees in this life, but that doesn’t mean we can’t love the life we have for as many days as we get. You’ve been my fearless boy for so long, I hate to see you afraid to act.”
I hadn’t thought I had been…but looking at my life now, I could see the fear written across it in bold indecision. My empty apartment, the land I wouldn’t build on, the company I hesitated to step up and run. I’d been afraid to settle in too deep, thinking someone would realize I wasn’t worthy and snatch it all away.
“Now, there are some things in this life that you won’t want, and that’s fine. But if there are things youdowant…” Pop’s razor-sharp eyes hit mine. “Then go after them. The only guarantee you’ll lose them is if you don’t try.”
Could I try to go after what I wanted? I’d been so afraid of looking to the future in case I lost it…but if I tried to imagine it? If I looked ten or twenty years down the road, what did I want to see? A vision of the orchards…a wife…babies. A lifetime of happiness with Callie sounded exactly right to me. I might not know how to get there, but I wouldn’t deny anymore what I wanted.
“I’m proud of the man you are, and your mom was, too. You are a joy to me, son.”
The wordjoycame out reverent and significant, keeping me choked up.
“I’m kind of a pain in the ass sometimes.” I needed to lighten this up a touch before I fell sobbing into his arms.
“That you are, but you’re our pain, and we wouldn’t trade you for the world.” He smiled wide, eyes shining. “You know, your mom would have loved Callie.”
He knew how to hit me where it hurt. In the best way, but it still hurt. “That is the going opinion, yeah.”
He flashed a sly look. “And you?”
Didn’t require much soul searching. I nodded, the words seeming to fill up my chest cavity, pressing against my ribcage as they fought to work their way out. “I love her, too.”
I loved every part of her, from her tender heart to her surprisingly sturdy backbone. And I wanted every part of her, too, the good days and the bad, the joy and the sorrow. I wasn’t sure yet if Callie was mine, but without a doubt, I was hers. Totally and completely.
Pop’s grin came with the soundtrack of fasterbeep-beep-beeps on the machine, driving home his happiness.
