Page 62 of A Love So Sweet
Savannah’s arms were around his neck seconds later. “Treat, you have never let me down. You’re everything to me, and you’re every bit the man Dad is.”
“Dude, you let me sleep in your bed after Mom died. Don’t you remember? Dad would never have done that,” Hugh said with a shake of his head. “You’re anything but a failure. You saved me.”
“And me,” Josh admitted. “You were there every time I needed anything. You waited up for me at night and never let anyone bother me. You let me climb into your bed when I was scared, too, and you listened to me cry for weeks on end. You even gave me money for field trips.”
“I had forgotten about that,” Treat said with a smile. He realized that Dane wasn’t there. It would have been easier to talk to them all at once, but since he’d already opened the floodgates, he might as well let the rest pour out. He’d have to talk with Dane alone after he arrived.
Treat waited to see if Rex would say anything at all, but Rex just cracked his knuckles, leaned his elbows on his knees, and looked at Treat with a stoic expression. The familiar Braden biceps dance was in full speed.
“I’m not telling you this to fish for compliments. I’m telling you because it’s haunted me forever, and I don’t want it to anymore. I’m ready to put down roots, and before I do that, I need to know that I’ve been honest with each of you. Rex, I’m sorry. You were right all along. I bailed on the ranch.”
Rex got up and walked out the back door.
Treat clenched his jaw as he rose to follow him out. At some point, with Treat around more often than not, that chip on Rex’s shoulder was going to come crashing down. Treat hoped it wouldn’t cause an even bigger issue between them.
“Let him go,” their father said.
Treat spun around and found his father leaning against the stairs. “Dad, you should be in bed.”
“I’ll go back to bed when I’m good and ready,” Hal said.
“How much of that did you hear?” Treat asked.
“Oh, I reckon I heard all of it. All of it that mattered, anyway.”
Savannah and Treat went to his side as he moved toward the living room, and he shrugged them off. He settled into his recliner, looking long and hard at his eldest son.
It was one thing to come clean to his siblings, but a whole other thing to face the man who had poured his heart and soul into raising him. He deserved everything his father was about to unload on him. He lowered himself into the chair beside his father’s recliner, never breaking eye contact, and said, “I’m sorry, Dad. You tried so hard to raise me right, and I wanted to make you proud, but…”
His father’s mannerisms reflected Rex’s, and for a minute Treat feared he might walk out just like his brother had. Instead his father reached for his hand and squeezed it. His father’s face morphed to that of strength and conviction.
“Son, you are, and have always been, everything I ever hoped you’d be. You were barely eleven when your mama died, and barely nine when she first became ill.”
The pressure in Treat’s chest nearly knocked the wind out of him. “Dad…”
“No, son. You were everything this family needed, and there has never been a time that you haven’t been. You see the faces of your sister and brothers? Do you see the love in their eyes? They are who they are in large part because of you. You taught them about strength and family. You taught them about love, and even when you let your little scraggly brothers in bed with you—and don’t think I didn’t know about that.” He looked at Josh and Hugh. “You, Treat, and you alone, were giving them what I could not. The truth is, when your mama passed, she took part of me with her. I did what I could. I stepped up in every way I was able, but I’m just a man, like you and Rex, Dane, Hugh, and Josh. We’re all just who we are, and who we are is Bradens. Bradens always do their best. Sometimes our best feels like not enough, but that doesn’t mean it truly isn’t. Not one of my children has ever let me down.” He looked at Hugh. “Not Hugh when he didn’t show up for the ranch’s first auction.” His gaze shifted to Savannah. “Not our beautiful girl, Savannah, when she snuck out of the house when she was fifteen, or you, Treat, when you had to haul her back home. And you never said a word to me about it.”
Savannah’s eyes widened. “You knew about that?”
Their father nodded with a smile, then looked at Josh, who was listening intently. “And not your brother Josh, when he decided to design dresses for a living.”
Treat watched his brother soak in their father’s pride, and he knew that Josh had been waiting to hear that for a long time.
“The point is, Treat, you might have needed to cleanse your soul so that you could go on without that gorilla on your back, but you’ve got to know that it wasyourgorilla. It was a monkey devised by a little boy’s frightened mind that grew to a full-size gorilla and tried to weigh you down. It has weighed you down for a long while, but you didn’t let it take over completely because it wasn’t real. I’m proud of you, son. That gorilla was just a figment of that little boy’s imagination, and you finally saw your way clear to climb out from under it.”
Treat went to his father and held him longer and tighter than he ever had. He didn’t know if his father was right or not, but he appreciated every word he’d said, and he knew that he would never let him down.
“Are you really thinking of putting down roots?” his father asked when they separated.
“Not thinking about it. I’m acting on it,” Treat said, and glanced at the back door.
“Now, that boy out there? He’s got an even bigger burden on his back than you did. Give him some time,” his father suggested.
“I’m not sure what I did to him, specifically,” Treat said.
“He’ll let you know when he’s good and ready. Just like you did.” Hal pushed to his feet and said, “Walk me back to my room, Treat.”
When they reached his father’s bedroom, his father sat on the edge of the bed and patted the space beside him. Hal Braden wasn’t a man who talked just to hear his own voice. He chose his words carefully and rarely doled out unsolicited advice to his children. So when he asked Treat to listen carefully, Treat did just that.
