Page 4 of Ocotillo Kisses
Con didn’t want to tell her their refrigerator and freezer were stuffed with the goodwill of the town, that they wouldn’t have to cook for months, that his mother was eating nonstop to fill the void of Claudia’s loss. So he simply waited for Mrs. Fraser to return with a giant tote bag that she had to carry with both hands, and that he couldn’t bear the weight of in his broken right hand.
She realized that, and offered to carry it to the truck for him, but he couldn’t allow that, seeing how she was struggling.
“I’ll just give the tote back to Britt next time I see her,” he said as he climbed into his truck.
“You do that, honey.”
But he never did.
Chapter One
THIRTEENYEARS LATER
Con hadn’t expected the casket to be so heavy. How could it be? His dad had weighed next to nothing these last weeks when Con got him out of the bed so his mother could change the sheets. His dad had been so frail that Con had been afraid he’d hurt him by moving him.
Growing up, he’d never thought his dad could be fragile. Even after Claudia died, he’d puffed himself out, even though Con knew he was crushed inside. Vic McKay had made himself somehow larger.
And then the cancer had shrunk him. Shrunk his body, shrunk his will. Con had never won an argument with the man in thirty years, until these last few months.
He lowered the casket into the hearse, and a hand on his shoulder comforted him for a moment—Javi, maybe, or Beck. He didn’t turn to look. Just turned toward the family car he hadn’t wanted to pay for, but that his mother had insisted on. Because of her weight, she hadn’t wanted to get into a truck in front of the whole town to drive from the church to the cemetery.
Right now, his mother was going to get everything she wanted.
So he climbed into the seat beside her and they headed to the cemetery.
They took the route through town, past the mural Sofia Aguilar had painted that depicted his dad as the trail boss. Caleb, Sofia’s boyfriend, had explained a little more about the story depicted in the mural painted on the side of the grocery store, that the trail boss had made some questionable decisions in his life, so maybe putting his dad’s face on the man wasn’t the best honor, but maybe more appropriate than she knew.
At the graveside, Sofia was crying harder than anyone else. Funny thing, Con hadn’t seen her cry ever, until now, not when they’d had the bus accident, not when she’d been involved in a scandal and left town her senior year. But she was crying over his dad, who she’d gotten to know over the last few months when she took him to San Angelo for his cancer treatments. Con almost felt like he should be comforting her, but no, Caleb was by her side, holding her hand, his arm around her.
Con didn’t hear the words the preacher said, wondered if he’d regret not hearing them, not having them to reflect upon. After all, who else were they meant for? He was supposed to be taking comfort in them. But he just couldn’t concentrate as they put his father to rest beside his sister.
His dad had died on a perfect spring day. He and his mom had opened the windows in the living room, where they had set up the hospital bed, so his father could look out, but he couldn’t really see the sky from his bed because of the porch roof, though he could feel the breeze that blew the dry West Texas air inside. They’d kept the fireplace burning because his dad got cold so easily now, and he had been under a quilt his wife had made. Con had hired extra hands the past few weeks so that he wasn’t out on the ranch somewhere when his dad passed.
Not so much for his dad, but for his mom.
And for himself.
