Page 80 of Snowed In
My parents won’t accept any money from me. I know they won’t. Which means it’s best to just do it myself and let them be mad at me afterward. At least they won’t be living in a cold house for the rest of the winter.
When I’m sure that Mam’s still out shopping, I leave him to it and head down the stairs, annoyed at the hint of nerves I feel.
Besides the nosebleed and a headache this morning, nothing was broken, bruised, or sprained, but still, Dad took one look at me when he picked us up last night, and you’d swear I was sixteen years old in his eyes, getting into fights in the schoolyard.
He isn’t in the hall, but the front door is open, so I head outside, squinting in the winter sunshine as I spy him next to his Jeep. I’m halfway across the yard before I realize he’s not alone.
Megan rounds the tractor, dressed like she’s about to head into a snowstorm in her coat, scarf, and hat. She looks so at odds with my father, who’s in his dark, roughened work jacket he’s worn every day for the last twenty years, but that’s not what’s so strange about the scene.
It’s that a moment before, they were both laughing.
My father is not a man who laughs regularly. A smile is as about as good as we get, so to hear the deep timbre of it, to see him in a rare moment of ease, is enough to stop me in my tracks. Only as soon as I do, they look my way.
“Look who I found,” he says, his voice as warm as I’ve ever known it.
“Your dad was just remindingme about the time Iapparentlytried to take a lamb home,” Megan says.
“You stole it right from under me,” he tells her. “You tried to convince your mother that I’d given it to you as a gift.”
“I have no memory of this,” Megan sniffs, but she looks toward the fields with undisguised interest. “Do you have lambs now?”
“We won’t have any until February. You’ll have to come back and see them then.”
I take a hasty step forward as her smile slips, and hold out my hand. “I’m sure the cows would love some earmuffs, though. You want some tea?”
“That would be great.”
She fits her gloved hand into mine and turns back to my father. “Thanks for the mini tour. I’ll see you at Christmas?”
“I suspect so,” he says. “I hope you have your party piece ready.”
Alarm flashes across her face, but Dad’s mouth doesn’t so much as twitch as he climbs into the car.
“There’s no party piece,” I tell her, as we head back to the house. “Except for Riverdance.”
“I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”
“Do you know any Yeats off by heart?”
“How’s your nose?” she asks, peering up at me.
“Smells a bit funny, but…” I side-eye her when she doesn’t respond. “Really? Nothing?”
“Do you own a tuxedo?”
I blink at the change in conversation. “Of course.”
“Really?”
“No. No one owns a tuxedo,” I add over her groan. “You rent one.”
“Then can you rent one?”
“For your mother’s party? Yes. I’ve already reserved it.”
“And shoes,” she adds worriedly. “Do you have shoes?”
“Oh, you didn’t tell me this was going to be a shoe kind of a thing.”
