Page 26 of My Merry Mistake
“Get any of ’em to try Rocky Mountain oysters yet?” He chuckles.
I laugh. “Not yet, but I guarantee they ain’t gonna know what they are untilafterthey eat ’em.”
I feel my mouth loosen, sliding back into familiar speak.
“Ha! You betcha!” He laughs big. Makes me miss home.
“How’s things there? You good?” I ask.
“Oh, you know how your momma gets—” he shakes his head— “wants you to make a big noise out there and wants you home at the same time.”
From elsewhere in the house I hear her shout, “They should give him time off to see his family on Thanksgiving!”
We both laugh. Momma is a force. The kind of woman who’d do anything for anyone but who is also a little bit off her rocker.
“Still trying to save the world?” He isn’t looking into the screen when he says this. And I know what he’s talking about.
“When I can,” I say.
“It’s noble, Skip, the way you’re always watchin’ out for everyone—but you know it won’t bring him back.” Pop looks at me now.
“I know.” I watch the oncoming traffic for a few seconds. “Hey, Pop, can I ask you something?”
“You want me to go outside so the prying ears can’t hear?”
“Oh, I can’t know whatever this question is?” Momma shouts in the background.
“I swear, that woman is two rooms over and she can still hear every word I say,” my dad whisper-shouts into the phone.
At that, I laugh.
He leans closer to the screen and raises his eyebrows in a question.
I nod, and he gets up and walks outside as Momma’s voice calls out, “He’s just gonna tell me when he gets off the phone!” —her voice fading as my dad gets further away.
Dad closes the door and steps outside. “Hang on a sec.” He double taps the screen.
The video flips around, and I can see the wide wraparound porch and, then, the view.
Big sky. Open air.
It’s as if “freedom” were a place.
My eyes fix on the snow-capped mountains in the distance, a view I grew up with, and my heart aches for home.
I let out a low whistle. “Miss that.”
Moses, one of the many dogs on the ranch, lazes in the yard, and I see my brother Quent’s truck parked down by one of the outbuildings.
My dad turns the camera back around and sits in one of the rocking chairs he made for the front porch. “What’s on your mind, son?”
I groan and look out the window, back in the direction of the restaurant.
“Uh-oh,” Pop says. “It’s a woman.”
I shake my head, mostly at myself. “That obvious?”
“I’ve gotten pretty good at recognizing that look.” He smirks.
