Page 70 of Moonshine Kiss
“You’re kin,” I said in my thickest West Virginia drawl. “‘Round these parts you can y’all anyone and anything y’all want to.”
He chuckled, knowing full well I was stalling. He pulled two beers out of the fridge and popped the tops. I accepted the one he offered.
“I had a complicated relationship with my dad,” I told him.
Jonah waited while I took a long pull on the beer and collected my thoughts.
“He wasn’t as hard on me as he was Gibs. But he didn’t love me like he loved Scarlett. We had a bond, a tenuous one, around baseball. He played in high school and so did I. In fact, I think the only reason I played was because he liked that I played.” I hadn’t really thought it out like that before. The other reason I’d kept coming back to the diamond was the fact that Sheriff Tucker was the coach.
I waited for the sharp edge of shame that always poked out when I thought about Sheriff Tucker and realized that I didn’t have to feel it anymore. That I’d never needed to feel it. He’d never thought I wasn’t good enough.
“What’s happening? You look like you’re having some epiphany right now.”
“Since when are personal trainers the new bartender therapist?” I shot back.
Jonah slung a dish towel over his shoulder and crossed his arms.
“We won states my senior year,” I told him, getting back on track. “Dad was over the moon. He’d been a star on his team in his time, but like his music, he never got the chance to reach for any dreams. Mom got pregnant. They got married. He got a job.”
“Did he want you to make a career out of it?”
I shook my head. “It was more like he thought baseball should be my ticket out of here. Gibs never went to college. So Dad set his sights on me to live out the dreams he never got to.”
“Did you?”
“I played ball until my junior year. Got hurt. And never went back. Dad didn’t think a degree in school administration was nearly as interesting as a baseball career. He wanted adventure for us that he never got, I guess.” And all I’d wanted was a happy home. A place to plant roots. A real family, not just one held together by blood and scotch tape.
“Was he always a drinker?” Jonah asked.
I shook my head. “No. Mostly he was pissed off at the world in general. I remember him being grumpy all through my childhood. The drinking really ramped up in my late teens.” I thought back to those days. “Mom died in a car accident. Took us all by surprise. I think as much as he was unhappy in that relationship they really did have a bond.”
Jonah picked up the pot and dumped the steaming contents into a colander in the sink. “What was your mom like?”
“She was…different. She made an effort with all of us. But you could tell that her heart wasn’t in it some days. She blew hot and cold. None of us ever knew which Mom we were coming home to. When she was happy we were all happy. We’d roast hot dogs over the fire outside and make a party of it. But when she was down, it was like there was a cloud over this house. She loved us. But she wasn’t capable of any kind of consistency. It was like her highs burned her out until we started to dread them as much as the lows. What about your mom?”
“She’s great,” Jonah said with a small smile. “Toughest woman I know. But not like hard, you know?”
“Yeah.”
“She raised me single-handedly. Made sure I brushed my teeth and could throw a ball and do laundry. She always tells me she was training me for a nice girl someday.”
“You haven’t been datin’ much,” I pointed out.
“I don’t think someday is right now. Not when I share the name of a man under investigation for murder and I’m only starting to get to know the half-siblings I didn’t know I had. Do you think he did it?”
I looked up from the screen.
“Kill Callie?”
He nodded.
“I think it’s unlikely. I don’t know how that sweater got there. Our father was no angel. But he never lifted a hand to any of us. If he had anything to do with it, it wasn’t murder. And if it was an accident, like a hit-and-run, I don’t think he’d be able to cover his tracks.”
“Good to know,” Jonah said, pulling plates out of the cabinet.
I didn’t know if he liked the pieces he was getting of our father or if he was relieved the man had never been in his life.
“So what should the gift receipt say?” I asked, changing the subject. “For our own sleepover?”
