Chapter Twenty-One #2
He had to swallow to get the words halfway out his mouth, because it went against everything his daddy had ever taught him, but he had to say it. “I won’t take care of you.”
Her lips parted. Her left eyebrow crinkled in the center. “What did you say?”
“I won’t take care of you,” he repeated.
He felt like his lungs had turned into glaciers, freezing the air inside him, inching outward, crushing his other organs, but he channeled one of his own favorite parental expressions, the one his daddy had always used whenever Jackson disappointed him.
“Only person in this world responsible for you is you. You want to fall back on Russ, you go right ahead. But until you start trying to make your life better for you, until you start taking school seriously and looking for a job, don’t expect me to come around and pick up the pieces. ”
Her mouth formed a perfect O. Her shoulders went back, and she tried to do that fourteen-feet-tall thing Anna Grace had mastered. He widened his stance and narrowed his eyes.
She faltered. “Yeah, well, it’s easy for you.” She poked him in the chest, right on his tiger paw. “You had Daddy.”
His blood roared. He clenched his teeth against it.
Yeah, he’d had Daddy. But she hadn’t been lacking in support.
Killed him to admit it, what with all that Russ and Momma would’ve put Daddy through if he hadn’t been in that accident, but Russ had made sure Louisa didn’t want for anything.
And it killed Jackson to admit maybe Momma had done something Anna Grace would’ve scoffed at—she’d gotten married to take care of her family when Daddy wasn’t there to provide anymore.
“Life’s what you make of it,” Jackson said. “What it looks like here, you’re making a mess of yours. Nobody to blame but yourself. You want to be a grown-up, we’ll hang out. You want to be a baby, go on home and get yourself a nursemaid.”
Tarnation. Not the tears.
And the chin wobble.
He yanked his T-shirt back on. He hated when girls cried.
Hated it worse when he made them, but he was pretty good at avoiding that.
Usually.
“You’ve never liked me,” she said.
He blew out a sigh. He’d asked for this. “That’s not true.”
“Then why didn’t you ever come home?”
He regarded her suspiciously. He felt like a worthless yahoo for making her cry, but she’d had a lot of years to perfect the poor me act. He was a sucker for believing the trembling lip and big old teardrops, but she was the only sister he’d ever have. “Wasn’t about you.”
“And you always stay with Mamie and then rub it in my face that she likes you better than me.”
She’d crossed the line there. Mamie didn’t play favorites.
But he hadn’t heard tell of many times she’d taken Louisa out bowling with her like she’d done when Jackson was little.
“Momma and Russ did Daddy wrong, but y’all took it out on me,” Louisa said.
She sniffled. “And now you’re back home, but you’re spending all your time with Anna.
I could’ve been with Stone all weekend, but instead, I’m here.
Maybe I wanted to go camping with you all by yourself.
You ever think of that, you big lug-head? ”
Considering he knew good and well she didn’t like hunting, camping hadn’t crossed his mind as an activity she would’ve liked for much more than the marshmallows and the chance to make him miserable. “Too far, Lou-Lou,” he warned.
She shrugged. “Worth a try. You’re being mean.”
“Not mean to tell you what you need to hear,” he said, but he had to force it, because he didn’t want to hurt her. Didn’t like feeling like an old man either. “Time I was your age, I had a job lined up and I was putting everything I had into doing my best every day. Like Daddy taught me to.”
“Daddy raised you better than to go to Alabama.”
“Daddy raised me better than to let you grow up worthless.”
Her eyes started their heavenward supplication, but he nudged her foot. “You’re not worthless,” he said. “But you’re working on it. Gotta pull yourself together, Louisa. Get your grades up. Work at something for once.”
“You’re a jerk,” she said.
And then she spun and was gone, headed away from him, away from camp, and away from the creek.
Well, tarnation again.
He was working on being useless himself.
Not much a man could do after that but sit himself right back down and wait for it all to blow over.
Took two hours. Two long hours of sitting with his dog, flinging a halfhearted line into the creek, debating with himself over the wisdom of going to talk to Anna, but eventually Louisa showed back up, looking for all the world like nothing was wrong.
“I’m hungry,” she said, “so I’m gonna go up to camp and get myself some food. ”
Still felt like dangerous territory there, but he went with her.
And when they returned to camp, Jackson realized he had another problem.
“Is that a label on the fire pit?” Louisa asked.
Kaci and Lance were polishing off some cold fried chicken at the picnic table. From what Jackson could tell, the only thing not labeled were their foreheads. Anna was nowhere in sight.
“Plum tuckered herself out.” Kaci nodded at the tent. She dropped her voice to a stage whisper. “Strained her thumb doing all that typing, then her label maker overheated. Good thing it was her spare.”
“Weirdo,” Louisa said.
Jackson glowered at her. She stumbled back a step. “Um, lunch. I’m hungry.”
“Might want to take yours back down to the creek,” Lance said to Jackson. He seemed to only half-imply that Jackson might get some make-up nookie. The other half warned he might want to dig out some Kevlar instead.
“Yep, you go on,” Kaci said. “We’ll keep a good eye on baby sister here.”
Louisa opened her mouth, but twin looks of don’t do it from Kaci and Lance had her snapping her trap back shut. She shoved a couple of bags at Jackson. “Chicken and biscuits?”
The vortex of festering, seething indignation surrounding the tent gave Jackson the impression he wouldn’t be having any milk to go with those biscuits today. Probably not anytime this week.
Maybe even again this century.
This was the normal part of a relationship where he should’ve been glad she had an excuse to give him what-for so he could pull his dumb redneck routine, wish her well, and let her walk away liking or disliking him as she saw fit.
Instead, an old burning sensation flared up in that dark, hidden place deep in his gut that tended to show only when he’d lost something.
Like his daddy.
He was having too much fun with Anna to lose her now.
Yeah. Fun. It was all about the fun. And there was his daddy’s chuckle rattling around inside his head again, but this time, it had a wry twist to it, the kind Daddy used to make when he was watching Jackson dig himself deeper and deeper in a mud pit.
He looked back at the angry-woman force field surrounding the tent.
It wasn’t a mud pit this time. It was a whole stinking acre of quicksand, and he was right in the plum middle without a line.
He tucked his lunch under his arm, and went back to the creek.
Because he needed to do some festering of his own. Took a danged idiot to muck up his own rules this good.
Time to get back in touch with the rocket scientist.