Chapter 21 #2
He felt a hollowness in his belly. So high in Zoey’s eyes to so low in his father’s.
How pathetic it seemed to be idolized by an eight-year-old.
And for what? Buying unhealthy breakfast cereal and enjoying YouTube.
He looked up at his dad and wondered at the look he’d give him if he’d seen Brodie making Taylor Swift bracelets or dressing up with Zoey in Aunt Eleanor’s pageant clothes.
It would be the same look as when Brodie wrote a new song as a kid—it wasn’t disregard, it was blankness. Like if it wasn’t cattle or fishing or similar, it didn’t rank on his dad’s radar and it meant nothing.
What his dad would think about Brodie having fathered a child and not knowing about it, didn’t bear thinking about.
Luckily, Brodie’s phone rang just at that moment cutting the tension. It was his friend Caleb ringing about their sailing trip.
Brodie looked down at the gravel path as Caleb launched into a story about all the stresses and calamities of getting the boat into harbor, scuffing the stones as he listened, laughing.
His mom stood for a while, but Brodie gestured that he’d be five minutes, so she went back inside to carry on with her jam.
On the phone, Caleb said, “So what time are you arriving?”
Brodie walked away round to the side of the barn. “Not sure I’m going to make it, actually,” he said with a regretful wince.
“What?! We can’t go without Brodie!”
Brodie grinned, thought wistfully of crashing through the waves, spray on his face. “I’ve got some stuff to deal with here.”
“What the heck do you have to deal with that’s more important than San Diego?”
Brodie looked in the window of the pantry at his mom ladling glossy crimson jam into rows of glass jars. “Just life stuff,” he said, knowing it sounded cagey.
“Sounds to me like you’ve got a better offer, Brodie. Do I know her?”
“No it’s…” He didn’t want to explain, didn’t want to have the outside world intrude, so he said, “No you don’t know her.”
He glanced up and saw his dad turn away like he’d been listening. Brodie sighed, of course his dad would overhear that bit.
After some more attempts at persuasion Caleb rang off.
Brodie slipped his phone in his pocket.
Above him, he heard a noise and saw a roof tile slide down from where his dad was trying to fix the leak and had obviously fumbled it in his hands. It caught momentarily on the gutter and his dad shouted, “Watch out!” Then it fell and cracked when it hit the ground.
“Darn it.” From where he was sitting astride the roof, his dad started to move himself along back toward the ladder. Fumbling roof tiles was not Emmett’s style. He didn’t make mistakes and wouldn’t be happy about it.
“Do you want another one?” There was a pile of fresh tiles by the side door.
Emmett paused.
“Stay there, I’ll bring one up,” Brodie said, determined suddenly to be seen as of use, maybe just to be seen.
Emmett didn’t reply but didn’t move any further to the ladder. Brodie took that as a yes.
He picked up a new tile and started climbing up. He stopped at the top and stretched over to hand it to his dad.
“Thanks.”
Brodie nodded.
He was about to go back down but his attention was caught by the view. He could see the whole ranch from up there. The red-rooved barns, the paddock, the pastures, right up to the mountains.
His dad said, “Something wrong?”
Brodie frowned at his tone, like he wanted him gone. “No, was just checking out the view.”
Emmett gave it a cursory glance then went back to his tiling. He’d clearly seen it a hundred times before.
Brodie got the impression that he was being dismissed. He imagined if he was Noah, his dad would probably ask his advice. Noah would climb agilely over and they’d fix the roof together. Heck, they probably rebuilt the barn together in the first place.
He wasn’t jealous. He didn’t want that. He had a great life doing things he enjoyed. Again, he thought longingly of the sailing trip and kicked himself for turning it down.
“Are you going to stand there all day?”
Brodie stared incredulously at his dad, at his whitening beard, the battered hat forever on his head, the plaid shirt, darned and patched so much it probably didn’t have any of the original material left, his face set in such familiar stern lines.
But then, before his eyes, his father suddenly seemed older—maybe frailer—than he normally did.
Or perhaps that was the reality, whereas all Brodie ever saw was the fearsome memory.
He had grown up terrified of this man. Always on guard around him for the constant reprimands, the dressing-downs, the sighs of discontentment, the looks.
But what he struggled most with was that feeling of being disliked but endured.
The impenetrable disappointment, like his dad put up with him because he had to.
There was no love, no respect. If he had to give one of his children away, Brodie knew he would pick him.
Even Jack, while he and Emmett fought, had been a good ranch hand when forced, and a ruthless competitor.
Brodie just never came up to par. He liked fun and jokes, meeting new people and having a good time—everything his dad despised.
Looking at him now, head bent over his work, he thought that as a father, Brodie would never want to be like him.
And yet, he found himself wanting to tell him about making Zoey row and how she’d enjoyed it in the end. What did he want from Emmett? Pride?
Being his son held him in eternal thrall to this man. And yet his father seemed to have no idea how monumental his role was in Brodie’s life.
“Have you ever liked me?” He didn’t mean to say it out loud. Or maybe he did. Maybe it was time.
“’Scuse me?”
“You heard.”
Emmett put his tools down and sat for a moment contemplating the question, head bent, eyes obscured by his hat.
Brodie couldn’t hear anything but the thumping of his heart. He felt like a child. Like Zoey. He imagined them in a similar situation—her huge brown eyes staring plaintively back at him desperate for something he had no idea if he could give.
His dad looked up, eyes narrowed so thin, so disdainful, that Brodie could barely see them. “My job as a parent wasn’t to be your friend, Brodie, it was to make you a man.”
Brodie felt his taut muscles quiver in shame at the coolness of his dad’s words.
“To teach you the value of hard work, responsibility and respect. So you could go out in the world and make good decisions. Find purpose. Marry well. Start a family of your own.” He seemed to leave a deliberate pause so they could both recall Brodie’s disastrous marriage to Celeste.
He saw his parents, having only met the bride once, at the lavish wedding, sitting among crowds of celebrities, out of place and uncomfortable.
Then their faces when he welcomed them into the sprawling mansion he’d bought, complete with a Japanese water garden filled with koi carp and a butterfly house.
His dad’s ensuing silence suggested that he had failed on all accounts to instill such values in his son.
Brodie couldn’t understand how he was somehow being shamed for his year-long shambolic marriage—a mistake he made in his early twenties—when he was standing on a ladder asking why his dad had always looked at him like dirt.
“This isn’t about marriage or the band. This is about before that!
” he said, trying but knowing the words would fall on stubbornly deaf ears.
“This was when I was a kid. Did you ever think it wasn’t a one-size-fits-all?
Did you ever look at me and think, what I’m doing isn’t working? ”
“Of course I did!” Emmett snapped back, ferocious like a crocodile.
See you later, alligator.
You have a kid.
Brodie feared for a moment he might lose his balance on the ladder, his mind spun, dizzy. He looked down at the tiles for a moment to catch his breath, then he glanced at his dad and said, “So why didn’t you do something different?”
But Emmett didn’t answer. His head was bent again, back to the task of fixing the roof.
Brodie almost flew down the ladder he was in such a hurry to get away from his father’s cold snub. Over in the driveway, he could see his car glinting in the sunshine.
His mom came out of The Silver Pantry and said, “Are you coming to have a look around? I’ve opened some elderflower cordial and—” She paused, taking in the expression on Brodie’s face. “What happened?”
Brodie shook his head, pretended it was all fine. “Nothing.”
His mom glanced up to where Emmett was banging on the roof. Brodie didn’t.
Instead, he forced a smile and, putting his hand on his mom’s back, said, “Love an elderflower cordial! Come on, give me the tour.”