20. Melodies Gentle Push
Melodie's Gentle Push
Falon
The beef tips had been in the crock pot since seven in the morning, and by four in the afternoon, the smell throughout the whole farmhouse made my mouth water. I love beef tips. It is one of my favorite meals.
I do not feel like I have my life together. But the house smelled like I did, and on a day when my parents and Bo were all coming to dinner at the same time, I was willing to take the win where I could find it.
I'd spent the better part of the afternoon fussing over the meal and cleaning the house, as much as one could when it was still in construction.
It wasn't the cooking. The mashed potatoes were done and only needed warming, the rolls were rising, and the drinks were in the fridge.
It wasn't the house either. The chandelier was up, the new flooring in the living room was solid, and it actually had furniture in it now, rather than the collection of boxes and beanbag chairs.
It was the combination. My parents. Bo. The same table. For the first time since he'd moved into the guest house.
Frank had been crowing since five, but Frank was a horrible alarm clock.
Rowdy had been following me around since noon like he knew something was up. Every time I moved a dish or straightened a chair, he'd trot after me and sit and watch with his ears forward. Bo had done most of the chores today, but there wasn’t much to do, so I didn’t feel too guilty, kind of.
Rowdy takes that moment to knock a dish towel off the counter.
"Rowdy."
He looks at me, panting and drooling on my floor.
Mom and Dad pull up at five-thirty exactly because my mother has never been late to a single thing in her life and considers it a character flaw in people who are. Dad comes through the door, stops in the entryway, and looks up at the chandelier.
He doesn't say anything for a second.
"You hung that yourself?"
"Bo braced the ladder. But I did the rest. He walked me through a few things." I conveniently forget to mention the fact that I’d almost killed myself in the process.
He looks at me. Then at the chandelier. The last time he was here was before he broke his leg.
It’d been too dangerous for him to come since then because of all the work I had going on.
Ladders, cords, tools, everything that spoke the language of accidental death to a man on crutches, and my dad didn’t do crutches well.
I’d done quite a bit of work since the last time Dad was here.
I’d finished the walls, the trim, the staircase, the floors, and a new subfloor in the bathroom, but I didn’t know it needed it.
For the most part, I’d done most of the work on my own until Bo got here.
Dad does that slow, evaluating scan dads do when they are deciding if your work is good.
"You and Bo did good, baby girl," he says, and there it was. You and Bo. He didn’t even realize I’d done most of it. This house is my work. My sweat and blood. My baby.
“Mom,” I call out, following her into the kitchen.
She’d already lifted the lid off the crock pot and is tasting the sauce.
She does this every time she comes over.
No matter what I cook, it could be water, and she’d be in the kitchen checking and adding who knows what. I don't know why I'm surprised.
She hums approvingly, puts the lid back, turns around, and looks at the table.
“Oh, good, Bo’s coming.”
“How do you know it’s Bo? What if I’d invited Daisy, Millie, or Joe from Carl’s?” I sass as only an only daughter could.
“Mhm, we all know Bo’s coming. He went by Blooms and Stuff earlier and got flowers. My guess is they are for you,” she adds by running her finger along the counter.
“I’d asked him to grab them for the table,” I gesture to the flowers in the center of the table and a smaller vase for Mom when she leaves. These flowers had cinnamon sticks in them. Mandy knew Mom loved cinnamon.
"So, Bo’s joining us?" she asks, like she hadn't orchestrated the entire dinner.
"You suggested this dinner."
"I suggested a family dinner." She turns back to the stove.
I open my mouth to tell her that she told me to make sure Bo came because he needed a good home-cooked meal, like I hadn’t been feeding him. I was. With that, the screen door opens, and Bo comes in with the chairs I’d just refinished, and Rowdy immediately abandons me entirely and goes to him.
“Traitor,” I mumble under my breath, and Bo hears me.
He sets the chairs down, clocks the room in about two seconds, and says, "Mrs. Williams. Mr. Williams," with a nod. Dad shakes his hand, and Mom pulls him into a hug like she didn’t see him just last week.
He'd brought in chairs. She looks at him like he'd brought roses.
I love my mother.
I serve dinner, and Bo gets the drinks. None of us drank, so sodas were the family norm.
It started so quietly that I began to wonder if this was a good idea.
Then Dad asks Bo about the banister in the entry, and the conversation flows after that.
Dad had three helpings and is reaching for more mashed potatoes when Mom swats his hand.
“I am a man on the mend. I need food,” he proclaims, and Mom gives him a look and a carrot stick. He huffs and crunches on the carrot stick with a disappointed expression.
Bo had helped me start a new fence line yesterday, and while I was in the house cooking, he had finished it. He is a hungry man, and he could have all he wanted.
“So, Falon,” she feigns innocence. I know better.
"Did you finally finish the bathroom?” She takes another bite of potatoes.
"Yep. All done. New floor and subfloor, painted, and a new vanity with two sinks," I said.
"You did that yourself?"
"We did." I gesture at Bo. He shakes his head.
"Falon diagnosed the leak, pulled the vinyl, cut the damaged sections, and laid the new boards," he says. "I handed things to her and watched YouTube."
"That's not?—"
"It's accurate."
"If you mean falling through the floor as a diagnosis, then you're right, but the rest was a team effort."
Dad looks up. “You fell through the floor?” I can see the panic in his eyes.
"Only to the knee," I say quickly.
"She was hanging from the banister by her hands after that," Bo says, like he was reporting the weather. "About fourteen feet up."
Dad puts his fork down. "Falon Marie."
"I was fine."
"She was fine," Bo confirms. "Rowdy and I had it."
Rowdy thumps his tail from the back door at the mention of his name.
Dad shakes his head and picks his fork back up, and that is that. Mom is pressing her lips together to keep from smiling.
After dinner, Dad gets up and starts walking through the kitchen the way he always does, looking at the hardware, the shelving I'd built into the pantry, the window that used to stick. He stops at the shelving.
"This yours?" he asks Bo.
"Falon's," Bo says. "She did that."
Dad looks at me.
He is quiet for a second. Then he looks at Bo and says, "She's been running both properties since my surgery. Schedules, books, supplier accounts. She should be out with the girls and working toward making a living.” Bo cocks his head to the side, then looks at me, puzzled.
It’s always been like this. Dad doesn’t see me as a real rancher. I am his daughter, but that is where it ends. I don’t think he thinks I can do it.
"Oh, I don’t know," Bo says. "I've seen the binders. She seems to be doing a good job."
I am going to say something, but then Bo adds, "Why don’t you come and see what she’s done.
The feed system between the two properties is all hers, and because she’s been keeping things going on her end, Rusty and Dane can get the fence line, the calves, and the heavy lifting done.
" Dad looks skeptical, and I shake my head. He still has no clue what I’ve done.
I am still nine and in pigtails, wandering around the ranch pretending to be the boss, only now I am the boss and kicking butt as one too.
I wrinkle my nose, and Bo sees me. I drop my head and walk back to the kitchen to put the food away.
I’m not the girl boss I’d seen some of the girls become.
I don’t like the phrase ‘I am woman, hear me roar.’ I am more of the hard-working and traditional kind of girl.
I like it when the men open my doors; it tells me how much they respect me.
I like it when they work just as hard as I do, and at the end of a long day, dinner and a movie on the couch is my cup of tea.
But Dad is different. He doesn’t see that in me.
I don’t know what he sees, but it isn’t me.
Bo heads for the back door, and Dad follows.
"We'll be right back," Bo says over his shoulder as they walk out the back.
Mom refills her coffee and sits at the bar watching me busy myself putting dinner away and packing a Tupperware for Mom and Dad tomorrow. I’d made sure there was enough for eight people, even though it was just the four of us, so we'd have leftovers.
"So," she says. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Does he not want to see what I’ve done?”
“Oh, honey, he sees it,” she defends him.
“I don’t think so, Mom.” I put the extras in the fridge, then start on the dishes.
“I’d done so much in this house, I mean, look at the floors,” I gesture, and she looks down.
“I did that. I put in new floors throughout the house before Bo even got here. I did the trim and painted. I did most of this alone, then Bo gets here and all of a sudden, it looks great.” I start loading the dishwasher.
“I mean, I installed the appliances because I didn’t want to pay the two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar installation fee. ”
Mom looks around. And her eyes grow slightly wider.