47. Everything Was A Lie
Chapter forty-seven
Everything Was A Lie
Paul
Igrowled and chucked the phone onto my bed. Why wouldn’t she answer my text or call me? There was never a response, not even an answer and hang up. In fact, I think she shut off her phone because the call went straight to voicemail.
Son of a bitch!
Blowing out a breath, I pressed one finger to my aching temple and tried to figure out what to do. Having no clue, I stormed out of my room and into the kitchen to grab a glass of water when I saw Dad at the kitchen table. He nursed a cup of coffee, startling when he saw me.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
I grumbled something I didn’t even understand, so he stood, moving over to a cabinet where he pulled a bottle of whiskey and another coffee cup. Pouring some coffee in it, he added a little whiskey to both of our cups and handed one to me.
“Let’s go sit a spell.”
I followed him out to the front porch where we each sat in a rocker and stared out at the land.
Dad’s voice was low. “Reckon you’re in quite a tailspin, aren’t you, son?”
I nodded and took a sip, enjoying the way the whiskey added a little spice without burning on the way down.
He winced, using both hands to hold his cup. It was only then I realized how gnarled they had become. “Gotta admit, it has me a little turned around, too. So did the diagnosis.”
My lips parted in surprise. “What?”
He took a sip. “Arthritis. The bad kind. It’s gonna eat away at my joints until it kills me.”
I felt like the wind got knocked out of me. “Is that why you agreed to sell?”
He looked out at the horizon, refusing to meet my eyes. “One the reasons, yeah. You’re too young to be tied to a sinking ship. I didn’t mean for you to take on all this responsibility before you even found a wife to help you with it.”
My eyes narrowed. “What’s a wife got to do with it?”
When Dad’s eyes met mine, I startled at the heartbreak I found there. “Everything. A wife is everything, son. I miss your mother every damn day.”
I sat back, stunned. “What? You never talk about her. You went back to work the day we buried her.”
He gave his head a little shake. “Had to. Needed to keep busy so I didn’t lose my damn mind.”
With a thunk, my head hit the back of the rocker. I had no idea they even liked each other. They never touched. They never kissed. They never really even smiled around each other.
“But you never said you loved her. You never said anything when she was alive or after she was gone.”
He took another drink. “Thought it was better not to around you boys. Wasn’t proper. Then, after she was gone, I had to be strong.”
My heart raced. “Strong? You think hiding your feelings means you’re strong? Holy hell, Dad, all this time I thought you didn’t even like her. I thought your marriage was arranged or something since it looked like you didn’t get along.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Well, we had four boys. That oughta tell you something.”
I took a long drink, letting the whiskey soothe the rough edges of my memories.
Letting out a breath, Dad rocked forward to set his cup on the porch railing.
“What I’m trying to say is that your mother and I chose this life.
We didn’t share much with you, didn’t tell you what our life was like, but every day was a battle.
Whether it was against bugs or government regs or Mother Nature herself, there was always an obstacle to overcome or survive.
Trying to get the crops to grow, to not let them get beaten down by the weather, and keep them going until I could get them harvested. ”
“I know, we go through all that now.”
He leaned back again, shaking his head. “Those days had more damn obstacles that you remember. Tractors broke. Storms hit. Flooding washed out the lower pasture. Animals got sick. Farm accidents had me out of commission for too long. There was always something. And we spent our entire marriage in fear that we would lose everything.” He paused, taking some deep breaths.
“So, when I knew I was going to be too sick to help with it much longer and Dan offered the option to free you from all of that, to give you back your life, I knew what I had to do. I didn’t want to be a farmer when I inherited either, but I did it because it was expected.
Since I had a chance to change that for you, I did. ”
I shook my head. “What do you expect me to do now, Dad? I spent my whole life learning farming and not much else.”
He picked up his cup and took a drink. “Yeah, but those skills are transferrable. You’re good with your hands. And you think, probably overthink. You got a brain for doing great things.”
His words floored me.
“You always said I was only meant for farmwork.”
He lifted one shoulder. “It’s what my daddy always told me. Since it got me ready to take over for him, I said the same to you.”
Blood roared in my ears as my breath came out in pants. “You mean you lied?”
With a hard swallow, Dad stared out at the horizon.
“I conditioned you to take over just like my daddy conditioned me. It was preparing you for what was ahead. Now, things have changed. You were always a deep thinker, Paul, and had a good head on your shoulders. So, use it to find something else to do with your life. Rob pitches in when I need something, Josh is helping me with what’s left, and Sawyer will be around, too, so stay or go but do something.
Make something of yourself away from this farm. Go get your girl if you want.”
Frustration rammed into me anew. “She don’t want me.”
He chuckled. “That Maggie’s a feisty one, but there is no way in this world you could convince me of that. She’s been following you around ever since you two met. Anyone with eyes can see she’s crazy for you.”
Tossing back the rest of my drink, I set it down before crossing my arms. “She won’t take my calls or answer my texts. She’s probably with her boyfriend.”
“So, that’s it?” Dad scoffed. “You’re gonna give up on a future with her because she’s pissed at you for being a blockhead? Come on, what’s really stopping you?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Dad. Maybe it’s the fact that my entire life was a lie.
You loved Mom, which I didn’t know before today.
She loved you back but you hid your feelings for each other the entire time, so I don’t even know what love’s supposed to look like.
Then, you made me believe I wasn’t built for anything but farm work and, out of the blue, you sold the damn farm to someone else.
I’m gonna need a goddamn minute to figure out what in tarnation I oughta do! ”
While I thought Dad might lash out at me, he rocked quietly, nodding a few times. “You’re scared.”
I sat forward with my elbows on my thighs and my head in my hands. “You’re damn right, I’m scared.” Pushing my fingertips to my forehead, I sighed. “Everything I thought I knew, I don’t know after all. What am I supposed to do with that?”
With great effort, Dad pushed himself out of his chair, then moved close enough to place a hand on my shoulder. “Move on, son. There’s no future for you here anymore.”
More than ever, I felt that. The farm was a place I’d always love, but it wasn’t my home anymore. She was.
“Now, go. Love her. Make her yours. Be together, and you two will find your magic.”
When he gathered our cups and went in the house, I fell back in the rocker winded. Could I find a way to win her back?
Forcing my feet to take me to my room, I went straight to my laptop. The response to the last post Rob put up was huge. The online farm community noticed, too, when I found other inquiries from potential affiliates and podcasts.
After reading through a few contracts, making an appointment with Dad’s attorney to go over things, and looking into the financial side of things, I was well on my way to figuring out a new way to live.
One that would allow me to travel anywhere.
One that only required a good internet connection for me to manage this from anywhere in the world.
If I could make a go of this new life, I’d have something to support myself and be good enough for Maggie.
It took a few days to sort things out, but I set up a corporation, learned how to pay quarterly taxes, signed a few contracts, and figured out how to make all of this work efficiently.
From the timeline I was currently on, by fall, I would be financially secure enough to live on my own.
That motivation kept me tied to my computer and talking to Gene, learning everything I could about making this a successful business.
Maggie clearly didn’t want anything to do with me right now, but I hoped I’d figure out how to make amends.
As the sun scorched the earth throughout the month of August and the rains didn’t come like they should, Buena Vista was in a bad draught again.
For the first time, though, even though we lived with the fear of fires, my family didn’t have to worry about crops.
We’d sold those that would be harmed by draught.
For once, Mother Nature’s intent to destroy everything didn’t affect us as much.
Meanwhile, I continued to use the time to learn and grow my online world.
Gene was a huge help in determining whether projects were worth the time and watching for pitfalls, and I looked forward to our weekly calls.
With a schedule he helped me create, I blocked out time to write a weekly newsletter, create new farming guides, and worked on a line of merchandise that Rob helped me create.
With passive income from my guides, online social media monetized content, and a new contract with a big affiliate I could only dream of, and even after paying Rob for his services, September became my best month yet.
But the one thing I still couldn’t do was write a goddamn letter to Maggie.
I’d started and stopped so many times I couldn’t even count.
What hung me up every time was what I was supposed to say.
I was so fucking angry that I couldn’t even get started without a sharp word.
And I knew better than to send something full of rage.
Instead, I changed over to my journal and ranted in there. I wrote how angry I was that her mom died, that she didn’t understand how I felt even after I showed her every day, and how everything got twisted up in the end when it was so clear how much I loved her.
What made me so angry that my chest hurt was how she paraded her boyfriend around town. Easton, the sniffer. If he was her boyfriend, then what did that make me? Her fucking boy toy until her real boyfriend arrived from Chicago? Fuck that!
My chest heaved as I scribbled down all of it in my journal.
Once the words were on paper, though, I knew it wasn’t true. Maggie didn’t see me that way. I tore it out and threw it in the burn barrel.
If I was being honest with myself, though, I could see what Suzie had said, that I was taking advantage of Maggie.
It wasn’t my intention. It wasn’t what I tried to do at all, but despite trying to be a comfort for her, I mixed everything up until it didn’t make sense to either of us.
And my flares of temper during conversations hardly helped us figure it out.
The worst part of it all, though, was how she left, taking off without even saying goodbye. Every time I tried to write something about that, my pen stopped. It hurt too much to think about, so I didn’t. I put the journal away and tried to concentrate on work.
But focusing was impossible when I was so frustrated.
I knew that being with her this summer would open Pandora’s Box, and it sure as hell did.
Holding her panties didn’t work. I’d tried to rub one out the other day, thinking I could just take the edge off, but once I started, it wasn’t right.
I didn’t want to continue. I stopped after a few strokes because it wasn’t her hand around my cock.
It wasn’t her sweet lips there leaving a lipstick mark.
And if it wasn’t her there spiriting my climax from me, then I didn’t want it.
As I tried to work out these things, my mood had plummeted.
Mostly, it came out as anger at everyone around me, except Rob.
He was my one bright spot. He seemed to know how to not be a giant asshole, unlike my other brothers.
So, I walked around pissed as hell, horny as fuck, and no amount of success or money I made from my online endeavors seemed to quell it.