Chapter 2 #2
He groaned. That was a lot. No wonder she was a little bit spikier than usual.
He had been able to shift a lot of his responsibilities, but she was more specialized than he was when it came to what she did at the ranch.
It had been interesting to really dig into this project, to see her in a new light.
Because she was so feral to him, he had kind of assumed she was more that way than not.
But no. She was a competent, efficient businesswoman, and a very good manager. She was direct, she was to the point, and she remembered everything. There was a vigilance to the way that she handled everything that he admired greatly.
He could think she was a brat and still admire her work ethic. The two were not at odds, not in his opinion.
“That’s a lot,” he said.
“No shit, Cowboy Sherlock.”
“Do you have to be testy with me?”
“Yes,” she said, short and succinct.
“Fair enough. Listen...” He maneuvered the truck out onto the highway, heading out toward the work site. “This is really important to me too.”
She looked down at the top of her latte and tapped the lid.
“Yes?”
“Nothing. It’s just... Yeah. I did think it was kind of weird that you jumped in. Because normally, you wouldn’t be overly supportive of any of my endeavors. And you especially wouldn’t normally be more supportive than Cody.”
“I resent that.”
“You think that I’m wrong?”
“I think you’re oversimplifying.”
“Well, be square with me. What’s your motivation?”
He hadn’t told a soul. For some reason, though, as blunt as she was, Lila seemed like the person to tell. She’d been that person for him before.
After she’d called Darlene a bitch in front of all the onlookers in the grocery store parking lot they’d sat in his truck and talked about all kinds of bullshit he’d never talked to Walker and Cody about.
Sincerity between him and Lila might be rare, but when they talked it was always deep.
So why not tell her now?
“I’ve been working on finding my family.”
Lila made a short, shocked sound that was almost satisfying. He’d successfully caught her off guard which was a rare feat.
“Yeah. Well. I found them. A half-sister on my dad’s side, three half-sisters on my mom’s.
To be fair, I had a better lead on my mom’s family.
I don’t know my dad from a can of paint, but at least through my grandma I had some real information on my mom.
Though I didn’t know her married name. She changed pretty much everything when she got clean and sober. Including trading out her kids.”
He hadn’t meant to say that with animosity. Mainly because animosity implied that it hurt. He didn’t want to be hurt by a woman who had never actually wanted him all that much.
Plus he felt complicated about all of it.
Because his mom had been in a bad place when he’d been little.
He only had very vague memories of living with her.
Mostly, by the time he could remember anything, he was with his grandma full time.
But there were snapshots. Mostly of living in motel rooms, of there being needles on the floor. They weren’t good memories.
His grandma hadn’t been a particular maternal woman.
She’d been distant and mostly preoccupied by her own interests.
She hadn’t been stern or mean, she’d just been tired and not at all ready to raise another kid – after having six of her own, Nolan’s mom being the baby of the family who had come late and caused nothing but trouble.
None of his aunts or uncles had wanted him disrupting their lives. So he’d never sought to disrupt theirs in all the years since.
At the end of the day, family, for him, meant very little.
But for some reason he felt driven to find his half-sisters and not just find them – know them.
Maybe because they were the only people who might understand his life.
Maybe because his mom’s children could help him make some sense of things.
Maybe his father’s daughter could tell him about that man who was a total stranger to him.
He could try to mend some fences with his mom but…
He didn’t want to, and he hated that part of himself.
Because wasn’t it better that she was clean and sober instead of dead? Maybe she hadn’t been able to do it for him, but she had been able to do it at some point, and wasn’t that better than nothing?
It should be. If the options were stay in the life she’d had, stay with him, and stay on heroin, or let him go and find a clean, sober life with a rich husband, then... That was math anyone could do. How could he blame her, and how could he be resentful?
He had a lot of follow-up questions for his own emotions these days, and he didn’t particularly like that.
Which was why he hadn’t shared this with anybody until now.
You’d think Lila would feel like a sharp, toothy space rather than a safe one, but sometimes he thought maybe because she was nothing less than bracingly honest with him about every damned thing that she was a safer space than anyone else. She’d give him the truth, that was for sure.
“And you want to meet them?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “But I want to...” something burned in his gut.
“I guarantee you I’ve turned out better than any of them.
Well, not my sister on my dad’s side. She’s probably not any better off as far as parental relationships than I am, but my mom...
You know, she got married to this rich guy, made a whole new life, had these three perfect daughters, and she left me behind.
I want to prove that it was a mistake. That I could have been part of that perfect life, I guess. ”
As soon as he said it, he tasted something acrid on his tongue.
It sounded pathetic. He didn’t like it. Didn’t respect it, frankly, and hated that he felt that way.
“I don’t blame you,” Lila said.
He was so shocked by that that he turned to look at her. She was very casually not looking at him, eyes trained skyward as she took a sip of her mocha.
“You don’t?”
“No. I’m a petty bitch, Nolan, and I would be very petty about this.”
“I’m not trying to be petty. But I... well, maybe I am a little bit.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Lila said.
He knew that Cody had done most of the talking to Lila’s dad before he’d passed. He knew Lila had at least gone to meet him because it had resulted in another one of their rare cease fires.
She’d come to his place, looking a little bit lost.
Cody and Walker have their own baggage around this and I don’t want them to feel responsible for mine.
I’ll be responsible for it. I have no issues with that.
I thought I’d feel something. A connection. I just don’t.
Do you want to?
Maybe. Maybe I wanted to feel something big enough to make me understand my mother’s behavior, but I just don’t feel a damn thing.
“How about you? Did you end up being petty with your dad?”
Lila shook her head. “No. I only saw him three times. You know about the first time. And then I saw him for a third time at the wake. But to be quite honest, that wasn’t a very lively meeting.”
He huffed a laugh. “Yeah, I bet not. Did you ever…did you ever at least feel angry?”
She looked thoughtful. “I wasn’t really any angrier when I met him.
At that point, we got the inheritance. All because he’s messed up, twisted up and had this wild idea about inheritance and legacy and all this kind of stuff, but maybe that’s what I’m trying to say.
There was no fixing it. Meeting him didn’t make it any worse, it didn’t make it any better.
Getting this physical land that we get to make something with; I see that as our birthright.
I don’t see it as a gift that he gave us.
Though I’m sure a lot of people do. We spent our whole lives being the finest white trash in town, and now we’re nepo babies. Isn’t that a trip?”
“Well, hell. When you put it like that.”
“Yeah, I mean, maybe that would make Cody good enough for Darlene now,” Lila chirped.
Darlene. How funny she’d brought her up when Nolan had just been thinking about that.
“I think Cody could be gold-plated and still not good enough for Darlene. Besides, money or not, we’re all still bastards in the Biblical sense.”
Lila laughed. “Good for us, I say. Think of all the terrible people that keeps out of our lives, our dads included.”
“A good point, Lila.”
He turned the truck onto the trailhead, and he and Lila got out, gathering their day packs with their water and other supplies, and started heading up the trail toward where they’d left the rest of their heavy equipment yesterday.
After today, they would take a day off, and then they’d go back on but spend the night out in the woods so they didn’t have to hike back in the very next day.
Which would be interesting.
“So, since you’re choosing to meet people who should probably stay on your Do Not Meet list, what are you going to do? Show up at your mom’s place with a really fancy monocle and a cigar like the Monopoly Man?”
She passed him on the trail, and he made sure his backpack was clipped on before he shook his head and followed behind her. “Not exactly.”
But when she put it like that...he also wasn’t…not doing that.
“And what are you going to do with your other sister?” she pressed.
“I don’t know. Probably going to contact her first.”
“Do you know anything about her? She’s about your age.”
She turned toward him for just a second, nose wrinkled and then turned away and kept on hiking. “So, a child then.”
“I never said that you were a child.”
“No. You just demonstrate that you think so every day.”