All I Have

“Yes. I’m not saying you have to agree, just don’t argue. Mom asked—”

“Maybe Mom should do her own asking. You don’t have to always be stepping in for them, Charlie. Last time I checked they could fight their own battles. And you’re over thirty. You could stop acting as though their opinion on everything matters.”

“And you are getting rather close to thirty to still be acting like a child.”

They faced off for a few minutes, and it wasn’t the kind of face-off he enjoyed, as with Mia. No, this was all tension and bad feelings, and he wondered if anything would ever change. Or would it keep getting worse? Until there was nothing left.

“I don’t want to argue. I don’t enjoy this. But I love it too much to let it go. To sit down and be the dutiful son. It isn’t what I want, Charlie. I am not you.”

“Because that is truly the worst thing you could ever be?”

“No. Because it isn’t me. It doesn’t make you wrong or bad. It only means I can’t be something I’m not. I can’t pretend. And I won’t pretend this place doesn’t mean everything to me.”

“More than your family?”

“Maybe a piece of land can’t call you worthless, ever think of that?”

“I never—”

But Dell wasn’t interested in hearing what Charlie never said. Maybe he’d never said worthless, but they did their level best to make Dell feel it. So Dell went downstairs and sat at the dinner table with a smile plastered on his face, and every time Dad hinted around about developing, Dell shoved a bite of mashed potatoes in his mouth.

It wasn’t any use, though. Family dinner was filled with tension, even more than usual. Charlie escaped the minute it was over, under the guise of business—because his business was so much more important. Kenzie had disappeared to do homework, taking Mom with her.

So it was just him and Dad and pie, and the inevitable.

“We’d make a good chunk of change going with a developer,” Dad said, no longer beating around the bush. “Your mom and I could retire.” Dad shoved a bite of cherry pie into his mouth.

He thought of Charlie asking him not to say anything. Not to argue. But no one was here except him and Dad, and how could he pretend this didn’t mean everything?

“You can retire by selling to me. I’ve got enough for my section of the farm right now. You sell your pig operation to Dean Coffey like he’s been asking, that’ll keep you for a few years while I make enough to buy the rest.”

Dad shook his head. “Stupid,” he said through a mouth of pie. “Why can’t you get it through your head this place is nothing? Five years down the line you’re going to be surrounded by subdivisions and malls. You can’t hold on to this. Best let it go now.”

“I don’t care what I’m surrounded by.”

“Foolish.” Dad drained the rest of his milk, slammed the glass on the table. “You ever plan on settling down and having a family?”

“Christ.” Dell shoved a hand through his hair. What would it take? He’d been having this fight for years, and he’d gotten nowhere. When did he give up?

He looked down at the table. His grandfather had built it, and just as it belonged in Mom’s dining room, Dell belonged in this place. But maybe belonging wasn’t enough.

“Well?” Dad prompted.

“I don’t know. Not my concern right now. My concern right now is that this place belongs to me.”

“You’re a damn fool, and I’m not letting you screw up by not seeing sense. I don’t want to be bailing you out in a few years’ time.”

Dell pushed away from the table, his pie half-eaten. “Tell Mom I headed home.” He tossed his napkin on the table and walked out. There was no way he was spending another hour beating his head against the brick wall of his dad’s opinion. If everyone else got to escape, so did he.

As Dell stepped out on the porch, the family’s German shepherd greeted him with a tennis ball.

Dell hurled the tennis ball, smiled as Colby ran for it, tongue lolling out of her mouth as she raced down the hill. Nothing like a dog to cheer you up after a nice, tense dinner with dear old Dad.

Was it always going to be this way? He couldn’t be someone he wasn’t and leave farming. He could go work for someone else, but then the land he’d loved his entire life would be built over into a subdivision.

With a grunt, Dell hurled the ball again, trying to take some solace in Colby’s graceful strides.

The screen door creaked open and Mom stepped out. While Dell could see the years’ toll on Dad’s face every time he looked at him, Mom was exactly the same as she was in Dell’s childhood memories. Sturdy jeans and boots, a flannel shirt folded up to the elbows. Slightly graying dark blond hair pulled back into a braid. She didn’t wrinkle or change. She was just Mom. Strong, sturdy, calming. If it wasn’t for her, he and Dad would probably have come to blows at some point.

Mom stood next to him on the top stair of the porch, watching Colby return lazily with the ball. “You can’t let your father get to you.”

“I’m not sure I have a choice.”

“Of course you do. We always have a choice. I know it’s frustrating, but he isn’t trying to be the bad guy here, Dell. He’s wrong, but that doesn’t mean his reasons aren’t right.”

“That doesn’t make a lick of sense.” Dell bent down to scratch Colby’s ears. “You know Mia Pruitt?”

“Oh, sweet little Mia. Poor girl.”

Dell frowned, momentarily put off the point of bringing up Mia and how she was getting her family farm. “Why do you say that?”

“I just remember how she always seemed to be the butt of everyone’s jokes. And no one I’ve ever met is in more need of stick-up-her-ass removal than Sarah Pruitt. The woman made being a co-room mother for Kenzie’s kindergarten class a nightmare. That kind of stress from a mother can’t be good for young girls.”

“They seem fine enough.” Fine enough to dance with him and infiltrate his dreams in ways he was not at all comfortable with. “Her dad’s selling her his farm.”

“You know, it’s like that TV doctor says. Karmic debt.”

“You really need to stop watching daytime TV.” Dell took the slobbery tennis ball from Colby’s mouth. He stood and hurled it again, farther this time. “Besides, I don’t see how the two are related.”

“It’s not for you to see.”

“Mom, no offense, but sometimes that crap is a billion times more annoying than you just coming out and saying I’m a jackass.”

Mom laughed. “Maybe that’s why I do it.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “Dell, honey, I know there’s a lot of tension over this.”

“I don’t understand why—”

Mom held up a hand and he stopped as he always had. “I can tell you what it’ll take to change your father’s mind. He won’t like that I told you, and he’ll still complain about you not wanting something more—which is silly, of course, because your roots are here, and what more is there?”

“Mom—”

“The point is, it’s going to take some concentrated effort. He wants to see if this farm can support you and a family, should you choose to have one. Farming is changing. New Benton is changing. He wants to see this farmers’ market and CSA give you the kind of security the pigs and corn and soybeans do. It’s not wrong he wants to know you’ll be taken care of. I want that, too.”