I wondered if Mr. Mathers was correct and then anger stewed somewhere deep in my belly. Did I lose the chance to reconcile with my father because Tiffany refused his last request to have me brought to him?
I shook that thought off. My father should have reached out before he got sick. Like, the minute he found out I left for the Army, he should have tried to find me, to get in touch. At some point, at least when basic training was over, someone could have gotten word to me that he tried to reach out. I had so many questions and I didn’t think Mr. Mathers had the answers I needed. The only person who did was dead and couldn’t give them to me anyway.
My heart ached for the missed moments with my father that I could never get back. Anger simmered with resentment, disappointment, and sadness over the fact that those moments weren’t gone for good reasons. They were just thrown away, tossed aside, and ignored because my father made a mistake with Tiffany and couldn’t own up to it. A brief flash of graduation day, when James yelled at me about not being a good friend to Simone - his wife. I wondered if he was following in my father’s footsteps. It took me a long time to see it, but Simone was very much like my stepmother. She chose calculation over angry outbursts as her weapon, but it all ended the same. Another woman in my life who took and took and took until there was nothing left she could get her hands on.
My dad lived to regret his decision, but not long enough to fix it. I wondered if the same would be true for James some day? I hadn’t seen him in eight years, since the day he chewed me out for not being there to stand up beside Simone when she married the boy I had harbored an unrequited love for - for years. Even if I had found it in my heart - or in stupidity - to forgive her, how the hell could he expect me to be there for her and watch her marry my crush? That was the epitome of selfish thinking.
I had my father’s wake to attend, and a fight over rights to my mother’s land to deal with because I had no doubt in my mind that the bitch would take me to court to contest the Will, especially after she received that eviction notice. Luckily,it was buried in the information presented to me that my father had the forethought to have his lawyer go through the house and land with video equipment and take stock of the condition everything was in. I would make a point to take her to court for everything that ended damaged or missing that shouldn’t have been. Chances were, she didn’t have a pot to piss in outside of the little bit my father left her, so she would have to fork back over the other five acres of land as payment if she destroyed anything on her way out.
9.THE WAKE
CASSIDY
True to his word,I was the only one there to watch as my father was laid to rest beside my mother, at his request. Good to know he at least never forgot she was the true love of his life. I wondered what his reception was going to be like in the afterlife? My mother was not an easy woman to deal with when you let her down, and as far as her only child was concerned, my father had dropped the ball big time with me. She wouldn’t tolerate that. I hoped she was still giving him a piece of her mind as I stood beside his coffin and listened to Reverend Jacobs as he said kind words about my father.
“Did you want to say anything?”
I shook my head. “Anything that needed to be said between my father and I was lost a long time ago. He isn’t here to listen or answer my questions, and honestly, that isn’t much of a change from when he was alive.”
I turned to leave but a touch on my shoulder drew me back. “I know it’s hard to forgive, but if you can find a way to be at peace with the mistakes your father made, it will lift a burden from your shoulders.”
“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind,” I told him before I took off for the wake. I didn’t have to go, but one of my good friendsconvinced me that I needed to see every bit of this trip home through to the end, so that I didn’t have any regrets when it was all said and done. I hoped like hell Collette was right.
The minute I walked in, a smile spread over my face. “You have got to be kidding me?” The men who used to work for my father on our ranch and a few of his friends I’d met over the years, including his lawyer, were all there to lift a glass in a toast the minute I walked through the door.
“Michael would be so proud of you, Cassidy. He wanted us to make a toast have a drink to celebrate the little girl who left home and also the soldier who came back for him in the end when he didn’t deserve it.” Mr. Mathers could have kicked me in the gut and done less damage. I managed to keep my emotions from showing as I offered each of the men I’d once known a smile and a warm hug or pat on the back.
“Been too long.”
“We understand.”
“Your father was a fool who realized too late,” Mitch Thompson said. He had been my dad’s right hand at work, but by the time my mom passed and Tiffany came on the scene, I didn’t see much of him because I stayed as far out of the way as possible. Every time I got near my dad, Tiffany would take it out on me later somehow. I learned quickly to stay unseen and my father seemed just fine with watching me disappear. “Missed you, kiddo.”
“Missed you, too, Mitch.”
“You get the land?”
“Most of it,” I said.
“Then I’ll keep working it while everything goes through probate. Bitch hasn’t paid any of us for work in a good long while, though. Most of the men had to look for work elsewhere.”
“How strong is the herd?”
“I can handle it for now. We cut back a bit when your dad fell ill, but we still bring in good money.”
“Does it go to her? Mr. Mathers didn’t mention anything about the business funds.”
“Business funds transfer with the land and we don’t do any business on the land that bitch was given.”
I smirked at him. “If you already knew the land was mine, why’d you ask?”
He grinned. “Pretty sure you forgot how everyone in a small town knows pretty much everything.” He winked.
“Bet you didn’t know the house and that half of the property have been in my name since my mom passed.”
He jerked back like I’d hit him. “Are you shitting me?”
“I am not shitting you,” I said as I grabbed the beer out of his hand and downed it.
