Page 107 of Rhodes

"Then I'd like to sit down with your grandfather about it. Not on the phone, in a room." A pause, and I can hear him tapping something against his desk. "If Wilkins tells me the credit piece holds up, I want you in the room when I sit down with your grandfather."

I look at a live oak across the quad and realize I can't feel my hands.

"I can come home this weekend," I say. "I can drive if there aren't any flights."

"You've got school."

"I can miss a Monday. I just need to be back Tuesday afternoon." I leave the rest of that sentence where it is. "Tuesday afternoon and I'm fine."

"Then let me see what your grandfather's got going on. Saturday or Sunday would be perfect, I think, but just let me check in with him." He clears his throat. "Bring the whole package with you. Paper copies. He won't look at a screen."

"I was going to mail him a set today."

"Don't waste the postage. Bring it with you, but I'll go over it with him before, so he'll have the gist. He'll take it better from your hand than from a mailbox."

We say a few more things, but I don't hear most of them.

I sit on the wall in front of the library for a while after we hang up, leaving my phone facedown on my knee. This has all happened so fast, and we are still not even close to the June deadline. Is this really happening?

I skip Staples, anxious to do something to let out this nervous excitement. I pull up flights on the way to the car, thumbing through everything under four hundred dollars. Everything connects through Atlanta and gets in at midnight. That's better than a brutal round-trip drive.

I get in, put the phone in the cupholder, and it goes off again before I've got the key turned.

It's Dad again.

"Hey," I say, smiling into the phone. "Did Grandbank already ca⁠—"

"What did you do?"

It's not a question as much as an accusation. Four flat words have none of the warmth that was in his voice eleven minutes ago.

"What are you talking about? Nothing, except check some flights."

"I just spoke with Wilkins. The Corps has reopened the wetland delineation on Oak Moss." Something scrapes on his end, a chair going back. "The permits are suspended now. All of them, as of this morning."

"Suspended." My mouth keeps working while the rest of me doesn't. "For how long? I don't understand."

"Who the hell knows? Tilly, why would you do this?" He's breathing hard through his nose. "You've stabbed yourself by doing this, you know. Until they settle where that line is, nothing happens on that property. Not a bulkhead, not your shoreline, not one more goddamned oyster off that bottom. Wilkins says the leases are inside the same water. Do you understand what I'm telling you? The whole piece of property is frozen."

There is suddenly not enough air in my truck, but I don't start it or open the window.

"I didn't do this, Dad."

"Who else wants it stopped?"

"Daddy—"

"You had a survey crew walking that ground, producing this goddamned report, going on for the better part of two months, telling me every reason that development shouldn't happen." His voice climbs and then flattens out, which is worse.

"All of that is true, but I would never sabotage you or Grandbank. I thought we were all working in good faith. I never⁠—"

"The worst part is, I was leaning your way after what you just told me. Why couldn't you just leave it be?"

He's not listening to anything I'm telling him.

"I know you did. That's my whole point. Why would I⁠—"

"You're manipulative, Tilly. That's why."