Page 35 of Nixon’s Promise

“Why is everyone on my back?” she shouted.

“Because you’re fucking up. Straight up, Mandy, you’re almost an adult. You don’t have much time to get your shit sorted.” He paused and made sure he had her attention. “You were dealt a blow, losing your mom and dad. I know what that feels like. It’s a pain that I don’t think ever goes away. But it doesn’t give you the right to act like an asshole to everyone around you. Especially not Zack and McKenna. And one more thing, you should be thankful you had a dad and mom that loved you, even if it was taken from you too soon. There are those of us who will never know what a mother’s embrace or love feels like.”

With that, Nixon dropped the subject and spent the next thirty minutes showing Mandy how to muck a stall.

She didn’t complain once. And when he came back in after dumping the second load, Mandy started talking.

“You don’t have a mom?” she asked. All noticeable bitchiness gone.

“Nope. She bailed when I was a little kid. It was always just me and my dad.”

Mandy kept shoveling and asked, “And your dad’s gone, too?”

“Yeah, he died about five years ago.” Nixon fought the urge to rub the knot out of his chest.

“Do you ever visit him?”

“Visit him?”

“Yeah, you know, go to the cemetery?”

Nixon chose his next words carefully. “No, Amanda, I don’t.”

He heard her suck in a lungful of dusty air. “That’s what my dad always called me. Everyone else calls me Mandy. But he always said he gave his beautiful girl a beautiful name, so he always called me Amanda.”

“Did it bother you when I called you Amanda?”

“No. I liked hearing it.” She fell quiet again until he turned to take another load. “Why don’t you visit your dad?”

“Because he was cremated. I brought his ashes back to the farm and scattered them on his land. But even if he was buried, I wouldn’t go to his grave.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t need to. He’s here.” Nix brought his hand to his heart, then tapped his temple. “And here. I think about him every day. I remember what he said to me, what he taught me, how much he loved me, and how proud he was. I don’t need a place to visit to talk to him. When I was in Libya and we were getting the shit shot out of us, I talked to him. When I was in Lebanon looking out over snowy mountain tops, I talked to him. Wherever I was in the world, I knew he was with me. You don’t have to sit in front of a tombstone to talk to your parents. You can do that from anywhere.”

Nixon waited until Mandy nodded her head in understanding. As he started pushing the wheelbarrow, she once again stopped him.

“He doesn’t buy me alcohol. Those are just rumors.”

“Who doesn’t?” he asked, instantly on high alert.

“Richie.”

Richie? Shit, hearing her call Deputy Dirty Dog a nickname made Nix want to hurl.

“He’s nice to me,” Mandy continued, sounding younger than her seventeen years. “And he’s never tried anything…you know…sexual.”

The relief Nixon felt was palpable, though he didn’t feel bad for delivering the ass beating he had. No man should ever be in a teenage girl’s space. And he knew Dick Dillinger, he was a predator. He may not have made his move yet, but he was grooming her. It wasn’t a question of if—it was when. And as long as Nixon had a say, the when would never come.

“Amanda, if you don’t listen to another word I ever tell you, hear this. Dillinger is not a good guy. No man, I mean no man, cages a teenage girl against his truck. You may feel like you’re a woman, but you are not. You’re seventeen. Be seventeen.”

15

I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I totally was.

I was coming into the barn to tell Mandy and Nixon lunch was ready and stopped dead in my tracks when I heard them talking. The polite thing would’ve been to give them privacy. But when I heard Mandy ask Nixon if he visited his dad, I froze.

It was a personal conversation, one I had no business intruding on. There was a twinge of guilt but when my sister mentioned my dad my heart sank. She never talked to me about him. I knew he’d always called her Amanda, I just hadn’t known how much it had meant to her. I had also never taken into consideration she’d want to visit her parents final resting place.