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Sam shook his head. “
Josh, you’ve always been fair with me. I’m not worried about it. You just take care of Sophie. Is that all?”
“That is all.”
Sam got out of his chair. “It’s my night with the kids. I’m picking them up and taking them for pizza.” He smiled at Josh.
“Enjoy. I know you don’t get enough time with the boys.”
The two of them shook hands. Sam hesitated at the door. “Josh, just let me know if I can do anything to help you or Sophie. I mean it.”
He appreciated that. “Thanks Sam.”
Josh took his seat. His phone rang, and he was surprised to find his daughter on the other end when he answered. Ally was still struggling with her mother’s illness. He had talked to her a lot over the last few days since Sophie told her about the cancer.
“You need to call your mom,” he told his daughter first thing after saying hello.
“She needs to do a lot of things,” Ally complained.
Josh sighed. “Ally, she’s sick.”
“Dad, I want to come home.”
He knew that his daughter was crying and the one thing in this world that broke Josh Russack was either of his women crying. “Ally, you need to stay there.” He rubbed his eyes with a weariness that he felt to his bones.
“Why, because Mom says so?” She barked at him.
She had her mother’s spunk when she needed it, but she was calm like him most of the time. She had her mother’s stubbornness too. It wouldn’t surprise him to find her home, one day, boxes and all.
He chuckled at that thought but if it happened Josh wouldn’t be laughing because his wife would be livid. “There isn’t anything you can do here besides worry with the rest of us. At least at school, you are being productive.”
Ally huffed at him. Josh understood her frustration. He would hate being so far away and waiting for someone to tell him how things were going. She had already complained that she was having trouble focusing, in class and on the field.
He heard Miguel’s crew arriving. He hated to hang up on Ally but soon Miguel would join him in the office. He had to talk to him next. Sam’s talk went very well so he expected Miguel’s to go just fine.
“Ally, I have to go. Miguel is coming in the office to speak with me. I love you, baby. I can call you back on the way home.”
“No thank you, Dad. You aren’t hearing me any more than Mom did. I want to come home.”
He sighed into the phone. “Ally, baby…I hear you. Why stress Mom out more than she is.”
His daughter sniffed back her tears. “It’s all right, Daddy. I’ll take care of me. You take care of Mom.”
“That’s my girl. I love you Ally.”
“Love you too.” Then she was gone just as Miguel walked into the office. He laid his phone down on the desk.
“Miguel, how did today go?”
“Just fine. We finished ahead of time and helped Sam with his second job.”
“That’s great. I appreciate all your hard, work. You’ve come a long way since you were eighteen and started working for me.”
Miguel chuckled. “Thanks, Josh. I appreciate that.”
“Want to sit down for a minute?”
Miguel took the same comfortable, guest chair that Sam had. Sophie had picked them out. Miguel’s dad was Hispanic, and his mom a hodgepodge of many ancestries classified as Caucasian. She had passed away when Miguel was seventeen which is why he had been prone to giving Josh trouble when he started working for him at eighteen, but Josh had faith in him and stuck it out until Miguel became someone that he relied on and trusted.
