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“None. Sophie texted me.”
Laughter barked out of me, my joy so deep that the corners of my eyes stung. “Goddamn that child.”
“I’m sorry, Keaton,” she said, her eyes cast down. “If it wasn’t for me, none of this would have happened.”
“It would have eventually—I’ve been skimming off that money for too long. It was only a matter of time until Mitchell flexed. I didn’t … I didn’t want them to know we were in trouble. But if they’d known? Well, then this wouldn’t have happened. None of this is your fault.”
“Doesn’t feel that way.”
“It is. I thought all this time that the only way to take care of everyone was to suffer. To endure. The less I had, the more I could give them. I didn’t … maybe I didn’t trust them to be able to handle it like they did. Too often I think about them as the punk-ass kids we were when Mom died. But they’re not. I should have trusted them. And I never should have touched Mitchell’s money.”
“And it only took your brothers waterboarding you to get you to figure it out.”
“She told you about that too, huh?”
Daisy nodded, stifling laughter.
“You wish you’d seen it, don’t you?”
She nodded again, letting that laughter loose. For a second at least—I swallowed her laughter with a long and deep kiss, thick with possession and gratitude and awe.
The sound of vehicles approaching broke the kiss, and I turned, confused.
Because trucks and a few cars of various sizes were filing onto my property, parking in the lawn and anywhere else they could find.
“What the hell?” I asked, stupefied.
Daisy wound an arm around my waist and watched the parade with a look of knowing on her face. “So, you know how you needed that money to save your business?”
Frowning, I nodded.
“Well, I might have made a few calls.”
Every car door that opened revealed the face of a member of our town, heading in our direction with wallets in hand and thanks on their lips. Stunned, I stood in front of my family’s home as those people I’d helped began to crowd, handing over cash and checks and words of affirmation. Someone crowed Fuck Mitchell! which was followed by waves of laughter, snapping me to my senses.
“Hold on,” I said, but either no one heard me, or they ignored me. “Hold on!” I shouted.
They quieted, and I looked them over in wonder.
“What in the world are y’all doin’?”
Pastor Coleburn stretched to his full height and said in his Sunday service voice, “Keaton Meyer, this town owes you a great debt, a debt beyond words. But not a debt beyond action. We’re here because you’ve helped every single one of us in some way. You’ve saved this town time and time again in small ways, sometimes in magnificent ways. And we won’t let you go under.”
The throng of my town family cheered and began handing money over again. I couldn’t catch it fast enough.
“I can’t … I can’t take this,” I said, scrambling to gather it all up. It just kept on coming.
Daisy stood next to me, collecting their offerings with her cheeks high and flushed.
“Sure you can, Keaton,” Chris, one of our foremen, said. “If it wasn’t for my job with you, I don’t know what I woulda’ done. I was one foot out of jail when you found me. Now I’ve got a wife, a baby, a house—I never could have done it.” He handed over a check for five hundred dollars.
I shook my head, uncomprehending.
Jensen, my buddy from the police department, said, “When my pipes busted a couple years ago right before Christmas, you came in the middle of the night and fixed everything yourself, wouldn’t even take money for it, knowing we didn’t have it. So I owe you for labor and interest.” Smiling, he passed me a wad of bills that I stared at stupidly.
“I can’t take this,” I said to my hands. It was the only sentence I could recall.
“Yes, you can,” Daisy said. “All your sacrifice, all you’ve done … this town loves you, Keaton. You helped when you didn’t have to, even when it was to your detriment. Even when you had to lean on Mitchell’s money to stay afloat, and for no other reason than it was the right thing to do. Let us take care of you this time.”
I shook my head to clear it, but it did no use. Would my father have taken the money? If it meant saving everything, I had to believe he wasn’t too proud to accept help from those he’d helped. But when faced with these people I knew so well, some who had so little, I couldn’t bear to let them sacrifice on my account.
“Take the money, you proud son of a bitch!” somebody shouted from the back, setting another chuckle through the crowd.
