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“Well, I ain’t doing it on my own, so if you can’t step up and take care of your part, then it’ll be on your head.”
Sunny shook his head. “Mama, that man spent eighteen years telling me what a disappointing, pathetic son I was. I don’t owe him anything.”
“And what about me?” she shouted as she whirled to look at him, slamming her knife down on the counter, her breathing heavy.
“Did you ever step in and tell him he shouldn’t treat me that way?”
“Of course, I—” She stopped and looked back at the pile of chopped potatoes. “Just go talk to him,” she said, her voice hoarse.
“I will, Mama, but only to say goodbye.”
He left the kitchen and went to the living room where his father always spent his time if he wasn’t working. The man had aged poorly. A few wisps of white hair clung to his head, his once powerful body appeared shrunken, and a cane leaned against the side of the recliner.
Sunny sat down in the other recliner, which squeaked. His father’s eyes popped open. Rayford Sr. squinted at him for several seconds before snorting and reaching for his cane.
“Finally come crawling home, did you?” the old man rasped.
Sunny shook his head. “No, Mama called me. Said you weren’t doing well. I’m here to pay my respects.”
Another snort. “Respects, eh?”
Sunny swallowed hard, then continued. “She said you hurt your hip?”
“I’m fine,” he said as he struggled to get the recliner back to upright.
Sunny reached out a hand to help him, and his father whacked the back of his hand with the wooden cane. Sunny clenched his teeth but refused to let any sound leave his lips.
His father’s grin was full of malice. “Well, at least the army beat the weakness out of you.”
“Being a Ranger does that.”
His father scoffed. “The army must be a bigger bunch of fools than I thought.”
After this many years, the derision in his father’s voice shouldn’t cut him as deep as it did, but Sunny still had to look away so the man wouldn’t see the pain on his face.
He wasn’t the scrawny kid who preferred books to fishing and hunting anymore. His time in the drama club instead of playing sports was no longer a source of embarrassment for his father. No one would dream of trying to push him around anymore, except the man sitting in front of him right now.
“Your thoughts are your own, but I’ll thank you to keep your goddamn mouth shut about my brothers. At least I retired instead of being shown the door.”
His father tried and failed to jump to his feet and Sunny felt a grim satisfaction in that.
“You dare speak to me—”
“I’ll speak to you any way I want. Nothing I’ve ever done was good enough and I’ll be damned if I’m going to stay here and listen to you tell me what a failure I am.”
“I always knew I chose wrong,” the old man mumbled under his breath. His next few words were too low to hear, and then his volume picked up again. “…is a Seal. That’s where I should have stayed.”
His father stared out the window for several long minutes and Sunny decided that was as good as it was going to get. He stood up, the old recliner squawking in protest.
The old man’s head snapped around and he glared at him. “What the fuck are you doing here? I told you I don’t give a fuck about your grades. Aren’t you even going to bother going out for that football team? No, probably not. They’d squash you like a bug.”
Sunny stared at his dad until the man shook his head and looked up at him. “Who the hell are you? Why are you in my house? Does this have something to do with Ford?” his father asked.
“Who’s Ford, Dad?”
“I thought you knew him.”
Sunny wracked his brain trying to come up with someone local who had that name, but he couldn’t come up with anyone.
