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“The watermelon is sweet for this early in the season.” Carly wiped a drip of watermelon juice from her chin. “Nana says it’s a Sugartown melon from Beauregard Parish. They’re the best.”
“Yes. Mom would drive as far as she had to for those when we were kids. I remember how happy she was when they put up a roadside stand off the highway between here and Alexandria.” He reached over and grabbed a small ball of ripe, red melon. Despite Carson, their mother had worked hard to make a nice home for them, always doing fun things with her boys.
“Your mom was a nice lady.” Carly smiled as if she was remembering. “One time she came over and brought Momma some yellow roses from her garden. They sat and drank coffee in the kitchen, and I eavesdropped on their conversation.”
“That sounds sneaky.”
Carly laughed out loud. “They were trying to figure out how to keep Jake and Leah from having sex, or how to keep them from getting pregnant maybe. I wasscandalized.”
“Talk about a fly on the wall.”
“So, you know my momma, right? She was all: ‘They need more Jesus!’ And your mother was such a lady about it all. She was like: ‘I’m not sure Jesus is going to fix what’s happening here. Maybe we should make sure they’re being responsible.’”
Tanner was so entertained by Carly. He could picture her hiding and listening to their mothers’ conversation as a young girl. And she was right about the very different perspectives of their mothers. His mom was all about responsibility and kindness.
“Now that we know Momma had a secret baby when she was sixteen, I get why she was so nutty about things like Leah and me having sex as teens. She turned to her religion to absolve her from all her sins, so it makes sense she would’ve done the same when it came to us.”
Tanner nodded. “It does put things into a better perspective now, doesn’t it?”
“If she’d only been able to share her big secret and unburden herself all those years ago, maybe she wouldn’t have ended up such a hot mess.”
“At least y’all know now and can take her past into consideration in certain situations.” Tanner didn’t want to speak harshly about her mother even knowing how oddly Karen Bertrand acted in certain situations.
“You’re too kind.” Carly rolled her eyes. “We appreciate how you and Jake overlook her bad behavior when she gets cranked up.”
“As long as you don’t hold Carson against us.”
“I think it’s time to go back to fishing since you’ve said the ‘C’ word.”
“I think you’re right.”
*
Carly
I couldn’t believehow much fun I was having. I’d always enjoyed fishing, but I was seriously enjoying Tanner’s company. He was funny. This wasn’t the serious, alpha dog I’d always known Tanner to be.
Among our family, he was known to be overly protective, serious, and a bit of a pain when it came to having fun. And though he’d been pleasant since we’d been working together, I’d gotten only glimpses of a different side of his personality. But he’d been stressed since hiring me, so there hadn’t been a lot of opportunity thus far, until today, for Tanner to lighten up.
Today, he’d made the effort to pull back from the stress and dedicate this afternoon to having a nice time. For my sake. I’d been the one pacing and frowning, after all.
By the time we pulled back up to the dock, our live well was almost full to the legal limit with bass, bream, and white perch. We were sweaty, hot, and smelled like fish. It was a little past five o’clock and the sun was dipping below the tree line.
“I’m going to call Jake and Leah to see about getting some help cleaning these. Plus, there’s no way we can eat them all ourselves.” Tanner transferred the still-alive fish to a Styrofoam cooler. They flipped and flopped, and I helped him corral one that almost gained its freedom.
“Do you need me to get some ice for those?” I asked, knowing it was best to clean them almost immediately once they came out of the live well. They could stay on ice for a while, otherwise.
“I grabbed a couple extra bags at the bait store. They’re in the big cooler.”
“Look at you assuming we’d catch something.”
“There’s beer in there too.”
“Win-win.”
“Why don’t you go on home and take a quick shower? I’ll clean the fish and set up the cooking pot.”
A shower sounded marvelous right now. I couldn’t remember the last time I smelled so bad. “Okay, text me a list to bring back from the store.”
