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“Okay, Dad,” she said so quietly it was a mere octave above a whisper.
I sent her off and turned to head to the kitchen. God knew I needed a drink.
Sarah and Marcella, our housekeeper, or Ella as we called her, were there, putting the last touches on dinner. Ella was basting a turkey while Sarah was dicing some tomatoes for a salad.
“Any coffee on tap?” I asked, looking around the room. “Blacker than a coal mine and probably as bitter?”
Ella looked sympathetic while she moved to the coffee pot. “How is Sam doing?”
“Not so well.” I raked my hand through my hair. “She got into a fight today, and the reasons behind it are a bit…odd. Anyway—” I took the cup Ella handed me and nodded my thanks, “— I’ll be getting to the bottom of it today…hopefully. Wish me luck.”
“Will the girls be having dinner at the same time?” Sarah asked.
“Yes,” I replied while heading to my study. “That hasn’t changed.”
Inside my office, I set the coffee to the side, booted up my computer, and took out a few files. While the calving season was from January to April, many ranches sought premium bull semen year-round, and to my amazement, just last week, the manager of Twisted Twines’ ranch, the owner of Tender T’s steaks, had reached out to me. Those cuts came from steers, and they wanted about forty thousand straws of Angus semen to replenish their stock—to start.
It was not the price we offered that made me so happy to do business with them. It was the connection with such a predominant company. My humble ranch in contract with them would take my name worldwide.
I worked through the afternoon, headed to the dining table for dinner, and met Sam and Harper there. Harper was telling Sarah—and, by association Sam—about her upcoming spelling bee, where the winner would win a small basket of candy and stickers.
Sam was eating but soon enough began pushing the rest of her food around her plate, and I felt my heart sink a little at seeing how sad she was. I finished my food and ducked into the kitchen to grab a few drink bottles before rejoining them.
“Are you finished, Harper?” I asked, and when she nodded, I added, “Go with Sarah and do your homework. Sam and I are going to talk a little, okay.”
Harper looked at her sister first—more proof that my little girl saw her sister as her hero and role model—before she looked at me. “O-okay.”
She headed to her room with Sarah following her, and I handed Sam a drink before saying, “Let's head out, okay.”
* * *
At the metal bench near the pond’s edge, I gazed out at the sky; not a single cloud marred the endless blue sky while wildflowers, filled with the Yellow Rose of Texas bushes, dotted the landscape, their lemony heads nodding in the gentle breeze. Rainbow-colored birds fluttered around the various trees we had hung bird feeders, too, from the oak and maple branches, all around the perimeter.
Sam was sitting beside me, her hands clenching the edge of the bench, and I breathed deeply of the fresh air to banish the confusion in my heart as I surveyed the land. The lake gleamed in the sunshine, ready to be stocked for fishing, and black-bellied ducks sailed along peacefully on the calm waters.
“Sam—”
“I’m sorry,” she exclaimed. “I never meant to hurt Tyler.”
Surprised but not displeased, I used the opening she gave me. “Why did you punch Tyler? I’m told he is one of your friends?”
“He might not be anymore,” she mumbled with a shrug. “I dunno.”
“You don’t know why you punched him?” I asked. “C’mon, Sammie, you must know why you lashed out. Tell me. I promise I’m not mad.”
When she kept silent, I decided to do what Miss Everett had told me. Looking out to the peacefully lapping water, I admitted, “You want me to tell you a secret? When I was eleven, my dad told me to clean and take a hay bale to the cows half a mile away. I thought I was smarter than him, so I gassed up the old rickety tractor, lugged the bale into the loader, and drove it out. I thought I was all grown up, but I had not remembered a two-foot ditch just before a waterspout in the back pasture.
“Long story, my dad found me knocked out in the pasture while the tractor was upended, its wheels spinning in the air, and the cows munching hay off my forehead,” I said. “I had the worst goose egg on my head and was banned from picking up eggs for a month.”
She laughed. “It's hard to think about you doing something silly.”
I snorted. “That was the low monkey on my totem pole of silly. The thing is, sometimes, Sam, we don’t think things through before we do them. Do you think that might be what happened with you and Tyler?”
“…No,” she said.
I cocked my head at her hesitant tone. “You don’t think so, or are you not sure?”
Her shoulders were hunched. “I dunno, Dad, I just…it just happened.”
