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Until then, I let Mom believe I stayed away because I couldn't afford a plane ticket home, because that was also definitely part of the issue.
"Any word yet on your bid for the gym?" Dad asks.
I sigh. "I hate small town gossip."
"Wouldn't have had to rely on gossip if you'd told us about it yourself. You know what it was like for your mother to pretend she already knew about it when Patsy Reid told her?"
Shit. "Sorry. I didn't want to get your hopes up."
"Believe me," Dad says. "I know how these things go. I'm just proud you're going for it. Owning something no one can take from you is the only way to be sure you'll have something to pass down to your kids. You won't be an idiot like me and lose it all to some grifter."
I don't tell him that the daughter of the grifter who took his life savings is trying to buy my gym out from under me. It would only upset him and serve no good purpose.
"That's not your fault, Dad. The only person to blame is Earl Weston."
"He's right, Bruce," Mom says. "It's too bad that man was buried in Las Vegas or I'd spit on his grave."
"Maybe I'll take you there some day to do it." I smile at the thought. "Right now, I've got to get to work or I won't have any shot of getting and keeping the gym." I will get it. Not only because I want to own a gym and have a job no one can take from me, but because Dad will rest easier knowing there's property in the family again, a legacy to provide for his descendants.
Dad walks me to the door and out onto the landing. "I appreciate you buying us groceries, son. But we're not so poor we can't pay for our own food." He holds out a folded fifty-dollar bill.
I lift a hand, palm out. "Groceries are on me this time. Consider it payback for all the family dinners I've missed."
He takes my hand and presses the money into it. "Make it up to me by getting that gym and putting the Winfield name on it."
Some folks might be offended that he wants me to put his last name on the gym rather than mine, but his request makes me smile.
Bruce considers me a Winfield and his name being on the gym is his way of announcing it to the world. After all my fuck-ups and being an all-around shitty son, the gesture means enough to make me tear up.
I wrap Bruce up in a tight hug. "Love you, Dad."
He pats my back. "Love you, too, son."
While I'm hugging him, I slip the fifty into his back pocket.
CHAPTER FIVE
Clover
Memory is a dick. So often, the things I most want to forget stay with me, while the things I try so hard to hold onto float away.
As soon as I work up the nerve and find Ronald Phillips on social media, the memories flood in.
My hand is in my father's as we stand in Ronald Phillips' living room and my father tells them lie after lie after lie. I was ten, looking younger because my father insisted I wear my hair in two braids, along with my flower-patterned t-shirt. I didn't know then that my father was lying.
I believed Dad when he told Mr. Phillips and his wife about the two-hundred-acre adventure park on the outskirts of town. I didn't have to act when I told the Phillips how long this adventure park had been my father's dream, because Dad had convinced me it had been.
He'd also convinced me I was a natural salesperson, able to persuade anyone to do anything. Said he'd seen it in the way I manipulated my sisters into giving me the last piece of pie or the way I lied to Mom about who broke her favorite vase. That's how he drew me in - he promised not to tell Mom about the vase if I helped him with his sales calls.
When Dad told the Phillips an architect had drawn the plans for the park based on Dad's ideas, I nodded and told them how many hours Dad had worked with the architect. I knew that was a lie. My cousin Keating drew the plans all on his own.
Like memories, lies are muddy, woven together of truth and fantasy. My father told me so many times that he'd given Keating the idea to build adventure parks and that he and Keating had created the plans together, the lie became a memory for me. One I believed because I trusted my daddy.
The lie about the architect was what my father called a necessary obfuscation. He told me the plans were good, and we'd hire an architect just as soon as we had enough money. Then the lie wouldn't be a lie anymore. And I wouldn't be a liar.
Someone knocks on my door and I shut my laptop so hard, I pinch a finger. I suck on it as I cross the room and open my bedroom door to Dani. "The kids are washed and ready for their yoga class. Where do you want them?"
I push thoughts of Ronald and Dad to the back of my mind so I can focus on what I need to do. "I'd love to film this for my socials and the front yard with that huge old Elm would be the prettiest spot. Twenty-five folks signed up, so we need a lot of space."
