the three new ones. Thanks for helping out.”
Dr. Brown had asked, but the task was non-negotiable. James weighed his summer commitments. Buy a house. Repair it. Truck hay to south Florida with Bobby. Teach summer school. And, least he forget, farming. He understood Dr. Brown’s desire to smooth the way for new hires, and he didn’t object to the added responsibility, but how to fit it all in? He already had too much on his plate. But never would he refuse a Dr. Brown request. Their association began back when he had enrolled as freshman at the community college, and Dr. Brown appointed himself as mentor.
Crossing the threshold to his parents’ farmhouse, he walked into aromas of supper. Savory scents of roast beef made his hunger churn. Homemade creamed corn and zipper peas, his mother’s prizewinning dishes, simmered on the stove. A large bowl of her signature carrot and raisin salad with sliced bananas, just like he liked it, waited for delivery to the dining room table. A feast only made for special occasions.
“I’m starving,” he said.
“Son, when have you ever been anything but hungry?” his mother, Emmeline, teased. Standing on a stepstool, she pulled her fine china down from a tall kitchen cabinet. “Come over here and help your poor mother.”
When she took a good look at him, she drew back and refused to hand over the plates. “You don’t have clean hands. Don’t touch.” She gingerly climbed down from the stepstool with the plates, and then clunked them against granite on the kitchen island.
Granny, his mother’s mother, sat at the other end of the counter and smiled up at him. He grinned as she added buttermilk into in her big wooden biscuit-making bowl. With practiced efficiency, her hands swirled flour, Crisco, and buttermilk into dough. He never sat down to a meal at home when biscuits weren’t on the table. He kissed her cheek. “You’re my favorite girl.”
“Oh, you go on, now,” Granny said.
“Yes, you go on now. Look at you!” His mother scrunched her face as if he were trash too dirty for even the garbage man to pick up. “You’ve got five minutes to take a shower and get your be-hind at the dinner table. Now go!” She swatted at him playfully with a dishtowel, but it would never touch him. His mother never allowed dirt in her kitchen, ever.
Before leaving, he squeezed the tops of Granny’s shoulders. “You’re lookin’ lovely tonight. I’d ask you to go dancing, but the Queen has spoken, so let me take my be-hind out of here, if I have any hope of eating. Do you think she’d torture me by starving me if I don’t shower first?”
“You charmer. Dancing, really. Get washed for supper.”
He saluted, then pushed on the swinging door that separated the kitchen from the formal dining room. When he entered the living room, the lively discussion between his father and grandfather stopped. The two men straightened in their seats like boys guilty of mischief. He glanced from side to side at each of them as he headed to the hall.
His father, Cedrick, seated in his worn favorite easy chair next to the fireplace, cleared his throat loudly. The sound alone begged attention from even the most clueless of person. Something was up.
He winked at his grandfather. “How are things today, Papa? I offered to take your girl dancing, but she turned me down.” Then, he turned to his father, “Hello, sir.” Not waiting for a response, he continued the long walk across the wide living room. “Seems you’ve had a busy day, son.” The amusement in his father’s voice snagged him. He stopped at the entrance to the hall.
“I’m busy most days, sir.” He turned. The back of the easy chair greeted him; his father gazed out the window.
What now?
He glanced in Papa’s direction. The old man pointed his knurled finger repeatedly in the air as though thumping it at Cedrick’s chest. “Just out with it!”
“Fine. Wade Addington called here look’n for you ’bout a house.”
James frowned. His secret was out.
“You think you want to tackle something like that?” Papa asked. “It’s a big undertaking.” The old man’s narrowed eyes disappeared into the wrinkles on his face. To Papa, hard work defined a man, no matter if he had money or not. Farming was all Papa knew, along with hunting to put food on the table. He’d complained more than once that he couldn’t understand anyone who wanted to live in Lakeview, let alone move to a