Heartland (True North #7) - Sarina Bowen Page 0,103
don’t need to bring Dad into it.”
“What about Dad?” he demands.
“Jesus Christ. He asked for my help with a tractor tire on the day he died. I didn’t show up. You want a replay on Christmas? I guess I can’t stop you.”
“What?” Griffin gasps, releasing me. “Dad changed a tire? Why?”
“Because—” I put one hand down on the frigid snow and push myself up. “Because I was horsing around with Keith and missed the school bus. So he tried to do it himself. And that was it.” I can’t even bring myself to say the last part out loud. He died trying.
“Mom?” Griff asks. “Is any of that true?”
Exhaustion bleeds through me. Because of course Griffin doesn’t believe me.
“No,” my mother says, stunning me. “Well, Dylan missed the bus. But it didn’t matter. Your father decided hours beforehand not to change the tire. He asked me to call T-Core for a service. They came at noon.”
“What?” I gulp.
And then mom is there in the snow in front of me, on her knees in the cold, and grabbing my hands. “Dylan, it wasn’t your fault. I had no idea you thought so. It was my fault.”
“What?” I repeat. That makes no sense.
“He said he wasn’t feeling well. But I didn’t press. He didn’t eat his lunch, and I thought that was strange. But I was busy doing the payroll and baking three pies. Pecan.”
“You never make pecan,” I say stupidly. Because nothing makes any sense.
“Right,” she whispers, her eyes sad. “I can’t look at a pecan pie anymore. That’s what I was doing when your father went back to the tractor shed to listen to the baseball game on his shop radio. Alone. And I never saw him again alive.”
My body must be shaking, because I hear my teeth chattering. “But the t-tire was there. When I found him.” I saw it with my own eyes, leaning against the wall where he’d left it.
“Whoa. Slow down. You found him?” Griff asks. “Fucking hell. I didn’t know that.” Griffin had been away at the time, training with other would-be football stars.
“He did,” my mother says, tears in her eyes. “It was a horrible thing.”
“I thought…” I can’t quite get the words out. “The tire was right there.”
My mother leans in and puts her arms around me. “The heart attack just took him,” she says. “It wouldn’t have mattered if you made the bus. It wouldn’t have mattered one bit.”
I can hear her words. But my heart can’t quite believe it.
“How come Dylan doesn’t already know this?” Griff asks. “The kid’s been carrying this around for six years?”
The kid. There it is again. But I don’t mind it so much right now.
“I didn’t know,” my mother says, brushing snow out of my hair. “And we’re all carrying it around one way or another.”
I lock my jaw to stop the shaking. And I let my mother help me to my feet.
“Griff,” Daphne says. “I’ll help you with the tire.”
My brother glances toward the tractor shed. “Nah. It can wait. It can all wait. Let’s go inside.”
I glance at the group of people watching from a respectful distance. I shake my head.
“Take a minute,” Mom says. “I’ll say goodnight.” She turns around and walks away from me and Griff.
“I’m so sorry,” Griffin says gently. The way you’d speak to a baby. “I would never have said anything flip about a tire if I knew.”
I shake my head again, and I realize there are tears on my face. How did they get there? I take a deep, shaky breath of cold air.
“You miss him all the time, I bet,” Griff says. Like that’s helping. “I do too. Every day. It used to hit me the worst when I’m in the orchard. But now it’s when I’m holding the baby. I want so badly for Dad to meet him.”
A sob lurches out of my chest. And I sit right down in the snow and cover my face with my hands.
My idiot brother sits down next to me. “I think you’re right about me, by the way. I had this idea that I cared more about everything. You’re awfully good at hiding the things that bother you. Like you’re this fun guy who doesn’t worry that much. It isn’t true though, is it?”
I shrug. “Depends on the day of the week.”
He laughs. And then he wraps an arm around me. “Come inside, okay? I still think we have