this feeling. I hadn’t felt it in a long time, so it took me a minute to recognize it.
I needed to play.
I needed to write.
I needed music.
I grabbed my keys off the ring and Dug trotted beside me back out to the front yard. I clicked the fob and heard the chirp of my door being unlocked. My heart was pounding wildly in my chest as I opened the passenger side door and lowered the seat.
Dug started to jump in, thinking we were going for a drive. “No. Down.”
He landed back on his paws and looked up at me with a confused look on his face. I reached in and grabbed the case and pulled it out.
As soon as I walked back inside, I heard my phone in the back room. I set the case down and went down the hall to retrieve it, hoping that it would be Sasha responding to my pathetic text.
When I picked it up, I saw that it was a text from Jackson asking if I wanted to meet him and JJ for drinks later. If I didn’t go out tonight, I’d just be sitting at home wondering what Sasha was doing, so I figured it was probably for the best.
I told him I’d be there and walked back to the front room. Before I made it down the hall, Dug was barking. My pulse sped at the thought that Sasha might be on the other side of it.
When I opened the door and didn’t find her standing on my porch, I was disappointed. Which was ridiculous. She’d left my bed just a few hours ago.
I was also surprised because my dad was standing there. I could count, on one hand, the number of times that he’d shown up at my house alone, without my mom. It was twice to be exact. Once, he wanted me to help him shop for an anniversary gift for my mom. And the second time was after I got hired at the fire station, he took me out for a drink.
That was it. The totality of drop-ins my dad had done.
As I saw him standing on my porch, it hit me what an intimidating man he could be to people who didn’t know him. Walker Briggs was large in stature. He was six foot four and all muscle. He was the sort of strong that men got from working fields not from going to the gym lifting weights.
Growing up, I’d been closer to my mom, but I’d idolized my father. I think all of my brothers did. He was a good, hard-working man, who loved his family, and most of all loved his wife. Besides his work ethic I would say how he treated and treats my mom were the main things I’d tried to emulate.
He adored my mom. When she walked in a room, he lit up. Every night, when he’d come in from the fields, he’d hug her and tell her how much he missed her. She’d usually smile and say something like, “I fed you lunch a few hours ago.” But anyone who knew my dad knew that didn’t matter to him. The moment she wasn’t with my dad, he missed her.
I’d always held their relationship up as the gold standard of what I wanted, and what I’d thought I’d had with Rachel. I hadn’t.
“Hey, Pop. What’s up?”
“Can I come in?”
“Oh, yeah. Sure.” I stepped back and my father came in and reached down to pet Dug’s head before he sat down on the couch. He leaned forward resting his forearms on his knees.
Alarm bells were ringing in me. This was very unusual behavior. Was he sick? Was my mom sick? Had something happened with one of my siblings or the farm?
“Is everything okay?” I stayed standing by the door even after I’d shut it.
“Yeah, I just wanted to talk to you. Take a seat.”
The last time my dad had told me to take a seat, it was when he found out that I was dropping out of college senior year. I was trying to think about what I would have done to upset him as I walked over and sat down across from him in the recliner.
“I, uh, ran into Rachel at the feed store.”
The feed store? What in the hell was she doing at the feed store? She’d never even had a dog.
My expression must’ve shown my confusion because he clarified, “She was coming out from gettin’ her hair done.”
That tracked. The Best Little