The Territory A Novel - By Tricia Fields Page 0,107
was right in the head, just ready to jump in there and be mother of the year?”
Josie consciously lowered her voice, slowed her speech, and tried to de-escalate the tension. “I was eight. You were an adult. When things get tough, sometimes you need to suck it up and put on a show. First you convince other people you can handle it, and then you convince yourself.”
“And did your eight-year-old little mind notice that I did it for us? To get us by? I’d never worked a day in my life! I had no skills. I couldn’t type, couldn’t run a cash register, couldn’t do shit!”
Josie took a breath. “Okay, this is pointless. Maybe someday we can work through this. Not now, though. I’m glad you made it back home.”
Her mother remained silent.
“I’ll talk to you later.” Josie hesitated, heard nothing on the other end, and slowly closed her cell phone.
The conversation burned her insides like battery acid. Even after so many years, she recognized the feeling; she always felt this way after talking to her mother, no matter the topic, and no matter the time between conversations. She had no doubt her mom had the same experience. The only consolation was that it was an improvement over the last two years of silence.
She dialed the hospital and discovered Dell had checked himself out at ten o’clock the night before. She needed a dose of Dell to get herself out of her own head.
* * *
Dressed in khaki shorts, a pink tank top, and her favorite pair of walking boots, Josie called Chester, and they set out behind the house through Dell’s pasture. The sky was a brilliant blue, the sun not quite high enough to burn.
She found him outside in his ratty jean shorts and cowboy boots, bare chested, sitting on a stump by a fire pit twenty feet from the front of his cabin. He grinned up at her and tossed a few more twigs onto the small fire.
“You think just because you live by a cop that you don’t have to abide the burn ban?”
His grin widened. “I got a doctor’s excuse. You know the medical marijuana they use over in California? Well, I got medical fire prescribed for me.”
Chester shoved his nose up under Dell’s hand until he rubbed the dog’s ears.
“I hear you made a run for it last night,” she said.
“I couldn’t take that place. The smell was horrible. It’s supposed to smell clean. Does the smell of chemicals smell clean to you?” He sat up straight, breathed deep, and exhaled with a smile. “This is clean. Smell that mesquite smoke? That’s what’ll cure me. Right here in my own front yard.”
Josie sat across from him on a stump that had long ago been designated her own. “I’m sorry I got you involved in that mess.”
He glared at her. “Now, don’t go and piss me off. Treat me like some old man who can’t make a decision for himself. I went because I wanted to. End of discussion.”
She nodded. “Fair enough.”
“Let me tell you something. I don’t like this kind of talk, so I’ll make it quick. I was proud to know you the other night. You showed a lot of grit out there. You have honor and integrity, and there aren’t too many people I’d say that about.”
She let the words settle around her. A lump formed in her throat, and she swallowed hard to keep the emotion out of her voice. “I can see it in other people. I try, but I can’t see it in myself. I never feel like I quite get there.”
“That’s the way it’s supposed to be. It keeps you working on being better.” Dell leaned forward and tossed a few more gnarled chunks of mesquite onto the fire. “Here’s the thing. If we could see ourselves like other people do, it’d do one of two things. We’d either have an ego inflated so big, we’d explode, or we’d be shocked to find out how much people hated us. Either way, it’d kill us. That’s why the movie stars are so screwed up. People aren’t hardwired to hear all that nonsense. One day they’re brilliant; the next, they’re a has-been. Nobody ought to hear that. You keep plugging away in life and keep trying to do better by your own standards. You don’t worry about what your mom or the mayor or anybody else has to say. You’ll be just fine.”
Dell paused and stood suddenly, claiming he needed