the rough bar top in need of a strip and a polish.
How Dad managed to save the place from going completely under, I don’t know, but he sure didn’t throw any work into it once it was safe.
“Landry, kid, there’s a lot you don’t know or understand.”
Rusty slurps at his peach drink through his straw, his lips damp and shaky. I can’t help but feel sorry for the guy, sitting in this place, drinking what might be the worst drink on the planet as some sort of sad tribute to his late wife.
This is, hands down, the most depressing holiday ever.
“Care to educate me?” I ask, letting my eyes take in other details that make me grimace; cobwebs in corners, the burnt out lights in the exit sign, the grimy mats behind the bar.
“What are you so upset about?”
Rusty presses his bushy eyebrows low over his bloodshot eyes, and I take a minute to appreciate how weird it is that a man this gnarled and ugly is drinking a beverage usually reserved for hot young coeds. And then I feel like a jerkoff for making fun of his tribute drink, even if it’s only in my head.
I raise my shoulders and let them fall again. “I’m not upset, Rust. I’m just sick and tired of being made to feel like the asshole of the family because I didn’t want to hand over the cash my dad needs to save this dump.”
Rusty inhales deeply, then holds it for a long time, before letting the breath out. It’s almost torturous sitting there, waiting for his reaction.
“Do you know why Murphy’s almost went under?”
“Because my Dad can’t manage a business.”
I state it matter-of-factly, though I really have no clue how things got so bad, so fast with this place. We always had a nice home, with food on the table and clothes on our backs, and then, out of nowhere, things were tight and Dad was about to lose the family business. I never really stopped to wonder where the hell the money went or why.
Rusty shakes his head back and forth and stares into the bright peach liquid in his cup.
“When Karen was diagnosed with leukemia, it was at the worst possible time. Not that there’s ever a good time, you know, but for us, it was really bad. Financially, I mean.”
I can feel the acid rising in my throat, choking me up. I’m not completely heartless. Losing Granddad was the hardest thing I’d ever been through. I can’t imagine being in Rusty’s shoes and losing the person I’d shared a bed with for twenty years.
“I’d just gone back to work after being off for almost a year after I had my back surgery, and we’d used up all our savings. Karen never thought twice about it, even though she was a hard ass about budgeting. She just wanted me to rest and not stress about hurrying back to work. She was always the healthy one, you know? Eating that organic stuff and running in the mornings. I should have been the one to get a sickness, not her.”
The tips of my ears are getting hot like they always do when I’m nervous. And all I want to do is beg Rusty not to say what I think he’s going to.
“I had to keep working fulltime to keep benefits for Karen. She had to be able to keep her same doctors, that was important. But some days, after a round of chemo, I had to take off work to take care of her, and I’d lose pay. It was hard, Landry. Those doctor visits and co-pays and tests and drug costs...it was just too much for us. And I never wanted Karen to know we were struggling as bad as we were, because that saint of a woman let us blow through our life savings because I had a backache for Christ’s sake.”
Don’t say it, Rusty.
“And that’s when your dad stepped in. Tommy and I have been friends since we weren’t even tall enough to see over this bar, you know that,” he says. He pats his palm on the wooden top of the bar as I grip it to steady myself. “He saw how badly we were struggling and offered to help. ‘Course, my pride stopped me from letting him do it at first, but after a while, I didn’t have any other choice. Landry, I would have done anything, anything, if it meant getting Karen the care she needed. And