Riding Tall (13 page)

“I guess, yeah. Nothing too fancy, though. We raise beef, so I can do a lot with red meat. Potatoes and frozen vegetables with it. I guess I kind of cook like I’m living in the seventies.”

“It wasn’t a bad decade,” she said with a smile. “And Scott? He helps you cook?”

“Sometimes. He usually helps with cleanup.”

She nodded in apparent approval. “Division of labor. It’s an important part of a good partnership.” They worked quietly for a while, and then she asked, “Is he happy?” She sounded almost desperate, and she tempered her expression as soon as she heard herself, laughing self-consciously. “A mother always worries. And we don’t see him all that often.”

“I worry too,” Joe admitted. “About everybody. About Mackenzie. I think… yeah, I think he’s happy. It’s not perfect. He misses the city, I guess. The glamor and everything. The money.”

“He never brought Nathan to meet us,” she said softly. “We went into the city a couple times and met them at restaurants, but Nathan never came through the doors of this house.” She handed him the washed roasting pan and said, “That must mean something.”

“Means Nathan wouldn’t come, probably.” Joe focused on drying the pan, trying to find a way to hold it that didn’t put strain on his wrist. “I don’t think he had a lot of time for sentimental stuff.”

“But you do?”

“I have time for Mackenzie. I try to do what he wants, and he wanted to come here today.”

“Did he?” She sounded grateful. “He wasn’t just guilted into it?”

Well, that was a tricky question. Mackenzie hadn’t exactly been enthusiastic about the visit, but he hadn’t tried to get out of it, either. “He wanted to come. But I guess he was maybe a bit worried about it too.”

“We haven’t always been what he needed.” She pulled the plug in the sink and started wiping the counter with fierce efficiency. “It took me a long time to realize that. But sometimes… sometimes we were just trying to keep him from making mistakes. Trying to get him to
be
something, to
do
something. He thinks we wanted him to be an achiever, but it was never about that. He was always different, always on his own path. We just wanted… we hoped he’d find something meaningful, not just spend his time at the gym and in clubs.”

“Has he told you about the church?” Joe asked. “There’s not much action right now, in the winter, but he’s got quite a few things booked for the spring and summer. It’s a beautiful building, and he’s making a lot of people happy with it.”

“I’d like to see it,” she said wistfully.

“You should come up sometime.” He was probably crossing a line, but he didn’t care. Mackenzie’s mom should get to see at least a little of the life he was building for himself. “I’d invite you to stay at the farm, but we’d have a hard time making you comfortable. The house is pretty full. But there’s a B&B in town, or you could just make it a day trip—it’s not all that far.”

“I’d like that,” she said. “If it’d be okay with Scott….”

“I’ll talk to him about it,” Joe said. “Maybe we could set something up for the spring. The church has really nice gardens, and he’s worked hard on them.”

They rejoined the rest of the group then and listened to a bit more of Karen explaining how wonderful Peyton was, and then Mackenzie looked at his watch and raised his eyebrows at Joe. Joe nodded back at him. Time to make their escape.

The good-byes were friendly but cool, at least by Sutton-family standards. Peyton stuck her tongue out at Joe, and he smiled back at her and said, “See ya, Pop-Tart.” He made sure the T was clearly pronounced.

“Nice to see you making friends,” Mackenzie said as they retreated down the driveway, Peyton’s outraged wails fading into the distance.

“She’s not my favorite kid,” Joe admitted. “And her mom’s wound a little tight. The rest of them seem okay, though.”

“You and my mom seemed to get along pretty well. Too well for my comfort, to be honest. I think she wants to have your babies.”

They stopped at the truck, and Joe fumbled for his keys. “Maybe she’s hoping the next batch of kids will come around a bit more often. Seriously, Mack, I think she really misses you.”

Mackenzie didn’t have a reply to that. They were out of the subdivision on their way to the highway before Joe said, “I’m sure there’s a history and everything. Families are complicated. I get it. But right now? I think your parents are both really trying to make things right. I think they want to be in your life.”

“Yeah, so they can tell me how to run it to their satisfaction.”

“Maybe a bit. That’s kind of a parent thing, isn’t it?”

“You should have heard them when I came out, Joe. They were
not
as cool about it as they seem to be now.”

“Yeah, okay, but what parents are? My dad threw my ass out of the house when I told him I was gay. We got over it.”

Mackenzie shook his head. “Well, maybe you shouldn’t have! You practically dare a bunch of homophobes to come at you when you meet them on the street, but you let your own dad get away with treating you that way? Maybe you should have stood up for yourself!”

“You think so?” It probably wasn’t fair to get mad at Mackenzie for judging Joe’s family decisions, not when Joe was in the middle of judging Mackenzie’s, so he tried to keep his tone moderate. “You think it’d be better for anyone involved if my dad had gone to the grave with him and me still mad at each other? If my mom had spent her last years torn between her husband and her son? You think that would have been a better solution?”

Mackenzie was quiet for a while, then said, “Well, the dead-parent argument kind of trumps anything I was going to come up with. I guess you win.” He didn’t sound angry, exactly, but he wasn’t too pleased either.

“It’s not about winning,” Joe said tiredly. “They’re your family; it’s your call. I can’t tell you what’s right for you, or right for them. I just… yeah, I guess the dead-parent thing
does
give a bit of a different perspective. It doesn’t make me regret every single fight I had with them, but it sure makes me wish I could take
some
of them back.”

They were on the highway by the time Mackenzie said, “And what about ‘Potato’? Do you wish you could take
that
back?”

Joe smirked and looked over to see a matching expression on Mackenzie’s face. “Nope. I kinda wish I’d figured out a way to talk about getting her mashed that didn’t sound like I was advocating child abuse. Other than that, I’m satisfied with the situation.”

“I’m satisfied with it too,” Mackenzie said. And at least in that one small area, Joe believed he was.

Chapter 10

M
ACKENZIE
DOZED
most of the way home and was still so sleepy when he arrived that he was tempted to lift up his arms in the same pose Austin used to get Joe to carry him into the house. If Joe had two good arms it might have been worth trying, but as it was, Mackenzie hauled himself out of the truck and trailed along behind Joe as they made their way into the house. Neither of them was expecting to see Ally and Lacey sitting at the kitchen table, clearly waiting for them.

Well, waiting for Joe. Mackenzie needed to keep reminding himself of that. This was Joe’s ship, and Mackenzie was just one more homeless waif taking shelter on its decks. So he hung in the background as Joe stepped into the kitchen, still with his outdoor clothes on, and stared at the girls.

“Do I want to know what’s going on?”

“It was my idea,” Ally said quickly. “And I think you’ll agree it was a good one, at least once you hear the whole story. Or, maybe not a good
idea
, exactly, but a good reaction. Making the most of a bad situation, that’s what you’ll think it was.”

Joe sighed as if he’d already had the weight of the world on his shoulders and he saw someone coming at him about to add the moon. He shrugged out of his coat and draped it on the back of a chair, then sat down. “Okay, hit me with it.”

Ally took a deep breath, looked at Lacey for support, then said, “Kami’s asleep upstairs.”

“Kami.” Joe looked from Ally to Lacey. Kami was
her
sister, after all. “Why?”

“You should have seen it, Joe!” Ally’s eyes were filling with tears at the memory, and unlike Peyton’s, these tears were real. “We went to see her—you knew we were going to do that. And it was a
good
visit. She was talking, and laughing, and she unwrapped her presents all by herself, and she was playing with them. She’s doing really well.”

“She’s doing well because she’s in a facility that offers her extensive rehab. A place with people specially trained to give her what she needs and help her figure out how to function again.”

“What she needs?” Lacey spoke for the first time, her voice bitter. Mackenzie edged a little closer, compelled by the rawness of the girl’s expression. “She needs to be
loved
. She needs people who care about her and treat her right!”

“They wanted to put her in a straitjacket, Joe!” Ally’s tears were loose, now, streaming down her cheeks, but her voice was still strong. “They called it
restraints,
but it was a straitjacket! We had that great visit, and then she got upset when we were trying to leave!”

“We were
all
upset,” Lacey said. “So it was our fault, really, me and Savannah. We set her off. She wanted to come with us, and we had to leave her behind, and she tried to come with us and they stopped her, and she fought them. She was scared, and she didn’t understand, and she’s only
eleven
! She weighs less than a hundred pounds! It’s not like she was going to
hurt
them or something.”

“So they tried to put her in restraints,” Joe said. He still sounded pretty calm, but Mackenzie could feel the tension beneath the surface. “Then what?”

“Then we said they shouldn’t,” Lacey said. “And they said we should mind our own business, and we said she’s our sister, so she
is
our business, and they said if we wanted her, we could have her.”

“So we took her,” Ally said. Her tears had stopped.

“Because the staff at the rehab facility
dared
you to?” Joe asked. He was starting to lose his cool.

“Because we couldn’t leave her there with them,” Ally said pleadingly. She looked at her big brother like he was a hero, someone who had her absolute trust, and it occurred to Mackenzie for the first time how oppressive that kind of respect must be. “She’s
family
, Joe.” It was the magic word, of course, and Ally knew it. Mackenzie was almost disappointed in her for using it. She knew how to get Joe to do what she wanted, but usually she didn’t take advantage of the fact. He supposed that was her side of the oppressive balance with Joe. She worshipped him, but she also protected him. Usually.

“She’s family,” Joe repeated dully, and he didn’t point out that Kami wasn’t
his
family, wasn’t Ally’s sister. Instead he leaned back in his chair and softly said, “Fuck.”

The kitchen was silent as he stewed. Finally, he pushed away from the table and stood up. “Do you have her medications? She must be on some. Where’s she sleeping? What happens if she gets up in the night and doesn’t know where she is and wanders outside? How long’s she going to last out there in this weather?” He paused for a breath, but obviously wasn’t out of questions. “Have you told anyone where she is? Does Jean know about any of this? Shit, do the
cops
know? Because I don’t care what the idiots at the rehab center said, you can’t just take her home because she’s
family
. She’s a ward of the state. They could call this kidnapping if they felt like it.” He looked at his chair as if thinking about sitting down, then crossed to the sink instead, leaned against its cool porcelain, and stared out through the window into the night. “Is there a plan?” he asked, more quietly now. “We take her back tomorrow, right? We talk to them about restraints, we come up with a system for leaving, so it’s less traumatic. If they don’t cooperate, we make a complaint, we get Jean involved, we call whoever we have to call.” He turned around. “I’m not saying it was a good situation. I can see why you did what you did, but that doesn’t mean it was what you
should
have done.”

“We should have left her there?” Ally said. She started crying again.

“You should have called me,” he said dully. “But I left my phone in the truck so it wouldn’t go off during dinner. And if you’d gotten hold of me, I would have been three hours away, too far to really do anything.”

Mackenzie’s lips twitched in a bitter smile, but no one was looking in his direction. Of course this had turned out to be Joe’s fault.

“The plan is for her to live with me,” Lacey said into the silence. Ally looked as stunned as Joe, but Lacey focused her energy on the older Sutton; she knew who she needed to convince. “I’m eighteen in three weeks. If they don’t kick me out of school for the drinking thing, I’ll quit as soon as I’m old enough. I’ll get a job and find somewhere to live, and I’ll look after her. That’s what
you
did, Joe, so don’t tell me I shouldn’t do the same.”