A Thousand Acres_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [95]
“I know it.”
“How long are you going to keep him there?”
“He’s got a right to stay. We been friends for sixty years and more.”
“Fine.”
“Now that’s a woman’s word, that ‘fine’ business. You know it ain’t fine. But you say that ‘fine’ and then everybody gets mad, and you know it’s going to make everybody mad, too.”
“What do you want me to say, Harold?”
“I want you to say that he’s your dad, and even though he’s a pain in the butt, you owe him. Rose owes him, too. Everything you got here, he made with John Cook. If this ain’t the best farm in the county, then I don’t know what is. Them Stanley boys been twisted in their sheets for years, trying to get a piece of this place, and they got two thousand acres and more. But none of their places are as good as this place, and they know it. That’s what you owe Larry Cook, my girl.”
“A farm isn’t everything, Harold.”
“Well, it’s plenty, isn’t it? It’s more than one person is. One person don’t break a farm up that lots of people have sweated and starved to put together.” Harold was beginning to heave with anger. “If you’d have been sons, you’d understand that. Women don’t understand that.” He stood up, walked to the back door, opened it, and spit off the porch. When he came back, he’d calmed himself a little. He flattened his hair with his hands, sat down again, and looked into his coffee cup.
I said, “Rose doesn’t owe him anything.”
“I’m sure Rose says that. Rose has always been trouble, between you and me.”
“Maybe you’d better shut up, Harold.”
His head swiveled toward me, and I could see that he was startled, but the fact was that I was suddenly actually reeling with anger. I could hardly sit upright in my chair, I was so awash. I gripped the edge of the table to hold myself in place, and I said, “That’s right, Harold. Shut up. Just shut up about Rose and Daddy.” If the coffeepot had been on the table, I would have thrown the hot coffee at him. I could see it across the kitchen, on the cold burner, and I longed to get up and grab it and use it the way you long to drink water when you are thirsty, or climb into bed when you are tired. I held on to the table.
“I’m doing you a favor here.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“This is what I’m going to do. I’m going to take your dad to the church supper on Sunday. And you kids are going to show up there and have a nice meal. Fact is, I think you should work this out. You got your side and Larry’s got his. I know that.” He sought my gaze and smiled at me. “I’ve known you all your life, Ginny. I know you got a side here, and maybe even it’s the right side. But if you work it out, you can get past sides, and keep this place going for another fifty years. That’s worth something, ain’t it?” He talked slowly and steadily, the way Jess talked, and underneath the elderly quaver and the country grammar was a voice like Jess’s. I gave in to it a little, for that. I nodded. “Okay, then,” said Harold.
The man from Kansas stayed for supper. I grilled pork chops over the fire and made salad from our lettuce, had new potatoes from Rose’s garden, and peas. He said, “Man, this is heaven to me, this kind of dinner on this place.”
Ty said, “It is good, isn’t it?”
I said, “Ty, honey, you look really beat,” and the man from Kansas started exclaiming about how much they’d gotten done. He said, “The company doesn’t like me to keep them on overtime, but I saw that we could finish up this evening if we kept at it.”
I said, “Will you be back after the Fourth, then?”
“Naw. I was just telling Ty, here, we’ve got to wait at least four days, so I’m giving everybody a couple of days off.”
I looked at Ty, but he was looking out the window. His plate was clean, so I said, “Sweetie, you want anything more?”
He looked at me abruptly, then got up from his seat. He said, “If I’m going to catch up on my sleep tonight, I’d better go work on the hogs.”
The man from Kansas