Always Dakota - Debbie Macomber [105]
Calla’s lips were tightly pinched, but she said nothing.
“Good for Dennis,” he said again. “Hell, I wish I’d had the courage to do it myself. You needed to be brought down a couple of pegs. It was time. Furthermore, I sincerely hope you listened.”
“Grandpa, I know you mean well, but—”
“No, you don’t,” he muttered. “You think I don’t know how anxious you are to get out of here. I expect when I’m finished, you’ll leap out of that chair like a prize-winning bullfrog and make a dash for the door.”
Calla merely shook back her hair, then examined her nails, painted a sparkling silver.
“I don’t care if you do make a fast escape, that’s up to you, but young lady, I advise you to hear me out.”
Glancing at her watch, she asked. “Is this going to take much longer?”
“It’ll take as long as it takes.”
She sighed and fell back against the sofa cushion.
“When was the last time you saw your mother?” he asked.
“A couple of weeks ago. I see her a lot,” she added defiantly.
“Visit with her, do you?”
“I have. It isn’t like I ignore her.”
Joshua knew Calla had sometimes visited her mother after school, but that’d happened mostly when Sarah was bedridden.
“You owe your mother respect—and you owe her more than that. You think she did you so wrong, but have you ever stopped to consider all the sacrifices she made for you? I doubt it. Did you ever once stop to consider how much she loves you and how hard she’s worked to make you happy, often at the price of her own happiness?”
The bored, martyred look was back.
Joshua gripped both sides of his chair and then slowly leaned forward. “Calla Stern, listen to me. Grow up.” The last two words were nearly shouted. “You’re seventeen, and it’s well past time you appreciated your family.”
She blinked, looking stunned.
“If you want to inflict your moodiness on your mother, then my advice is to stay away.”
“Fine. No problem.”
“If you can’t treat Dennis and your mother with respect, then you and I need to have a serious discussion.”
“About what?”
“Your living arrangements here,” he said. “Either I see a dramatic change in your behavior or I’m going to have to ask you to pack up and leave my home.”
Calla didn’t say anything for several moments. “Are you telling me you want me to move out? I—I won’t graduate from high school until next month.”
“I didn’t say you were being forced to move,” he clarified. “What I said was that if you continue to behave like an unreasonable and immature brat, perhaps you should look elsewhere for housing.”
Calla stared at him as though she had trouble taking in the words. “You don’t mean that.”
“Trust me, Calla, I do. Shape up or ship out.”
Sixteen
It’d been a week since Bob and Merrily had heard from the attorney. Every morning, Bob expected to find an empty space next to him in bed. Most days he woke before the clock radio went off. His first thought was of Merrily, wondering if she’d slipped away as she had so many times in the past.
The alarm sounded, and although he knew his wife was already awake, he gently patted her backside, and got out of bed. Some mornings it was all he could do not to ask if she intended to leave. Knowing was better than this damnable waiting. Somehow he couldn’t do it, though.
They barely spoke these days. Bob buried his grief in work—cooking, cleaning, tending bar, remodeling and repairs. Only on rare occasions did he rent the hotel rooms, but with the approach of summer, this seemed a good time to spruce them up. He was repainting the rooms that needed it and freshening those that didn’t.
Merrily, on the other hand, sank deeper and deeper into a pit of despair. Most every day now, she sat in front of the television, numbing her mind with soap operas and game shows. At night, she went into Axel’s old room and sat on his bed, weeping silently. Bob tried to help her, but nothing he said seemed to penetrate the wall of pain.
Wednesday afternoon, Pastor Dawson stopped by. It wasn’t his first visit