C Box - Three Weeks to Say Goodbye

“Your mother would be furious,” Melissa said. “Showing up and not eating? What are you thinking?”

Cody said, “Saturday night is steak night if I remember. Steak and baked potatoes. Every Saturday night. I wonder if that’s changed?”

“It hasn’t as far as I know,” I said. “She said something about opening up another package of steaks.”

“Good steaks, too,” Cody said, nodding. “I can still remember the drill. Pork chops on Monday, spaghetti on Tuesday, hamburgers on Wednesday, cabbage rolls Thursday, pot roast Friday, steaks on Saturday, fried chicken on Sunday.”

I nodded.

“Did it ever change?” Melissa asked.

“Never,” I said. “If she tried something new, Dad would sit at the table and just stare at his plate and pout.”

“I really liked the cabbage rolls,” Cody said. “Maybe next time we drive up here to hire a hit man we can come on Thursday.”

“Cody!” Melissa said. “Stop that. What if Angelina starts using those words?”

Cody grinned as he slowed down and clicked the turn single, and we were soon on the gravel road that led to the ranch.

THE HOME RANCH LOOKED almost exactly as I’d left it. A few new things-a bigger gas tank, a larger Quonset for the equipment-but basically the same buildings, the same layout. A few inches of snow lay in the hayfields, and the Big Belt Mountains rose dark blue and snowy to the east. Between the ranch and the mountains, the foothills shimmered with the intense gold light of dusk, the kind that makes snow look like molten lava. I saw a small herd of mule deer hanging around the windmill and tin stock tank. A few hundred bald-faced Angus were bunched in the east meadow, massed and no doubt awaiting the cattle truck.

We swung into the ranch yard. Through Cody’s window I got a glimpse of Dad in the Quonset working under a trouble light, tractor parts and tools scattered around his feet. On my side, Mom’s face was framed in the kitchen window, looking out anxiously, and as soon as she saw us, she vanished and reappeared at the front door wearing the same apron she’d had on eighteen years before, the one with the blue ducks.

“Melissa!” she called out. “Bring that little darling in here!”

“She means Angelina,” Cody deadpanned, “not you.”

Mom gave me a quick cheek kiss and punched Cody affectionately in the arm to say hello, but both gestures were done en route to Angelina, who she scooped up in her arms. Angelina squealed happily, and Mom turned and took her in the house. Melissa followed with one of the diaper bags and gave me an amused over-the-shoulder look before going inside.

Cody and I walked over to the Quonset. Cows bawled in the meadow, punctuating the otherwise complete silence. I had forgotten about silence.

Although they’d been to the wedding and to Denver to see Angelina when we brought her home, I hadn’t been back. I didn’t want to come back and feel like I was feeling now. I didn’t know what to expect, but my heart was thumping, and my hands felt cold.

Dad stepped back from the tractor and wiped his hands on a rag with very little white left on it and watched us approach. His face had filled out some recently, and his lenses were so thick they distorted his eyes bigger. He looked old, which shocked me.

“Couldn’t cut it in the big city, huh?” he said. “Coming back begging for your old jobs back, you two?”

My belly clenched, but Cody realized he was kidding and said, “Naw, Walt. We just want our wages. We don’t want to have to work for ’em.”

“Nothing’s changed in that regard,” Dad said, before breaking into a grin. “Good to see you, Jack,” he said, reaching out. My God, I thought, is he going to kiss me? And he did! After a rough one-handed hug, he kissed me on the cheek before letting me go. I was left with a whisker burn and a lingering smell of engine oil in my nose. “You boys mind helping me put away these tools before we go in and eat?” he asked.

“See what I told you?” Cody joked.

“Hurry up,” Dad said. “I want to go in the house and see my good-looking daughter-in-law and especially my granddaughter!”

“It’s not like you haven’t seen her, Dad,” I said, gathering up from the floor scarred wrenches that were as familiar to me as my own fingers and toes.

“Yeah, but that’s when you first brought her home. When she was just a little pink thing. I haven’t seen her since she became a person.”

“I’m sorry we just showed up without any warning,” I said. “This was kind of a last-second trip.”

He shrugged. “I’m just glad you’re here. Besides, after dinner I got some fence that needs fixed.” Again, I thought he was serious. Again, he was joking. What had happened to him?

“You sure you don’t mind us crashing dinner?”

“As long as we’ve got enough steaks we’re okay,” he said, gesturing to the hundreds of bawling cattle out in the meadow. “I think we’ll be okay.”

DINNER WAS PLEASANT. No, it was more than pleasant. I was joyous . Angelina, as she had with Jeter Hoyt, spent most of the time trying to get Dad’s attention. In turn, he doted on her, fed her, made funny faces that made her laugh. I looked at Melissa, and Melissa shook her head, as surprised with this new turn in both of them as I was.

Cody declined the offer of a beer with dinner since he was driving, which I thought admirable because I knew he wanted one.

Through a mouthful of steak, Dad said the ranch had sold, the result of a divorce settlement with the old owner. It was bought quickly by a hedge fund manager in New York City.

“This new bird, I don’t know,” he said, gesturing with his fork, “I’m not sure we’re gonna see eye to eye.”

“Give him a chance, Walter,” Mom said. “We’ve been here a long time. I’m not sure I’m up to moving again.”

“Hell, I’ll give him a chance,” Dad said, grumbling. “As long as he doesn’t say the word ‘bison’ again in my presence, we might get along. There are too many goddamn buffalo in Montana as it is, and too many Ted Turners.”

For the first time, I thought about what my parents would do when they finally left the ranch. Did they have retirement savings? Medical insurance? These were things that had never been discussed in my presence. Where would they live? I thought about the marriage they had, which, despite its flaws, had lasted forty years. Just the two of them, out here twenty miles from the nearest town on an expanse of land so big and raw it could have easily swallowed them up. God, I thought, they’re tough.

The topic turned to Judge Moreland and Garrett. Melissa told the story but left out the most unpleasant details. Even with that, it was too much for Mom to handle, and she simply shook her head as if it were another of those big-city things she’d just never understand.

“Tell them to screw themselves, I like this one,” Dad said, reaching over and mussing Angelina’s hair, which resulted in a belly laugh that was contagious. “Keep her.”

As if that were the end of the subject.

Angelina tried to reciprocate and stretched her arm out at him. Surprisingly, he bent forward and dipped his head so she could tousle his white hair.

“Yup,” he said, sitting back while she laughed. “Keep this one.”

“ARE YOU SURE YOU CAN’T STAY?” Mom begged. “Jack and Melissa can stay in Jack’s old room. Cody can have the spare or the bunk house if he’d prefer. Jack’s old crib is up in the attic for Angelina.”

Looking past the fact that they’d kept my crib all these years, I explained that I had to go to work Monday, that I’d just returned from overseas the night before and had follow-up to do.