Philipp Meyer - The Son

Meanwhile he did not care if the family declined. He cared only for himself. Eventually they would be bankrupt and all they had ever done would be forgotten; they would be no different from the Garcias, the children of strangers in their ruined house, a young girl in a grave. She leaned against the train window and listened to the tracks rumble beneath her, it would all come to an end.

No. She would not let it. She did not know how she would stop him, but she was as sure of this as she had ever been of anything; Phineas was old, her father was a fool, and Jonas cared only about himself. Paul and Clint were happy savages, running around without a thought in their heads. It is up to me, she thought. I will have to do something.

JORGE PICKED HER up at the station in Carrizo. She didn’t feel like talking so she rode in the backseat, which she didn’t normally do, she wasn’t inclined to make people feel like servants. But Jorge wasn’t bothered. He seemed relieved, even. He liked being alone with his thoughts just as she did, going for a drive to think, his own life, same as her, working through problems in his mind. Somehow this embarrassed her.

As they came up the caliche driveway, the house appeared at the top of the hill, the sun blinding white on the limestone, the dark green oaks and elms, the sky a hot pale blue. The third floor would be unbearable, the second floor only slightly better: she would be sleeping on her porch tonight, ice water on the sheets and two fans blowing. There was a black coupe parked in front that she recognized as her grandmother’s. The driver, a white man, was sitting on the porch by himself, far away from the vaqueros who were noisily taking their supper.

The curtains were drawn against the sun; the house smelled of hot stone. She went upstairs and changed out of her sweaty dress, fixed her hair and face, then went down to join her father and grandmother in the dining room.

Her father smiled and got up to kiss her hello and she knew immediately something was wrong. She wondered if one of her brothers had been hurt, then reminded herself they had not even left the country yet. Of course that meant nothing: one of their vaqueros had lost his son in basic training, run over by a jeep on a military base. It all went through her head in an instant; she dismissed it just as quickly. They would not be sitting for supper if something had happened to Paul or Clint.

Her grandmother, weaker even than Phineas, did not get up; Jeannie greeted her and kissed her cheek.

“How was your trip?”

“Hot,” she said.

“And Phineas?”

“He’s well.”

Her father, who had no use for Uncle Phineas, said, “Your grandmother was just telling me she’s spoken to the people at Southwestern in Georgetown.”

She nodded.

“You can start there in August.”

“Oh, I’m not interested in that,” she said cheerfully, as if they were asking her opinion.

A look went between her father and his mother and he said: “Jeannie, it’s unpleasant, but we all have our jobs in life. Mine is to make sure this ranch stays above water. Gramammy’s there is to make sure I don’t make any mistakes.” He smiled indulgently at her grandmother. “Yours is to get a proper education.”

He does not respect her, she realized. All the air went out of her; her talk with Phineas was just talk, it meant nothing. She felt cold. She would end up at Southwestern; she would make the best of it.

“You won’t have to go so far away this time,” her grandmother was saying.

Later she would not recall making any choice, the words seemed to come out on their own: “I am not going to be a secretary.”

“You don’t have to,” said her father.

“Or a teacher.”

“We all have our obligations, Jeannie.”

“Phineas and I were just talking about that same thing,” she said brightly. She took a drink of water.

“Well, it is true,” he said.

“He showed me the ledger.”

Her father was beginning to say something else but then her words caught up with him. She intended to stare him down but couldn’t and instead she spoke to her plate. “In fact, the ranch is not above water. It is quite the opposite.”

She looked up; her father’s face showed nothing. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her grandmother trying to get her attention.

“I know what we lose on the cattle.”

“Well, you shouldn’t spend so much time listening to old Phineas,” he said. He tried to smile again, but couldn’t.

She began to feel sick; she wondered if she had caught a fever on the train.

“… this ranch is not the right place for a young lady with your talents,” her father was saying. “You’ll report to college, which is an opportunity I myself never had, at the end of summer.”

“Your life is no harder than mine,” she said. “You ride a twenty-thousand-dollar horse but you act like we live in the poorhouse. We lose four hundred thousand dollars a year on your cattle. Phineas says he’s tired of lending you money. Something will have to be done.”

There it was: she’d declared her betrayal. He was saying you will leave the table, you will leave the table right now and she said: “I will not.” She couldn’t have anyway; she was sure her legs would not hold her. “Every day you pretend you are supporting the family, when all you are doing is spending the family’s money.”

“It is my money,” he said. “It is not your money; you have no say in this, you are a child.”

“It is the Colonel’s money. You did not earn a dime of it.”

“You will stop.”

“We have not had supper in two weeks. Why? Because you are playing with your horses. Before that it was almost six weeks. The oil is the only thing allowing you to do this.”

She expected to be slapped, but her father seemed to calm down and he said, “The oil pays for improvements to the land, honey. It pays so we don’t have to sleep in the mud at roundup, so we can just drive home and sleep in real beds at night. And that airplane, because we can’t hire enough men to check those pastures from horseback anymore.”

“Then perhaps we should stop doing roundup altogether,” she said. “As it would save us a great deal of money.”

Then he got up. He squared himself and stepped toward her, but nothing happened. He turned and walked out of the room. She could hear his footsteps slow as he reminded himself the house was still his, his boots went down the hall, past the parlor and into the foyer, then out the front door, slamming it behind him.

“That was very stupid,” said her grandmother.

She shrugged, wondered if she’d destroyed everything she knew; then had a feeling it had never mattered anyway. The day before, an hour before, to speak to her father, to speak to anyone like this would have been unthinkable.

“I didn’t realize you were afraid of him,” she said. “Is it because the Colonel didn’t leave you anything?”

Her grandmother ignored her. “You can’t stay here, Jeannie. Especially after this.”

Jeannie had a feeling she would be content if she never spoke to her grandmother again, or to anyone else in the family.

“Your father is not going to let you run this ranch.”

“There isn’t any ranch. We’re living on minerals and borrowed money.”

“Did Phineas write you that little speech? Because if you think a woman will have any place in his schemes, you’re mistaken.” She got a nasty look. “In more ways than one.”

“I guess we’ll see.” She was thinking about her father, how thin he was; she knew he no longer slept through the night.

Her grandmother set down her knife and fork, arranging them carefully and smoothing the tablecloth, and took a sip of her sherry. “I have always known that you find me tiresome,” she said. “You think it is my nature, or my disposition, or you have likely never thought about it. But when I decided to move here, I found I had a choice between being liked and having a say. That’s the choice you’ll have to make as well. They will either love you and not respect you, or they will respect you and not love you.”