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“Yeah. We got them over at that discount place. Some rich folks changed their minds and we got their castoffs. Your father says the business is doing better, but I haven’t seen it,” she said.
I wasn’t close enough to them anymore to hear about what happened during the day to day, but I knew back then my father had put every penny back into the business, and apparently, that hadn’t changed.
But part of me also knew that he hadn’t upgraded the kitchen or gotten Mama that new house she kept mentioning, probably out of respect for me.
I supposed it would be hard to justify upgrading your house when your daughter was working off your debt to the mob.
I’d have to tell my father to do more stuff for her.
She deserved it, and the little bit of money he might save wouldn’t have made a dent anyway. Besides, I’d resigned myself to paying off every dime.
Depriving my mother wouldn’t change that, and besides, wasn’t I doing all this to keep them from suffering?
“Is that Kayla?” I heard my father yell from deep in the house.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
He came lumbering down the hall, and when he reached me, he leaned over to give me a big hug.
“I haven’t seen this much of you in years,” he said, sitting at the kitchen table with a huge smile on his face.
My mother fixed his plate, then mine, then her own, and then finally sat.
We had done this countless times before, and before that, when we had been on the road in my father’s rig, it wasn’t uncommon for us to pull off at a rest stop and have a family meal.
As I looked around at my little family sitting at the table, I reflected on how much I had missed this.
But I also knew that there was no going back.
“How’s work?” my mother asked.
That was a loaded question, and I could hear all that she was asking without really asking it in her voice.
I ignored all the questions that came with it, questions like how could I drop out of college when I was so close to being finished?
Questions like why I wasn’t working with my father?
A myriad of other questions that I chose not to consider.
“It’s going good. I’ve gotten to do some traveling,” I said blandly.
“They take the secretaries on business trips?” she asked.
“I’ve been there long enough that there’s been an increase in my responsibilities,” I said.
“Well, are you happy?” she asked.
I nodded, smiled, knew that unpacking that question would take the rest of the night.
“Well, that’s all that matters, then,” she said.
She stared at me, then smiled and reached over the table to give me another hug.
“What was that for?” I asked.
“Just ’cause. It’s not every day that I get to have dinner with my baby, so I’m going to hug you as much as I want,” she said.
I smiled and then enjoyed my dinner.
