Chapter 14: Pecan Street

Floyd's POV

My father stood in her aunt's yard with his hat in his hands and told my wife she took it harder than most.

I came down the porch steps and stood between them.

"Dad, you're not going to say that again."

"I came to make peace."

"Then you made it worse, and you did it in four sentences."

Harlan looked at me, and for once he looked up a little, because I had come down a step.

"Your mother's in the kitchen with the lights off," he said. "I can't get her to say a word."

"That's between you and her."

"I've shut off the company card," he said. "I thought you should hear it from me."

"I figured."

He put his hat on, got back in his truck, and left without turning around.

My brother's pickup passed him on the county road a minute later, going the other way.

My brother pulled into the yard and got out with a duffel bag, and behind his seat I could see my own truck keys in a ziplock.

"Your truck was at the shop," he said. "I picked it up. You owe them four hundred dollars."

"I don't have four hundred dollars."

"I know. I paid it." He dropped the duffel at my feet. "Your jeans, your razor, and the good boots."

"You didn't have to."

"I told Dad this morning I'd skip Sunday dinner for a year if he cut you out of the books."

I stared at him.

"He said I was a fool. I said I knew." My brother shrugged one shoulder. "Mom backed me. She said it out loud, in front of the girls."

"What did he say to that?"

"He went to the barn."

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