Ruin Me, Daddy novel · Chapter 5 of 32
Chapter 5: Sunday Dinner
The farmhouse dining room had a table that sat twelve and a chandelier made out of an old barrel hoop.
Lettie put me at the middle of the long side.
Forrest on my left. An empty chair across from me with a card that said BRADY in her square handwriting.
Two of the staff had come too, the way Lettie said they did every Sunday. The bottling-line supervisor, a big gray man who talked about his bass boat. The woman who ran the gift shop, who hugged me and said she'd heard my voice through the rickhouse door and gotten goosebumps.
Forrest had cooked. Fried chicken, green beans with bacon, biscuits, a pie cooling on the sideboard.
He'd also put on a clean shirt. Blue flannel, ironed.
"You ironed," I said under my breath.
"Lettie ironed. She held me down."
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.
Brady came in twenty minutes late, smelling like cologne and the inside of his truck.
He kissed his aunt on the cheek. He clapped the bottling supervisor on the shoulder.
He saw me and smiled.
"Jess. Wow. They've got you living here now?"
"She's working here," Lettie said. "Sit down and pass the beans."
He sat across from me and passed the beans.
For ten minutes he was perfect.
He told the gift-shop woman her new sign looked great. He asked about the bass boat. He complimented the chicken, and the whole time he kept looking from me to his father and back.
Forrest ate without looking up.
"So, Dad," Brady said, buttering a biscuit. "How was the birthday?"
"Quiet."
"Yeah? I figured it'd be loud." He smiled into his biscuit. "That Friday night was loud enough."
My fork stopped.
The gift-shop woman looked confused. Lettie set her glass down.
"Brady," she said.
"What? I'm making conversation." He pointed his butter knife at me. "Jess is a performer, you know. Big voice. Real big."
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