“That’s not my advice,” Isaac growled as the door shut behind his brother, “but I do think you are wasting your lives even thinking about staying here.”
“Maybe we’re finding out who we are by living here,” April said as she set their coffee on the table.
April had looked a little like a deer in the headlights when both of the O’Riley brothers were in the living room, but she’d done some kind of a turnaround to be able to say that to Isaac. Nessa gave her a brief sideways hug.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
April’s head bobbed once in a quick nod.
“That’s crazy talk, but then I wouldn’t expect much more from Rachel’s kid,” Isaac said.
“That’s uncalled for, Daddy,” Nessa said. “April can’t help who her parents are, any more than I can help who mine are. You can say the same about Nanny Lucy and Grandpa. What happened in this place anyway to make you and Uncle Matthew hate each other?”
Isaac glared at her. “This was not a happy home. Mama had bad days, and Matthew seemed to be the one that brought them on. She’d be doing fine, and then he’d make her mad. She’d either start crying and telling us we didn’t appreciate a thing she did for us, or else she’d grab a belt or a length of garden hose, or whatever was at hand, and whale away on both of us.”
“We should have our coffee and leave,” Cora said.
Isaac put up a palm and shifted his glassy stare toward his wife. “No! She wants to know why Matthew and I can’t get along, so I’ll tell her. It’s like Jesus and the devil trying to be friends. They are enemies and never will be friends. That’s the reason.”
“That’s judging,” Nessa reminded him.
“That’s telling the God’s honest truth,” Isaac growled. “If he’d been a better child, Mama would have had more good days than bad ones. It’s his fault that she lost her mind and gave this place to you three kids. I should have inherited it. I gave up everything to live a Christian life like she wanted.”
“That’s ugly,” Cora whispered.
“Yes, it is,” Nessa said, “but it’s past time for us to air out what we’ve got to say like adults. Why did your mother have those kinds of days?” Nessa removed the biscuits from the oven and broke several eggs into a bowl, then whipped them up and put them in a skillet to scramble.
“That’s all I’m saying about that.” Isaac folded his arms over his chest and snapped his mouth shut.
“That’s your choice, but it sounds to me like you and Uncle Matthew both need some counseling. For now, though, April and I are going to have breakfast. We’ve got quilting to do this morning while it’s cool, and then we’ve all got other jobs to do around here. So we’ve got maybe half an hour to visit.”
She and April both piled bacon and eggs onto their plates, added a couple of biscuits, and carried the plates to the table. “I’m not leaving until the end of summer, if at all. You need to understand that, Daddy. Your intervention failed. I haven’t made up my mind about my teaching job for absolute positive yet. That said, now y’all talk while we eat,” she said as she sat down.
“Your mother and I have prayed about this, and we feel that’s a bad decision. This place has done nothing but make you rebellious, and God does not like that in a person,” Isaac said.
“I’ve prayed about it, and God told me that it’s the best decision I could ever make—that somehow I will find myself here.” Nessa stared her father right in the eye and did not blink.
“Me too.” April nodded. “Don’t know if Flynn has, but I do know he’s battling demons of his own. We’re all here for a while, so suck it up, Uncle Isaac, and let us do what we have to do.”
“That’s disrespectful,” Isaac said through clenched teeth. “You were always a rebellious girl, and being an adult hasn’t done anything but make it worse.”
“You always made me feel like I was something you stepped in out in the yard,” April said. “Aunt Cora was sweet to me, but answer me this question since you think I’m disrespectful: Why did you treat me like that?”
“Because I never liked your mother. Mama was worse after she was born, and no matter how hard I prayed for my mother, she didn’t get any better. Then you came along, and things went from bad to worse,” Isaac said.
“Now that’s disrespectful—taking your anger with your mother out on April?” Nessa said.
“Enough!” Isaac banged his fist on the table, and coffee sloshed out everywhere.
Cora hopped up, grabbed a paper towel, and wiped up the mess. “Sorry about that,” she apologized.
“You shouldn’t have to say you’re sorry for the truth,” Isaac said. “We’ll be going now. I’m disappointed in both of you.”
“Not Flynn?” Nessa asked.
“I never did have hope for him, and very little for April, but I did for you. Come on, Cora. Let’s get on back to Paris to the church conference.” Isaac stood up so fast that he knocked over his chair.
Cora picked it up and pushed it back under the table, then bent down and hugged Nessa. “He means well.”
“Maybe so, but my mind is made up,” Nessa said.
Isaac stormed out of the house with Cora right behind him.
“What do we do now?” April asked.
“We have breakfast and then go see about Flynn,” Nessa answered.
“For the first time in my life, I was glad that my mother wasn’t around to be a part of that fiasco,” April said, and then she bit off the end of a piece of bacon.
“And you thought you were the unlucky one,” Nessa said.
Flynn had sat up, but his eyes were glued to the waterfall when Nessa sat down on one side of him and April on the other. The charcoal-colored clouds moved off to the east as if they knew he didn’t need any more darkness around him that morning. He wanted his father to come back to the waterfall and answer a dozen questions, like, What had made him and Isaac take two completely separate paths?
“We brought you a couple of biscuits stuffed with bacon and eggs,” Nessa said.
“And hot coffee.” April held up Nanny Lucy’s old silver thermos. “How did things go with you and Uncle Matthew?”
Flynn sat up and took the offered paper plate from Nessa. “He says I can’t change. That I’ll always be like him where women are concerned. It’s been years since I’ve been around him and Uncle Isaac at the same time. I knew they didn’t get along, but that was like . . .”—he paused—“pure black hatred filling the house.”
“The difference between you both is that you want to change, and he doesn’t.” Nessa drew her knees up to her chin and looped her arms around them. “My dad blames Uncle Matthew for all the bad moods that Nanny Lucy must’ve had most of her life. Your dad must blame mine for being Nanny Lucy’s favorite because he was so religious. What a mess.”
“I can’t even imagine how life was for my mother,” April said. “That was one helluva morning. I’m glad those uncles don’t live close enough to drop in very often.”