The Highway Kind(9)

“Give me a minute,” Brandon said. “Let me talk to my wife.”

“Don’t take all day,” Pingston said. “It ain’t getting any warmer.”


Brandon entered the house and shut the door. Marissa was still behind the couch, rubbing her belly almost manically.

“They want—”

“I heard,” she said.

“I’m not sure what to do,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Pingston used to work for the old man. My guess is he wants back pay or something like that. Knowing the way my dad was, they probably had some kind of dispute.”

“What did he mean, they wouldn’t let him out to attend the funeral?”

Brandon shrugged because he didn’t want to answer.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, incredulous. “Invite them in?”

“What choice do I have?”

Before she could answer, the front door opened and Tater poked his head in.

“Look, folks, my mom is standing out there in the freezing snow. She’s gonna get pneumonia and die if she don’t come in here and warm up.”

Brandon looked from Marissa to Tater to Marissa. She was saying No with her eyes.

“Come on, Mama,” Tater said over his shoulder. Then he walked in and stepped aside so Peggy and Pingston could enter, one after the other. They couldn’t do it shoulder to shoulder because Peggy was too wide.

“Thank you kindly,” she wheezed. Her cheeks were flushed and she labored the four steps it took to reach a recliner, where she settled in with a loud sigh.

Pingston came in behind her and looked around the house. Wade slipped in behind him and shut the door.

“Hasn’t changed much,” Pingston said, removing his hat and holding it by the brim with both hands in front of him.

“Please,” Brandon said, moving from Marissa closer to Pingston. “There’s nothing I can do for you. All I can do is make a recommendation to the lawyers on selling the assets and either splitting up the estate or selling it. I couldn’t write a check from his account if I wanted to.”

Pingston smiled as he nodded his head. “That’s just blah-blah-blah to me, Brandon. We don’t need lawyers to settle up accounts. We can do this man-to-man.”

Brandon didn’t know what to say.

Wade had positioned himself in front of the door with his arms crossed over his chest. Tater stood behind Peggy and had opened his coat. Brandon wondered if Tater had a weapon tucked into the back of his Wranglers and had opened his coat to get at it more quickly.

Suddenly, Marissa said to Pingston, “You were in prison, weren’t you?” It was an accusation. “You just got out.”

Pingston shook his head sadly and looked down at the hat in his hands. “I’m afraid so, ma’am. It isn’t something I’m proud of, but I paid my debt to society and now I’m back on the straight and narrow. Peggy here,” he said, nodding toward his wife, “waited for me for the past five years. She struggled and it wasn’t fair to her. Now I’ve got to make things right with her and my boy.”

“Make things right?” Brandon asked cautiously.

“Now you’re gettin’ it,” Pingston said.

“So how do we make things right?”

“You were in prison with him?” Marissa said to Wade.

“We shared a cell,” Wade said. “We got released within a couple of days of each other last week. I’m just here to support my buddy Dwayne.”

“Support him,” Marissa echoed.

Brandon looked over at his wife and implored her with his eyes to please let him handle things. But she was glaring at Wade.

“You people need to leave this house,” she said. “You have no right to be here.”

Wade raised his eyebrows and shook his head. Nobody moved.

Peggy asked Marissa, “How far are you along, honey?”

It broke the tension slightly. Brandon looked on.

“Seven and a half months,” Marissa said.

“Boy or girl?” Peggy asked Marissa.

“A little boy. Our first.”

“Well, God bless you,” Peggy said. Her face was strangely blank and it didn’t match her words, Brandon thought. “The last thing you need right now is a bunch of stress in your life, I’d bet.”

Marissa agreed with a pained smile.

“That’s what I thought,” Peggy said. “So what I’d suggest to you is to talk to your husband here to get this thing over with. Then we’ll all be out of your hair and you can get on with your life. How’s that sound?”

As Marissa thought it over, Pingston said to Brandon, “It ain’t gonna be as bad as you think. It’s going to be downright painless.”

Brandon and Marissa exchanged a glance, and Brandon said, “So what is it you want with us?”

“First of all,” Pingston said, “I need to tell you a little story. It’ll explain why I’m here.”

“Go ahead,” Marissa said.

“Six years ago this area was booming with oil-field workers. That’s before the bottom dropped out of the market. I’m sure you know about that,” he said. “Them boys had more money than they knew what to do with and for a short time there were four banks in town. Now we’re back to one, as you probably noticed.