The Chance (Thunder Point #4)(61)

Carol asked him to stop, to come home and work the farm alongside his father, but he was helpless. When he looked into her pretty eyes he felt like he’d failed her in every possible way imaginable. First of all, she’d carried him all through high school, helping him with his school work, tests, everything. She was the only reason he had graduated. Al could barely read. It was another dozen years before he heard the word dyslexia and realized he must be dyslexic, something no one even talked about when he was ten or fifteen years old. Second, she was the only way he could have a farming business. He could manage math in his head pretty well and he had the instincts of a great farmer, but he was hell with reports, articles, printed information, forms. He had spent a lifetime memorizing. You only had to tell him something once; he couldn’t afford to forget anything because he couldn’t look it up. Third, all she ever wanted was a family and he’d given her one only to watch as that precious child had died. Then he watched her collapse as she buried their son. She had been so fragile and he wasn’t strong enough to hold her up. He felt so overwhelmed, he didn’t know what to do.

After a couple of years his agony settled into a dull ache that left him numb and uncommunicative but feeling as though he could breathe again. He said to Carol, “Good news. I’m quitting the trucking company and coming home to work the farm.”

And she said, “That’s great, Mick. But you’re too late to come home to me.”

She did the only thing she could do—she cut her losses. She said, “I’ll always love you but I can’t depend on you. When everything falls apart and goes to hell, I’ll be alone and you’ll be somewhere else. If you want to suffer alone, I can’t change that about you. But I can’t do that.”

He argued that for a while—she wasn’t alone. She had a big family—parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings.

But her husband, the father of her child, had run out on her.

Carol had done the right thing, he eventually realized. She remarried, had a couple of kids who were healthy and strong and went to college. They were in touch regularly; Carol’s husband tolerated that and was even friendly because good old Mick was no threat. He’d learned to make a good life for himself, solitary though he was. He made sure he was easygoing, generous, a good friend when a friend was needed. But he didn’t get attached because damn, when that went south it hurt like hell. There’d been a woman or two along the way who would’ve liked to settle down, make a family, but he wasn’t up to it. He’d lost his nerve way back.

He wasn’t sure anyone realized he was handicapped, that he couldn’t really read much, if at all. He thought maybe the people who were closest to him over the years thought he just wasn’t too bright, which didn’t really upset him.

He spent a lot of time saying things like, “Can you read this? I forgot my glasses.” Or, “Why don’t you order the two best things on the menu and we’ll share.” And now that he was fifty-six it was easy: “Do you think that print could be any smaller?”

There was help out there. He knew that. The problem was that even knowing you have a condition that prevented you from reading, sometimes from learning, it didn’t keep you from feeling like an idiot.

Here he stood. In a hospital parking lot at dusk. Three young boys upstairs visiting a mother who was on borrowed time. Even if she didn’t pass away, she was pretty much done raising her sons—they were on their own. They had no one but each other.

Al had wanted sons. If things were different, he could help out here. He liked Eric’s station, liked the town, liked Ray Anne, liked the boys—but who would elect him as a foster parent? He couldn’t help with homework, couldn’t even read their book reports. Hell, he’d probably struggle with reading report cards!

There was a bench outside the hospital’s front door. He sat down and got out his cell phone. He called his ex-wife. She sounded happy to get a call from him. “Mick! How are you?”

“Fine. Good. How are you?”

“All is good,” she said. “Tony is better. His kidney function is improved and his doctor is happy. Bless that man, he hates not being able to work right now, but that’s just a man thing. I’m working and everyone in the family is healthy. Where are you?”

“Oregon,” he said. “Eric sold his business in Eugene and opened up a new one on the coast. It’s a small town, small station, very friendly. How are your kids?”

“Fine. Lindsey’s getting married. Mick, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Why?”

“There’s something in your voice. I haven’t talked to you in months. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, fine. Well, I’m waiting out in front of a hospital right now. One of the young kids I work with, his mother has MS and is real sick. The ambulance took her to the hospital and I brought the kid and his younger brothers to see her. Seems like they’re pretty much on their own. I’m just waiting here to take them home. Nothing I can do about this, but it’s too bad. You know?”

“I know,” she said. “You always were tender-hearted.”

Except with you, he wanted to say. He just wasn’t there for her. He regretted that but you can only regret the agonies of youth for so long. He just hadn’t been emotionally equipped to do any better. “I’ll lend a hand if I can, but I don’t think I’m going to be here much longer.”