Paul made a strangled, coughing noise, and my eyes popped open. “Ignore me,” he whispered, waving a hand. “Just dying softly.”
“He ran up the steps to the hayloft to get the buckets for the Lickin’ Lope,” my mother continued in her deep drawl, “then down to the basement to get the cattle prods for the bachelor auction. All that up and down was just… too much stimulation, I guess.”
Paul started shaking his head, like this conversation was too much stimulation. I shot him a glare.
“Next thing I knew, he was calling your brother to come take him to the hospital because he was having chest pains.”
“Only ’cause I didn’t wanna worry you, honey bunch!” my dad yelled.
My mother didn’t dignify this statement by acknowledging it. “Anyway. D came over and took both of us to the emergency room. Turned out your father’s arteries were clogged, so they put a stent in there, and they already sent him home this morning, if you can believe that!” From her voice, it was clear that she couldn’t, but I for one was massively relieved.
“Well, that’s great, though! I’m so glad everything’s okay! You just let me know what you need, Mama, alright? I’ll have some dinners catered out to the house for you. Is another lawyer taking over Dad’s clients? I’m gonna hire you some help with any heavy labor you need done, too, while Dad recovers.” I opened up my email program and started typing up a list of instructions for my assistant, Carlin. “Two guys? Or three? What do you think?”
The silence on the other end of the line was deafening.
“Mama?” I poked the screen to make sure the call hadn’t dropped.
“Brooks,” she said. “I wasn’t kidding before. We need you to come to the Thicket. To come home.”
Paul began nodding fervently and mouthing, “Go! Go! Go!”
I ignored him.
Instead, I swallowed hard. “Well, I would. I mean, I will! Sometime soon. Soonish.” Or not. “But right now I just—”
“The Lickin’ is next week.”
“Yes, ma’am, I know, but I have—”
“And it’s not just any Lickin’, Brooks. This is the Great Centennial Lickin’.”
I closed my eyes. “Shit.” I’d forgotten the invitation I’d gotten earlier in the summer.
It was a sign of the seriousness of this that she ignored my language. “You know your daddy’s Head Licker on the Lickin’ Committee, and has been since Pop-pop stepped down thirty years ago. A Johnson’s been Head Licker for as long as there’s been a Johnson in the Thicket.”
“Head Licker!” Paul whispered. He wasn’t bothering to hide his glee anymore. He was crying with laughter.
Bastard.
And he wondered why I never talked about this.
“There are other Johnsons, Mama. You have three children. Gracie could do it. Or Dunn. Or Aunt Birdie.”
“Dunn’s got late calves coming this week. Dairy business doesn’t stop for the festival. And Gracie’s always gonna be my darling girl, but she’s a Mawbry now. No, Brooks, if my Red Johnson can’t be standing tall and proud in front of the Thicket, it’s gotta be you, son. “
I wondered if she heard herself say these things and understood how horrible they sounded.
“If you can’t come…” She sighed. “He’ll overtax himself and his stents will fall out.”
I was fairly certain that wasn’t how stents worked either.
“Mama, I am absolutely swamped. I have a presentation for a potential client to put together by next week. It could be the make-or-break presentation of my career. It’s important. And I—”
“More important than your family?” My mother’s voice went quiet. Deadly quiet. “You’ve been gone ten whole years, Brooks Johnson. You know how I know?”
It was my turn to sigh. Of course I knew how she knew. She was my mother, and she loved me. But she wouldn’t be my mother if she didn’t draw it out as dramatically as possible.
“You left town right after the Ninetieth Great Lickin’, the night you broke poor Ava’s heart.” She choked off a sob that I knew was half-exaggerated… but also half-real. “The night you broke the whole town’s heart.”
Christ alive.
I stared at the ceiling and shook my head. “Mama, how many times do I have to explain? It’s not that I didn’t care for Ava. Or you. Or Licking Thicket. It’s just that—”
“I know, I know. You had other plans. First it was college, then graduate school, then internships. Now it’s work, work, work, work, work. And being gay.” I could practically hear the air quotes and the eye roll. “It’s always something with you, Brooks.”
Paul had one hand over his mouth now, his eyes comically wide behind his glasses.
“I’m being very serious,” I informed her. “About the presentation and about being gay.”
“Oh, really? So, who’s your client, Brooks?”
“It’s—” I stopped cold. Fuck. I couldn’t tell her I was consorting with the enemy! Lie, idiot, lie! “I… can’t tell you. It’s a secret.”