It was the best breakfast we’d had for a very long time, not because I didn’t enjoy having breakfast with just my father but because I could sit back and be an audience as they reminisced about their parents, growing up together, and things they had done that had brought my grandparents both joy and consternation.
“Don’t ever let your father convince you that he was an angel just because he was older than me,” Uncle Tommy said.
“With you in the house, even Jack the Ripper would look like an angel,” Dad said, and began to tell more stories about pranks Uncle Tommy had committed and how many times he had had to save him from getting into real trouble.
They were both into it so much that neither noticed me clearing the table and washing the dishes. I smiled to myself. It was rare that I felt so much attachment to my family. I noticed how they both tiptoed around any references to my mother, but it was impossible not to talk about her.
“I think I miss her more than you do,” Uncle Tommy told my father. “She was the one who could make me feel guilty about being irresponsible.”
“She could,” Dad confirmed. “And you were and probably still are.”
They were quiet a moment, and then Uncle Tommy said what my father often said after he took a long look at me. “She’s getting to look more and more like her, Burt.”
“I know.”
“What a lucky break. She could have ended up with your mug.”
“She could have,” Dad said. “Get your bag, and get settled in the guest room,” he told him. “I’ll take you for a ride and show you the site of my newest project.”
I looked up sharply. He was going to take Uncle Tommy to Foxworth?
“Yeah, you mentioned something about that on the phone. Sounds really big.”
“It is.”
“Okay. The princess is coming along, isn’t she?” he asked, looking at me. I looked at Dad.
“No way you or I could stop her,” Dad said. He looked around and saw what I had done in the kitchen while they had been talking. “Nice job,” he said. “I just have a call to make, Tommy.”
“Great. I’ll unpack what I need and be ready.”
He went out to his car and returned with his bag. Then he followed me up to go to the guest room.
“How’s he been?” he asked when we were far enough away for my father not to hear.
“He keeps very busy,” I said. “He’s all right. I wish he would relax more, get out more, but . . .”
“But he’s who he is. And you? Happy?”
“Yes, Uncle Tommy, and more so because you’re visiting,” I told him.
He hugged me, and I went to my room to change my shoes and put on something a little warmer. It was more overcast today, and the breeze coming out of the north suggested that our short Indian summer was, as my father would say, having heart failure. I was down and ready before both of them, which I knew didn’t surprise my father.
We all squeezed into Black Beauty.
“I can’t believe you still have this truck, Burt. I was going to call you because something like it was needed on a movie set. If it was a horse,” he told me, “your father would have had it out to stud with a female truck to create another.”
“Very funny. The only thing you’ve kept is your goofy sense of humor.”
“Selling big right now.”
“Which is why I never go to the movies,” Dad countered.
I didn’t think I could be more comfortable than sitting between them, I thought, and wished we could all be together more, but my father never wanted to make the trip to California. He kidded Uncle Tommy by telling him it was like leaving the country.
They teased each other all the way up to Foxworth, and then Dad began to explain the project and why it was going to be the biggest construction job he had ever had. When we pulled up to the cleared-out area, I watched Uncle Tommy’s reaction.
“Wow. You’d never know what it had been,” he said. He turned to me. “I was here once or twice when you were a little girl, a very little girl.”