Daniel doesn’t say anything. He just frowns after Walter and Levi, like he’s thinking.
It’s par for the course. Daniel’s normally placid as a lake on a windless day and calm as a toad in the sun, while Seth is fiery and mercurial. He’s always the first to jump into a fight, but also the first to laugh long and hard at a good joke. It’s a wonder they can work together, but Loveless Brewing had a banner year last year so I guess something is going right.
“It’s not even our land,” Daniel says, half to himself. “It’s mom’s.”
Levi comes back around the corner and walks up to us.
“He out?” Seth asks.
“Yeah, but not before giving me the hard sell on selling him a hundred and fifty acres of mom’s land,” he says, frowning.
“I’m starting to feel left out,” I say.
“Yeah, you should be real bummed about that jerk not getting in your face,” Seth says.
“Rusty made it in here, right?”
“She’s on the office couch reading Little House on the Prairie,” Daniel says.
Then he shrugs, runs a hand through his hair, and looks from Levi to me and back again.
“You bring the juniper berries?” he asks.* * *“That slimy bastard,” my mom fumes, slamming open a cupboard. “That backstabbing, underhanded, weasel-faced no good son-of-a—"
“Mom!” Daniel shouts.
“I’m not listening,” Rusty says.
She’s sitting at the kitchen table, carefully coloring a pony with an electric blue mane and bright green hooves, looking innocent. It doesn’t work on me. Rusty is always listening. That’s why I owe her cake.
“Sorry, baby,” my mom says, pulling out a big pot and filling it with water. “But I can’t believe that —”
She takes a deep breath, then sighs, clearly thinking of all the words she’d rather be using.
“— That jerk thought that just because I said no, he could go behind my back and work up some kind of deal with you all,” she says, slamming the faucet off and yanking the pot out of the sink so fast it sloshes onto the floor.
I grab a hand towel and dry it, a few steps behind my mom.
“That sneaky, good-for-nothing, two-faced little man has always been an absolute prick —”
“Mom.”
“— Prick’s not a bad word, Daniel, he’s always been a prick who thinks that he farts rainbows. You remember the time he failed algebra and his daddy got him that remote control airplane to make him feel better?”
“No,” says Seth, with the air of someone who’s had this conversation before.
He’s just here for the food and has his own place in town. Daniel and Rusty live here, since my mom’s helping raise Rusty. I’ve got the attic room on a temporary basis, until I find my own place to live.
“You were a baby,” my mom says authoritatively, turning on the stove under the pot of water. She stands there glaring at it, like that will make it boil faster. From the table, I hear the distinct sound of Rusty trying not to giggle.
“And then he crashed it into the river?” Seth asks, knowing what comes next. Mom gets on a tear about the Eightons sometimes, so this is all familiar.
“So his daddy bought him a remote control helicopter,” Mom goes on, slamming open cupboards again. “He should have given him a whipping instead. Or an algebra tutor, for heaven’s sake, the man is nearly forty and I doubt he could graph an equation if his life depended on it.”
“I don’t think I could graph an equation,” I offer, still standing in the kitchen. Any time my mom starts cooking, I get nervous.
She turns and looks at me, disbelief written all over her face.
“I’m sure you just need a refresher,” she says, grabbing down a jar full of sugar. “Whereas Walter Eighton needs someone to remove his head from his colon.”
“Mom, that’s —”
She dumps the sugar into the water, then screws the top back on, jamming it back into the cabinet.
I sigh.
“He thinks just because he’s got money he can get whatever he wants, whenever he wants. Just walk all over other people like they don’t matter,” she fumes, slamming open another cabinet and grabbing a package of spaghetti.
“Mom, that was sugar,” I say, coming toward the stove.
“It’s spaghetti, Eli,” she says, holding up the pasta.
I walk over and gently take it from her hand.
“You just dumped sugar in the water,” I tell her. “Come on. I’ll make dinner.”
She huffs, glaring at me with her steely green eyes. I stare back, raising one eyebrow.
“Fine,” she says at last, ending the stare down. “There’s garlic bread, too.”
“No problem,” I tell her, steering her toward the kitchen table. As soon as she turns away from me, I made the universal get her a drink motion at Seth, who rises and grabs the bottle of good whiskey.
“That’s a beautiful horse, honey,” she says to Rusty. “Have you named it?”