“All right, everyone sit down,” my mom instructs again, and when Joey keeps standing there, smiling up at Leah, my annoyance starts to get the best of me.
“Joey, you heard your grandma. Take a seat,” I say, and I hate how stern my voice sounds.
But fuck, I can’t help it. My daughter is taking to this city doctor like she’s God’s motherly gift to little girls, and I’m hatin’ every damn second of it. Soon, Dr. Leah Levee will be gone, and the last thing I need is for my Joey to have some kind of misplaced disappointment about a complete stranger. She already has more than enough disappointment to handle when it comes to her mother.
Joey pouts but listens, trudging down the hallway with the excitement of a sloth. Leah follows cautiously, skirting past me with a nod of her head when I make no effort to get out of her way. It takes me a minute, but eventually, I force myself to move in the direction of the table, if only to take a seat and some of the stress off my throbbing leg.
My mom carries over a plate of cornbread, setting it at the center of the table, and smiles up at the new arrival, who’s taken a seat at the table next to my daughter.
“Leah, I’m so glad you made it. My car didn’t give you any trouble, did it?”
Leah shakes her head and reaches down beside her chair for her purse. “Not at all! Let me get you the keys before I forget.” She holds them out for my mom, who takes them with a smile.
“I see you brought a bottle of wine too.”
“Yes, I hope that’s okay. I managed to pick this up in the gift shop before my flight out here, and I just wanted to say thank you.”
“Leah, did you know my granny makes the best cornbread in the whole world?” Joey interrupts, bouncing up and down on the surface of her chair.
“I didn’t know that, but I’m not surprised.” Leah smiles at Joey and leans across the table to whisper conspiratorially. “She brought me some blueberry muffins earlier today, and they were the best muffins I’ve ever had.”
Joey giggles.
“Jenny, you made muffins and didn’t share any with me or Josephine?” my dad questions, a teasing tone to his voice, and when my mom brings the pot of chili over to the table, she proceeds to smack him across the shoulder with a kitchen towel.
“I saved a few for Joe, but you don’t need any more muffins, old man. I know you snuck three of them from my basket before I could take them up to Leah’s.”
Take them up to Leah’s?
Like the damned doctor now officially lives on the ranch?
What is happening right now?
She hasn’t even been here a fucking day, and it’s like they’re just making her a part of our family.
Anger floods my bloodstream, and I can feel the vein at the center of my forehead start to throb. It takes everything inside me not to let everything I’m currently feeling explode from my lips like a bomb.
I only manage to sit there for another few minutes with my mama talking to Leah about when she usually heads into town to get groceries before I can’t take it anymore.
Up from my chair, I push myself to standing and meet my dad’s eyes. “I need a word with you.”
He furrows a brow. “We’re eating, son. We’ll talk after we finish.”
“No.” I shake my head. “We’ll talk now.”
I don’t wait for his response.
Instead, I head straight out of the house, moving as fast as my braced-up leg will allow, and I don’t stop until I’m on the front porch and the screen door slams shut behind me.
It’s not long before my dad makes his way outside, and the scowl that mars his face nearly makes me laugh. The fact that he has the audacity to look that pissed at me for the crap he’s trying to pull is downright hilarious.
“What’s so fuckin’ funny?”
“The fact that you look pissed at me,” I retort.
“You’re damn right. You don’t leave your mother’s table in the middle of the meal she’s worked hard on, and you definitely don’t do it in mixed company. I swear to Christ, I don’t even know if the boy I raised is in there anymore.”
A harsh laugh is jarred free from my lungs. “You hire some fucking doctor behind my back, tell her I’m a fourteen-year-old kid, force her on me, and invite her to dinner without even so much as a conversation with me about what you’ve done, and I’m the one whose behavior is in question?” I shake my head. “You’re gettin’ more delusional by the day.”
“Son, I fuckin’ told ya, if you needed a babysitter, I’d hire ya one. Just be glad I was nice enough to saddle you with one this pretty.”