“I feel like one. My body hurts more being here and not working out than it did lifting hay bales all day long.”
“I bet all that farm work kicked your ass.”
“It was a ranch, but yeah, it was hard work. I enjoyed it though. It’s surprising how much more enjoyment you can get out of life when you aren’t
always running around trying to make money.”
Casey just laughed at me. He probably thought I was joking, but I was being very serious. I didn’t enjoy my life nearly as much now that I was back home and it was stressing me out. I had to figure my way back to happiness and just didn’t know what the path was yet.
After being gone for a year, I had genuinely expected to be over the moon with happiness when I got home. But even the night I walked into my house again had felt totally empty. I had called up my sister on the phone and talked with her for hours, then made plans to visit with her the following weekend.
Seeing my sister in person had been a long time coming and I was glad that she had accepted my apology for being a giant ass over the years. She was my only true family that I had left and I was going to do a much better job of keeping in touch with her.
“Thanks for the bonus, man; my wife was so excited. I’m sure she thinks it means we can have more kids. Or maybe she’ll just buy and expensive purse,” he laughed.
“You don’t want a bigger family?” I asked.
“I don’t know, man. It scares me. How do I know I’ll be a good dad? I feel like I suck at it. She seems so perfectly inclined to be a mother, but I just don’t have a clue what I’m doing when it comes to being a dad.”
“Purely because you’re worrying about it means you’ll be good at it. You’ll be a kick ass dad. I mean, your daughter is like a year old already. You have to be doing something right.”
“Man, it’s a good thing my wife is a great mother. I was left alone with my daughter one night and I honestly didn’t know what to do with her. I sang Aerosmith songs to her until she fell asleep and I forgot to change her diaper the whole time.”
It was the truth; I firmly believed that Casey and his wife were amazing parents. It didn’t matter that he had forgotten to change his daughter, he could learn all of that as time went on. The important part of being a parent was loving your spouse and your children and Casey had that down. There was no question in my mind. Casey was a kind-hearted man who worked his ass off and never cut corners. The whole reason my company was still standing was because he had been in charge while I was away.
“Well, we’re already practicing for the next one, if you know what I mean,” Casey joked as he jabbed his elbow into my side.
“I can’t wait to be Uncle Malcolm again,” I laughed.
I wasn’t much of a drinker, but sitting there drinking beers with Casey did feel good. It was nice to have someone I trusted looking out for the company and I needed a night out to clear my head a bit. One thing that I never worried about while I had been away was my company. Sure, I occasionally thought of ideas and things that needed to be taken care of and I wanted to call or get in touch to tell Casey. But none of that mattered in the end. He had run the company with a profit that year and certainly had done a very respectable job of it.
“I heard you bought some houses for a couple guys you knew while you were away. That’s pretty good stuff right there,” Casey said.
“It was for the families of two men who were murdered. I also settled the lawsuit with Thomas Randal’s family for what they were asking: eight million.”
“Ouch; I don’t think Thomas would have been happy about his family suing you.”
“It’s all right. They are hurt by what happened and I want them to be able to move on. I met with his wife and we hashed things out. The settlement was the least I could do for her. I wished her all the best and she even hugged me when we signed the papers. I guess I can’t expect that she’ll forgive me for letting Thomas get involved, but hopefully her and her kids can move on now.”
“You didn’t force Thomas to get involved. He was an adult and made his own choices. You know you would have won that lawsuit if you had let it go to court? You should have taken them to court and kept your damn money.”
“I know. But it wouldn’t have felt like a win.”
“Well it was good of you to help those other two guys out. That was pretty messed up what happened to them at the ranch. Probably a pretty damn scary night.”
“It was. And they were good men. I made sure their families were taken care of, too.”
“Man, you’re just throwing your money away lately. Better be careful, you’ll end up poor and working on that ranch again,” Casey said as he started to laugh.
The funny thing was that I didn’t think of it as a bad thing if I was poor and working at the ranch again. I knew it would never happen, but my time at the ranch had been filled with positive memories. I wasn’t going to let the end of my stay there define my entire time on the ranch.
“I’m just trying to make up for being such a jackass before.”
“You’re not happy, I get it. But giving away all your money isn’t likely to make you happy. You’ve got to go after what you want and make it happen. Stop moping around and get after it. That’s the Malcolm I know.”
Casey was right; I was trying to make myself feel better by giving away my money but it wasn’t really working. Sure, I felt better for a few minutes, but then I went right back to wondering what the hell I was doing with my life.
I did hope that the money I was giving away was helping the people that worked for me and others that I had given it to. I hadn’t been the best of men before I had gone away and there was no way to change that. But I could be a better man moving forward and I hoped I was making better choices and doing a better job of showing people that I cared about them.