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  “Then you should mark Burger Barn off your list of job prospects,” he countered. “I hate to be the one to point this out, but you’ve been the one putting the roof over your family’s head since you got married.”

  I waved off this observation.

  “I just helped out Mrs. Neider,” I told him. “I could do that on a flexible schedule and without leaving the kids.”

  “Then I’d suggest that you find a position that offers flexible work schedules and allows you to bring the kids along.”

  “What kind of job would that be?”

  “You’re asking me?” Mike replied. “Weren’t you the girl who was valedictorian of Lumkee High.”

  “So were you,” I pointed out.

  “And look at me,” he said. “What a success I am, still working at the drugstore for Dad.”

  I laughed and shook my head.

  “Seriously, sis,” Mike continued. “Get a house, get a job. Get some things that you want out of life. Sam will be behind you one hundred percent. The guy is crazy about you, you know.”

  I nodded.

  “If Cherry Dale, who can’t even string two coherent sentences together, can come up with a business plan that allows her to make money with her kids underfoot, I’m sure my brilliant sister can do even better.”

  “And speaking of Cherry Dale,” I said. “What’s the deal there? Are you two having secret rendezvous, planning summer nuptials or just trying to see if you can push the local gossips into busy-signal overdrive and shut down telephone service in the entire region.”

  Mike grinned. “Don’t try to distract me,” he said. “Cherry Dale and I are just two happily single people trapped in a community of Stepford wives who won’t be happy until everyone is till-death-do-us-part-ing.”

  “Marriage is wonderful, Mike,” I told him. “I can highly recommend it.”

  “And I can highly recommend working for a living and buying your own house,” he countered.

  I shrugged, feeling wistful. “Even if I could,” I pointed out, “it would take me a year to save up the down payment. We have no choice but to rent again.”

  “Dad would loan you the money,” he noted.

  “And Sam would cut my tongue out before he’d let me ask for help,” I said. “I’d cut my own tongue out before I’d mention it. If I even suggested it he’d sell one of the trucks or mortgage more of the equipment. He’d work himself to death to try to give me whatever I want, Mike, and I can’t let him do that.”

  My brother nodded solemnly and I thought that was the end of it. But I should have known Mike better. He had that same bulldoggedness as my mother. Unexpectedly he stopped by the apartment that night when the ten o’clock news was on.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked immediately when I opened the door.

  “Nothing,” he assured me.

  “Why are you here so late?”

  He chuckled. “I’ve got to get here late if I want to talk to Sam.”

  “You want to talk to Sam?”

  My question was skeptical.

  “Hey, Mike, come on in,” my husband said from behind me. “What’s going on?”

  “I wanted to talk to you about something,” Mike said. “I want to talk to you both.”

  “Sure, come on in.”

  My brother’s arrival awakened Lauren, who escaped from her bed and sleepily crawled up in Uncle Mike’s lap, where she lay her tousled blond head upon his chest and returned to her dreams.

  “That looks good on you, Mike,” I told him. “You’d make some lucky little boy or girl a wonderful father.”

  He looked down at Lauren and gently smoothed a stray lock of hair from her cheek.

  “I’m already making a couple of lucky kids a wonderful uncle,” he told me. “I figure I should quit while I’m ahead.”

  I frowned at him and he grinned back.

  “So what’s up?” Sam asked.

  “Well, I’ve got some money in the bank that’s not making all that much interest and I was hoping you would give me some advice about investing it,” Mike said.

  I was immediately alert.

  Sam was puzzled.

  “I think you’ve come to talk to the wrong guy,” he said. “I don’t know anything about investment.”

  “You know about the oil business,” Mike said.

  Sam nodded. “Well, this might be a good time to buy some Big Four stock,” he admitted. “The price of crude this week is down to thirty and a half a barrel. That’s the lowest we’ve seen it in years. It’s hard to imagine that OPEC is going to let it slide any further.”

  Mike was nodding thoughtfully.

  “The value of fossil fuels can only go up,” Sam continued. “It’s a limited commodity and the industrial economy depends upon it. International production has become so risky and politically vulnerable that what’s pumped here at home becomes increasingly more valuable. So you’re looking at the Big Four?”

  “Not really,” Mike told him. “I’m not interested in putting my money in some faceless corporation that I hear from once a year in a slick report. What I’d like to do is invest in a small, well-run company that’s expanding and growing. I want a place where I trust the management and know they’re honest, hardworking and there’s lots of potential for future earnings.”

  Sam’s brow furrowed. “That’s a good idea,” he said. “I’m sure there are some very good opportunities just like that. I’m not sure I can really advise you, off the top of my head like this. If you’d give me a couple of weeks to look around, ask a few questions, I’ll do what I can to come up with some choices for a good, safe situation for you.”

  “I appreciate that, Sam,” Mike said. “But honestly, I’ve already figured out where I want to put my money. There’s a local business that I’ve watched grow from nothing. It’s well-managed, respected, and the guy running it is honest as the day is long and very careful about keeping things on a sound financial footing.”

  “Sounds good,” Sam agreed.

  “I’m absolutely certain that this is exactly where I want my money to be. I’m just hoping the guy will let me buy in.”

  “What company is it?” Sam asked.

  Mike glanced over at me. I already knew the answer.

  “Braydon Oil Field Service,” Mike told him.

  Sam

  1982

  We moved into our very own brand-new house in May. Fifteen hundred square feet in a new track of housing just east of town. We fenced in the backyard and put up a play set. In the front we planted two red oak trees with the symbolic assumption that they would grow tall and strong like our children. Just the idea of the mortgage made my palms sweat, but I was so happy to be able to move in. It was the nicest place I had ever even spent the night. And now it was ours, mine and Corrie’s.

  The first night we made love in our bedroom, I asked her afterward, “Can you believe we actually own our own house?”

  She claimed that she always knew we would.

  I have to admit, I was never so sure.

  The kids both had their own rooms and Corrie and her mother worked day and night to get everything painted and papered and decorated the way that they wanted.

  My part of this was to redouble my efforts on the job. The price of crude oil continued to inexplicably slump, though most people said that the Falklands War, down in Argentina, couldn’t help but get things back on track.

  I have to admit, I was feeling pretty dad-gummed good about myself. I was twenty-five years old. The owner of a successful business and a new home, married to the prettiest and brightest girl in town, father of two happy, healthy kids. When I walked down Main Street, I held my head pretty high.

  I was in this frame of mind: proud, happy, blessed, the day my father showed up. He walked into the little eight-by-ten office shed I kept on my equipment lot. I was on the phone with Arnie Rayburn, trying to collect what was owed me. His struggling independent company was strapped and was getting slower and slower to pay. I just wanted to mak
e sure that he didn’t forget to pay at all.

  The older man, thin and bent, nodded to me, biding his time looking at the photographs on my walls. They were all pictures of rigs we’d worked on and jobs we’d done. I kept family photographs on my desk. The ones I hung around the room were to display the breadth of my client list.

  I didn’t know the fellow, but I was certain that I’d seen him around, he just looked too familiar to be a complete stranger. He wasn’t in the best physical shape. But old oil men can be tough and wiry. A lot of them could do a full day’s labor well into their seventies. With good workers still at a premium, an employer would be a fool to overlook a proven, experienced laborer.

  I finished my call with Arnie and rose to my feet, offering my hand.

  “Sam Braydon,” I said.

  He nodded. “You’re pretty young to be running a business like this yourself,” he responded.

  I shrugged. “There’s money to be made in the oil patch these days,” I told him. “And I’ve been lucky.”

  The man nodded. “I heard around town that you married Doc Maynard’s girl,” he said. “Did Maynard set you up in business?”

  I was insulted, but I tried not to show it. I’m sure a lot of people probably thought the same thing. Most just had the good sense not to say it aloud.

  “No,” I answered, calmly. “I set myself up in business with a lot of hard work and some handy bank loans. Are you looking for a job?”

  He shrugged. “Well, I don’t have one.”

  “Did you quit or get fired?” I asked.

  “Neither,” he answered. “I been in prison.”

  “Prison?” I repeated.

  He hesitated a moment, eyeing me speculatively before he nodded.

  “Sam,” he said. “I’m your daddy.”

  “What?”

  The question came out before I could stop it. Not until that very moment did I actually recognize him. I don’t think that I can express in words my feelings. I looked into his eyes and I could vaguely see the man I used to know. I couldn’t call to mind even one specific incident of sitting on his lap or playing with him. I could remember looking at the back of his head the day that I’d seen him in court. That was it. But in his eyes there was something of my childhood, my past. Something that I wanted.

  “Well…well hi,” I finally managed to get out.

  I didn’t know if I should hug him. In my life, both with Gram and with Corrie, hugging of family members was mandatory. But somehow it just seemed awkward and strange.

  “Have a seat,” I suggested. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  I turned my back as I got him a cup. It was a good thing he couldn’t see how my hands were shaking.

  “Cream? Sugar?”

  “Black’s fine,” he said.

  When I turned back around he was holding the family portrait from my desk. We’d had it made the previous Christmas at the new Kmart just south of town.

  “That’s my wife and kids,” I explained unnecessarily.

  He nodded. “The little girl looks like your mother,” he told me.

  I smiled. “That’s what Gram says.”

  He glanced up quickly. “Is that old lady still alive?”

  “Yeah, she’s doing great. Still keeping her own house and going to church every Sunday, whether she feels like it or not.”

  He made a strange snorting sound.

  “She never liked me,” he said. “I suppose she’s told you all kinds of terrible things about me.”

  That statement was puzzling and made me vaguely wary. “No,” I replied honestly. “I don’t think she’s ever said anything about you at all.”

  He raised an eyebrow as if he were momentarily skeptical and then he nodded as if that made perfect sense.

  I sat down across the table from him. I was uneasy. This was my father. He was to me what I was to Lauren and Nate. I hadn’t seen him in more than twenty years and I ought to have plenty to tell him, questions to ask him. There should have been a world of words to be spoken between us. I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  Silence seemed to be good for him as well. He drank his coffee. Glanced around the room. Occasionally he glanced at me.

  “When did you get out?” I asked finally.

  “Two weeks ago,” he answered. “I been hanging around Tulsa for a few days.”

  “Oh.”

  “Got a few friends there,” he said.

  “That’s good.”

  More silence.

  “So, you got a nice-looking family,” he said, pointing again to the photograph on my desk.

  “Yes,” I assured him, smiling. “Corrie is wonderful and the kids are great. Both of them smart and happy.”

  He nodded.

  “And this business of yours, it’s not too shabby, either.”

  “We’re doing great,” I agreed. “It’s been tough getting myself established, but things are going along nicely now.”

  “I’d like to meet your children,” he said.

  This request actually surprised me. It was strange to imagine that he would be interested. I reminded myself that they were his grandchildren. His only grandchildren. He hadn’t been involved in my life, but that really hadn’t been possible. He’d been locked up. And I had never once gone to visit him.

  Of course, he could have written me a letter or sent a Christmas card or acknowledged my birthday. For some reason, I didn’t allow myself to dwell upon those facts, instead I heard myself inviting him to come to the house for dinner.

  He suggested that I meet him downtown, but I didn’t want to let him go. I’m not sure if I was afraid I’d never see him again or just eager to show off my life, but I begged him to hang around with me, visit the jobs, watch me work.

  I don’t ever recall consciously daydreaming about being with my father. I’d thought about my mother a lot and Gram had always talked about her. I remembered her, but only in the vaguest sense, and I’d imagined her to be a lot like Corrie. Of the circumstances surrounding her death, I tried not to think at all. I decided in childhood that it had been some terribly regrettable accident. I was sure that my father was as saddened by her death as I was myself.

  However, as we went through the day together, I did not introduce him to my employees or clients. I had spent too many years keeping a low-profile past to suddenly present this stranger as my long-lost father.

  It was after four in the afternoon before I finally called Corrie. I wasn’t sure what to say and I didn’t want to say it in front of my father. We were out at a well and he was taking a leak in the bushes when I radioed her on the CB.

  “This is BOWS Patch Dog calling the home base. Come back at me, Daisy May?”

  It took three or four calls before Corrie picked up.

  “Daisy May, you’re cool and clear Patch Dog. Talk to me.”

  I could hear the typical kid chaos in the background.

  “I’m bringing somebody home for dinner,” I said simply.

  “Oh, gosh—” was her initial response. Followed by a more official “Roger, what’s the time on that?”

  “Two hours,” I told her. “I can stall longer if you need it.”

  “No, it’s fine,” she assured me. “I was cooking chicken. Will that be okay?”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Is it a client?”

  I hesitated. The radio barked again.

  “Repeat, is it a client?”

  “It’s my dad,” I answered.

  There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

  “Okay,” she said finally. “We’ll see you when you get here.”

  As it turned out, Corrie had plenty of time. When I closed the office, my father suggested that rather than go straight home, we stop at the beer joint on the edge of town.

  With the exception of my time in the army, I have never been much of a drinker. Gram never really approved of alcohol in any form unless it was rubbed on. But I do admit that a
fter being outside in the hot summer sun, there is nothing better in the world than an ice-cold beer. Since it was on the cusp of summer, I figured a nice brew after a long day wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

  Inside the place it was dark and dank and smelled of cigarettes. I knew most everybody at the bar. If they were surprised to see me there, nobody commented on it.

  Dad sat down at a table at the back, near the shuffle-board table. I went up to buy the beer. They had Coors on tap, but in the vague recesses of my memory I knew that Dad drank Lone Star and I asked for two bottles. I was so proud of this tiny sliver of knowledge that when I got to the table I revealed it.

  “You drink Lone Star, right?”

  He glanced up at me and shrugged. “I’ll drink anything,” he said. “With this damned Oklahoma three-two, it all tastes like horse piss, anyway.”

  Three-two referred to the mandated maximum alcohol content, 3.2 percent, which was about half what most beers contain. Oklahoma beer was pretty watered down, supposedly to keep guys from getting drunk. Of course, there always seemed to be plenty of drunk guys around, so I’m guessing it didn’t work as well as the lawmakers in Oklahoma City had hoped.

  I sat across the table from Dad. He was examining the old, faded photographs that hung on the walls.

  “This place sure hasn’t changed much in twenty years,” he said. “I’d already spent a million hours in this place by the time I was your age.”

  This surprised me. I guess it shouldn’t have, but I’d always thought of Lumkee as my town, as Gram’s town, as my mother’s town. That my father had lived here, knew the area and the people had completely escaped my notice.

  “I guess you met Mom here in town,” I said.

  He glanced up. “Gloria? Oh, yeah, I met her here in town. You don’t think her mother would have let her go anyplace else?”

  “No, I guess not,” I responded as he took a big gulp of beer.

  “Half the reason that woman married me was to get away from her stifling mama and that damned holy-roller church.”

  “Half the reason?”

  “You were the other half,” he said, winking at me. “Did you know that? Did you know that she was knocked-up?”