Page 10 of A Little Taste
Looks like Bud went to church this morning, which means a crowd of onlookers has gathered while he hitches the front of Britt’s truck to his tower.
Owen drops onto his butt again, looking up at me with a frown. “What’s a forensic photographer?”
“It’s a person who takes pictures of crime scenes to try and help us figure out what happened or who did it.”
“Like a private investigator?”
“Something like that, but with pictures.” I’m driving us slowly to my mother’s house for our weekly Sunday lunch.
“You said facts are the only things that matter.”
“That’s right.”
“No magic.” He looks down at his hands, and I can tell something’s bothering him.
“What’s on your mind, Froot Loop?”
“Dad!” he groans loudly. “I told you not to call me that anymore!”
“What? It was your favorite food for the first five years of your life.”
“It’s not cool.”
I glance in the mirror, wondering when he started worrying about being cool. He used to laugh at his nickname.
“Sorry, I’ll try to remember that.”
Quiet falls in the cab and an old Shania Twain song comes on the country station about boots being under beds. I reach forward to turn it off. I’ve had enough of her voice for one day.
“Jesus walked on the water,” Owen blurts, and my brow furrows. “Miss Magee said so in Sunday school today. There was a bad, bad storm, and the disciples were all afraid, and they looked out and Jesus was walking on the water to their boat. How could that have happened if there’s no such thing as magic?”
Shifting in my seat, I give the accelerator a little nudge to get us to my mom’s house quicker. I hadn’t expected to have this conversation with him so soon—or ever.
“Well…” I start, wondering how the hell I’m going to answer him.
“I said you don’t believe in magic, and Miss Magee said I should talk to you about it after church. Ryan said I’d better not.”
“Don’t you listen to Ryan.” I’m quick to squash that notion. “If there’s something you want to know, you can always come and ask me. We don’t keep secrets from each other.”
“Ryan said you’d get mad.” My son squints up at me. “You look mad.”
“I’m not mad. I just didn’t expect to be talking about Jesus this morning.”
“It’s Sunday, Dad.” He looks at me likeduh. “Everybody’s talking about Jesus.”
I don’t bother pointing out noteverybodytalks about Jesus on Sunday. We are in Eureka, after all.
Pulling into the driveway of my mom’s large, white farmhouse. I look up at the wrap-around porch, the swing in the corner, and I wonder when my life got so complicated. I can remember sitting there, listening to the chain squeak as I talked to my dad about some problem, as we slowly rocked back and forth with the slightly briny, humid breeze wrapping around us.
Damn, I miss that old man.
Green, spiky palmettos line the space between the porch and the ground, and rising above it all is a giant live oak tree so old its black limbs reach almost to the ground. All my brothers and I had to take pictures with our dates before homecoming and prom and whatever else my mother deemed photo-worthy in front of that tree.
My brother Alex’s Tesla is already in the drive, and with Owen’s question hanging in the air, I grimace at the sight of my youngest brother Adam’s Jetta.
Adam’s as big a believer as the Baileys. I’d hoped being a pilot in the Navy would have worked some of that out of him, but it didn’t. In fact, I think it made him worse—flying helped him see the world from God’s perspective, he said.
If I don’t wrap this up, I’m sure he’ll be glad to provide some outlandish answer to my son’s question.