Page 45 of Really Truly Yours
Donny’s weathered face jolts. “I was gonna tell him!” He shoots an angry scold at Sydnee.
“Don’t start on her. This one’s on you, bud.”
She steps up, huddled into that ever-present sweater. “The clock ran out, Donny. I’m sorry.”
“You shouldn’t have done that, girl!”
“You asked me if I would talk to Grayson again for you!”
“That was different. I wanted to tell him.” He turns bloodshot eyes, otherwise the same color as mine, back on me. “It’s your fault for running out on me, you know!”
“Like father, like son, eh?” We engage in a stare-down, one it’s predetermined I’m winning.
More than Donny’s face crumples. The fight in him seeps away. “Yeah. It’s true. Tripp’s mine, too.” His weak voice warbles.
I press the heel of my hand to my temple. Oh, brother.
Brother. I see it now. All of us are tall men, by pretty much anybody’s standard. Tripp and Donny, I suspect even when he was healthy, share lankier frames. Our eyes are close to the same shade, a feature until this week I had assumed came from Tripp’s and my mother. Tripp’s and Donny’s are the same shape, too, more elongated, less round. Their noses match, and if it weren’t for Tripp’s deeper coloring, I might have noticed it right off.
I cock my knee out. “You can’t tell him.”
Indignant, he sputters.
“I mean it, Donny. You think I’ve been angry? Tripp’s wrath isn’t even in the same ballpark.”
Sydnee hovers, and I catch her stealing glances toward the yard. I’m probably making my brother sound like an ogre. He’s not, but I know what I’m talking about here. It isn’t as if he’d do anything with the news, nothing except walk and not come back. That’s bad for Donny, not to mention himself. This is something Tripp is going to need to deal with once and for all.
Today isn’t that day. I’ll be the one to break it to him, and maybe after he’s digested the news for a time, he’ll be willing to talk to Donny. His father.
Our father.
“But—”
“No.”
Sydnee speaks up. “Give it time, Donny.”
He pounds the chair with his fist. “I don’t have time!”
The room goes still except for Donny’s wheezy respirations and a breeze whistling through the impromptu skylight.
Sydnee kneels. Her slim, feminine fingers wrap his shaky hands. “He didn’t say forever, just not today. Please promise, Donny.”
Thank you, Sydnee. She has a way with the old guy.
I’m beginning to feel like she has some kind of way with me, too.
His whole pathetic being falls. “I promise.”
The front door, probably poorly hung from the start and settled over time, drags the worn-out carpet. Donny’s eyes enlarge, his mouth opens, and I swear his confession is ready for launch.
I hear Tripp’s feet step onto the foul carpet. “Truck’s unloaded, Gray.”
My old man is a stubborn coot, I read it in his eyes and the poking out of his chin. Sydnee says he’s reformed, but Tripp’s filled me in on the Donny he knew. Is his promise worth spit?
I bend to his ear. “You breathe one word, and I will make sure you never see him or me again. You got that old man?”
Close enough to hear, Sydnee jolts.