My Soul To Keep (Soul Series Book 1) (25 page)

I’m reminded that Emmy is hearing all of this, witnessing all of this, only when she gasps. Pity and horror fill her eyes. Great. I’ve fucked up her Thanksgiving
and
Christmas with my family drama. Batting a thousand, Gray.

“We should all calm down.” Grady looks between my red-faced father and me like he’s a negotiator and we’re both strapped with dirty bombs.

“Grady, maybe you can manage to stay out of it this time,” my mother says through tight lips. “We wouldn’t be in this situation if it weren’t for you.”

“That’s fucked up, Mother.” My words come out sharp as hot glass before Grady has the chance to defend himself. “The one person in this farce of a family who looked out for me, who had my best interests at heart, and you attack him.”

“We
all
had your best interests at heart, Rhyson,” my father says. “We just had different ways of arriving at them.”

“And your way could have gotten me killed.”

“Oh, spare me the melodrama.” My father tosses his linen napkin onto the table. “Our way would have saved this family the public humiliation of being dragged through court for a totally unnecessary step that set your career back nearly a decade.”

“With all due respect, Benjamin,” Grady says. “I wish things could have been handled differently, but I only wanted what was best for Rhyson. If we could all focus on the future and put the past behind us—”

“You just can’t stay out of it.” My mother shakes her head, narrowing her eyes on Grady. “How are we supposed to reconcile with our son if you’re always getting in the way?”

That does it. I stand to my feet to face the Machiavellis at the head of the dinner table.

“For the record, Grady is the reason I’m here,” I say. “And since you can’t show him any respect or gratitude, I refuse to endure this Christmas charade.”

I turn to Emmy, touching her hand and smiling ruefully.

“I’m sorry my family seems to ruin all the holidays for you. You’re very lucky Grady’s nothing like the rest of us.

Without another word, just a touch to Grady’s shoulder, I’m headed toward the door.

“Where exactly do you think you’re going?” my father’s voice booms from behind me. “You’re even more self-centered and arrogant than you were before, disrupting our Christmas this way. Walk out that door and you’re no son of mine.”

Son?

That word doesn’t even sound right on his lips, like a foreigner mispronouncing a new tongue. The right letters and syllables, but wrong to the point of grating on your ears. I turn by degrees to face him, years of pent-up rage slipping through cracks I’ve only spackled and plugged in therapy.

“Really, Dad?” I set my voice to deadly quiet. “That’s the threat? That I’m no son of yours? Didn’t you get the message that I didn’t want to be the son of a cold, heartless, mercenary bastard like you when I begged the courts to emancipate me?”

I think I’ve actually hurt him. Before he lowers the shade over his expression, I think I see pain. Am I evil for hoping so? How much of my life have I lived just wanting a reaction from him? He didn’t seem to respond to the things a father should, so our dynamic has always been off. Now, it’s so bad that even his pain satisfies me because it may be the only real emotion between us.

I can’t take this room anymore. It’s like being locked in a garage filling with carbon monoxide. My chest hurts. My eyes burn. I think I’m dying so slowly I don’t even notice. Without another word, I’m out of the dining room, through the foyer, and on my way up the steps to get my shit.

“Rhyson,” Grady calls from behind me.

I can’t even talk to him right now. I don’t stop.

“Rhyson, don’t go.”

No way am I stopping. No way am I listening.

“Rhyson, stop,” Grady says again. “Stop, son.”

Son.

That’s how it’s supposed to sound.

I stop and turn to face the only member of this family who has ever loved me without strings. I don’t say anything. He has earned my undivided attention.

“He wasn’t always this way, Rhyson,” Grady says.

“Well, he is now.”

“I think he can change. I think he wants to.”

“Maybe he does.” I shrug. “But that’s not going to be our Christmas miracle. I’m sorry, Grady, but I can’t stay under the same roof with them. You and Emmy stay, but I can’t.”

“I just don’t want you to be alone on Christmas,” Grady says with a concerned frown.

My first genuine smile since Bertie set a bowl of lobster bisque down in front of me breaks out.

“Don’t worry about that, Grady. I don’t plan to be alone.”

IN YEARS PAST, CHRISTMAS WAS A
blur of activity. Everybody wanted Mama’s holiday specials at the Glory Bee. I loved seeing newcomers do a double take when a tiny Asian woman, just shy of five feet, would emerge from the kitchen in her apron, making sure they were loving her Southern cooking. She made fruit cake that actually tasted good, cinnamon spice loaves, and of course, her famous mint apple cider. We made more money in December alone than any other quarter. We nearly made more money on Christmas morning than the rest of December. While other kids were tearing into their presents, Mama, Aunt Ruthie, and I were prepping for Glory Bee Christmas breakfast. Most years, I even managed to recruit San, but this Christmas he’s spending with his grandmother who just retired to Florida.

You wouldn’t believe how many folks don’t want to cook breakfast on Christmas morning. They much preferred Mama’s hot biscuits and homemade preserves to anything they could do themselves. We were always up by four that morning prepping, open for business from eight to noon, and home opening our own gifts by two. A strange Christmas, a working Christmas, but I never minded. The money we made that morning didn’t just pay for Christmas gifts. It paid for dance and singing lessons. For cheering and gymnastics fees. For new tap and ballet shoes. Mama never held with me having a job because she knew how demanding my schedule was, but I worked for her.

Inevitably, I’d have Christmas dance recitals, parades, holiday singing competitions. Mama never complained. She just juggled all her responsibilities at the diner, made sure I got where I needed to be, and that she was there when I needed her presence and support.

Christmas was a time of traditions, hard work, and gratitude. Mama never wanted me to take the little we had for granted. She made sure each Christmas Eve Glory Falls’s homeless or those in need had a hot meal. They’d crowd the basement of Glory Falls Baptist Church, and we would serve. Even though Mama is gone, that tradition remains.

And if I never see another dollop of mashed potatoes it will be too soon. I’m not sure if Glory Falls’s homeless population has tripled in the few months since I moved to L.A., or if I’m feeling Mama’s absence that acutely, but I can’t keep up with this crowd. Aunt Ruthie and I have been plating for the last thirty minutes. I first learned about the miracle of the fish and the loaves in a Sunday school classroom upstairs. It feels like we have our very own miracle meal going on, because I swear we didn’t make this much food. It’s multiplying faster than we can scoop it into the sections of the rectangular Styrofoam plates.

“Kai, honey, can you serve plates out there for a little bit?” Aunt Ruthie swipes a sleeve over her perspiring forehead. “I think Lila could use some help.”

“Sure thing.” I tighten the ties of the apron around my waist and adjust the hair net Aunt Ruthie insists I wear. I think more just to privately laugh at me than for sanitary reasons.

I grab a tray of plates, almost buckling under the weight of the food, and walk into the basement’s fellowship hall. Some church members are upstairs preparing for the service we’ll have in about an hour. Others are serving food out here or helping Aunt Ruthie in the kitchen like I was. Some are giving out coats from the winter wear drive Mama started years ago. I love seeing that program live beyond her. Christmas has always been all hands on deck for those less fortunate. That’s a legacy from Mama, and Grammy before her.

“Let me take that for you, Kai.” Mr. McClausky, one of Pops’s oldest friends, relieves me of the heavy tray. “Sure is good to see you back.”

“It’s good to be back, Mr. M.” I lift a couple of plates from the tray and hand them down to people waiting for food.

“How’s it going out in Los Angeles?” Mr. McClausky follows behind me with the tray, and I keep passing plates down to people and adding a smile.

“Pretty good.” I grin up at him over my shoulder. “Can’t complain.”

“You meet any superstars out there?” Mr. McClausky gives me a peekaboo grin, showing off the space where a tooth used to be.

“One or two.” I can’t help but think of Rhyson and wonder what he’s doing right now. Maybe I’ll sneak in a text if we finish the service before it’s too late to see how things went with his parents.

“We sure do miss you around here.” Mr. McClausky hands the now-empty tray over to me. “And your mother. She was a fine woman for sure, and this town hasn’t been the same since she passed.”

“Thank you.” I drop my eyes to my soft-soled boots that split the difference between fashion and comfort.

“Your daddy . . .” Mr. McClausky pauses, an uncharacteristically uncertain look on his face.

“What about him?” My voice usually weakens to nothing or goes stony when I speak of my father. There’s no middle ground. I’ve wasted enough weakness on him, so stony it is. Mr. McClausky must hear the hard shift because his face softens with something close to pity.

“He was a fool.” Mr. McClausky pats my shoulder. “How he could leave a precious little thing like you and a woman like your mama, I’ll never understand.”

He’s asking a question that has tortured me since the day Daddy missed my recital. I avoid the sympathy in his eyes and look around at the people enjoying a hot meal on Christmas Eve.

“I always knew he wasn’t the one though.” Mr. McClausky tucks his words into a conspiratorial whisper, making me lean in to find them.

“Wasn’t the one?” I frown, finally looking at him again in case his face yields more insight. “What do you mean?”

“Before he retired, I told your grandfather Jim wasn’t the one to take over Glory Falls Baptist. I said he wasn’t the one for your mama neither.” Mr. McClausky gives a firm nod of his balding head. “But he didn’t listen to me. Twenty-five years of friendship, and he chose that one time not to listen. Well, and your mama loved that man something fierce, so it seemed like it was meant to be.

“Why wasn’t he the one?”

There are questions that stay with us our whole lives. Seeking, searching for the answers, is what drives us on and forward. If we ever found the answers, we might stop moving. If we ever found the answers, it might feel like losing a friend who has spurred us on every step of the way. All my questions about my father are like that, but I have to know.

“First time I met your daddy, he ate past full.”

“What does that mean? Ate past full?”

“I watched that man eat himself almost sick that night. Your mama had a spread like nothing I’d ever seen.” Mr. McClausky licks his lips like he can still taste that meal. “Like she emptied the pantry trying to cook her way into that man’s heart. He was just about sick, but do you know what he did?”

I shake my head because I gave up long ago trying to figure out anything about my father.

“He heaped more on his plate and kept on eating.”

“
That
’s why you knew he wasn’t the one?” I give a sharp, little laugh. “People overeat all the time, Mr. McClausky.”

“You didn’t see him. It was something about the way he just wasn’t ever . . .” He twists his lips, searching for the word. “Satisfied. He wasn’t ever satisfied. No matter how good a thing was, no matter how much he got, he couldn’t be satisfied. It wasn’t just food either. I saw it more than once. Underneath it all, he was a man of excess. You can’t hide something like that forever. His appetites ruled him, and nothing was ever enough.”

Nothing was ever enough.

Certainly not a backwoods Baptist church with only a handful of members and a small hundred-year-old parish house to live in. Certainly not his little wife, who devoted everything she had to a modest home and a family. Certainly not his daughter, always nipping at his heels, doing pirouettes, and begging for attention. Was it that
nothing
was never enough, or when it came down to it, was it just that we weren’t?