by Gina Wilkins
“That’s a shame for her boys.”
Ron shrugged. “They’re better off without him.”
Putting that aside, she asked, “Your brother is Tom?”
“Tommy’s the one in jail,” he reminded her. “Mick’s the one who’ll be there today.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“No problem. You’ll like Mick okay, until he has a couple of beers and gets mad at Dad over something. He gets pretty obnoxious then.”
“Maybe they won’t quarrel today.”
“And maybe these gray skies will clear into a beautiful, sunshiny afternoon, but that’s not what I’m expecting.”
She glanced at the heavy, dark, oppressive-looking clouds that were already spitting rain against the windshield and shook her head in response to his analogy.
“Is Mick married?”
“Not the last I heard. He’s had a string of live-ins, but no one permanent. No kids, as far as I know.”
She put that aside for now, too. Other than his parents, who didn’t seem particularly happy together from what he’d said, his family history of relationships was hardly encouraging. “What are your parents’ names?”
“T.L.—Thomas Lane—and Carolyn Gibson. They’ll insist you call them by their first names. Neither one of them likes formality. In Mom’s case, she wouldn’t want to be reminded that she’s that much older. She can’t even bear for the kids to call her grandmother. They call her CiCi. Don’t ask me why.”
She listened to his tone as much as his words when he spoke of his family members, hearing quite a few nuances layered there. Some bitterness. Somewhat dark amusement. But she thought she heard affection buried there, too, even if it was accompanied by old pain.
Or was she simply being an overearnest, aspiring psychiatrist? A common pitfall among medical students, she admitted with a self-chiding grimace.
“I think CiCi is a cute name for a grandmother,” she said simply.
He chuckled, but there wasn’t a lot of humor in the sound. She noticed that the closer they came to his hometown, the more tension appeared in his face.
She opened the computer again. “Okay. A right hemicolectomy is performed on a fifty-seven-year-old woman with adenocarcinoma who had a preoperative elevation of carcinoembryonic antigen to 144.”
Ron nodded to indicate he’d followed her thus far. He seemed much more comfortable discussing colorectal cancer than his family.
They stopped for a stretch break thirty minutes out of Hurleyville, after being on the road more than two hours. Making use of a reasonably clean convenience-store restroom, Haley washed her hands, then fluffed her hair and freshened her lip gloss. She wanted to make a good impression on Ron’s family, whatever he said about them.
She had to admit she was a little nervous about meeting them. Partially because of the things Ron had told her. Also because she knew he had called her his girlfriend when he’d told them that he was bringing her. Would that lead to awkward questions neither of them would know how to answer?
Ron waited for her at the car, leaning against the hood to postpone climbing back beneath the wheel. “Ready?”
She nodded and slid into the passenger seat again, reaching for her seat belt.
“Guess there’s no need to pull the notes out again. We’d barely have time to get started studying before we arrive.”
“Yeah. We’ll start again on the way home.”
“I hope your family likes the candies I brought.”
“They’ll love them. You really didn’t have to go to all that trouble to make homemade Christmas candies for them.”
“Well, your mother told us not to bring anything for the meal. I hated to arrive empty-handed. Besides, I like making Christmas treats. I just wish I’d had time to make and decorate sugar cookies.”
“Trust me, the fudge and homemade caramels you brought will be well received. I came by my sweet tooth genetically.”
She smoothed her dark brown slacks beneath the seat belt. She’d chosen to wear them with a thin, deep red sweater because the outfit wouldn’t wrinkle during the long drive. And maybe because Ron always complimented her when she wore this fitted, scoop-neck sweater, she had to admit privately.
He looked good today, too. She liked the hunter green twill shirt he’d worn with his khaki slacks. It looked good with his sandy hair and bright blue eyes. But then, Ron always looked good to her.
He glanced at her with a smile. “You’re looking at me.”
“Admiring the view,” she quipped, reaching over without thinking to pat his knee.
He caught her hand and lifted it to his mouth, brushing his lips across her knuckles and for just that moment, everything was okay between them again. “Careful, Haley. That was almost a compliment.”
She laughed softly, feeling tingles rippling from her hand to her heart. “I’ll have to watch that. Wouldn’t want your head to get too big.”
He squeezed her fingers and released her. Just for fun, she lightly punched his right arm before withdrawing it.
Ron laughed. “Now, that’s my Haley.”
“His” Haley. Why was it that her breath caught in her throat every time he said that?
The winter-bare rice and soybean fields that made up so much of the northeast Arkansas scenery gave way to the outskirts of Jonesboro, the largest city in the area. Ron pointed out the university where he’d obtained his undergraduate degree as they passed. “Go, Red Wolves.”
She laughed and shook her head. “Go, Bears,” she insisted, naming her own college team.
“Are there any old friends you’ll want to see while you’re in town?” she asked, following that line of thought.
He shrugged. “Not really. I still have a couple of friends from high school in the area, and a few college buddies scattered around, but there’s no one in particular I want to see today. To be honest, I feel closer to Connor and James these days than anyone from my past. Even Hardik, to an extent. I guess it’s that bond forged by getting through those first hellish two years.”
“I know what you mean. As much as I still love my old friends, I consider Anne my very closest friend now. And you and James and Connor, of course. I’ll always treasure the time we’ve spent together.”
He slanted a frown in her direction. “Not sure how I feel about being just another name on that list.”
She flushed a little. “I didn’t mean it like that. Of course you’re special to me apart from the study group.”
“Hmm.” He looked ahead again as they left Jonesboro behind and entered the outskirts of a smaller, more rural burg. The road now was an uneven two lane lined with small frame houses and mobile homes and a few newer-looking brick homes.
Downtown Hurleyville showed evidence of a once thriving little community now victim to a changing economy. The old buildings that had once held clothing and fabric and furniture and hardware were now either vacant or filled with secondhand merchandise and dollar store wares. She supposed the locals drove into Jonesboro to the shopping malls and super-stores there for their purchases. Ron pointed out the old train station that had long since been abandoned to nature.
Crumbling old towns like this always made Haley a little sad. She loved nothing more than to visit one of the many rural towns in Arkansas that had reclaimed their heritage and managed to revitalize their old downtowns with new attractions. Perhaps Hurleyville’s administration would figure out some similar strategy in the future, she suggested.
Ron shrugged. “We’ve had the same mayor for almost as long as I can remember. He’s content to just watch the town die, apparently, and no one seems to have the time or energy to contest him. My dad actually considered running against him a couple of times, but he’s not exactly a pillar of the community, himself.”
He braked to allow a couple of farm-equipment trailers to pass, then made a left turn onto a rutted asphalt road. They drove past a pasture full of cattle, another that held a few horses, and then a mobile home on concrete blocks with broken t
oys scattered across the yard.
Considering the way Ron had spoken of his home, she was rather surprised when he finally pulled into the driveway of a tidy buff-colored brick and off-white siding ranch house styled similarly to her parents’ home. The grass and flower beds were brown for winter now, but she saw signs that flowers bloomed around the house in the summer. The concrete driveway looped around the house and she could see a large garage in the back, surrounded by vehicles of all different makes and models.
“It looks like your dad’s car repair business is thriving.”
“Yeah. He does a good job. Folks around here can’t always afford new vehicles, so they depend on Dad to keep their transportation running. He works on farm equipment, too, sometimes. Tractors, mostly.”
Climbing out of his car, she studied the surroundings again while he retrieved the basket of candies and a large bag of wrapped Christmas gifts from the backseat. Ron might not have grown up in luxury, but it looked as though the family hadn’t exactly lived in abject poverty, either. She imagined they had struggled at times, but then so had her own family. Neither of them had been raised in the financial comfort Anne and James seemed to take rather for granted.
Anne and James weren’t obnoxious about their privileged backgrounds, but Haley always sensed that neither quite understood what it was like for their families to have to worry about whether they could pay the light bill from month to month. Her family had been in that position a few times, and Ron’s probably had, too, while his dad had established his auto repair business. It was another bond between them, she supposed, despite the other differences in their childhoods.
Ron drew a deep breath as he looked at the unassuming house. And then he turned to Haley with a crooked smile. “It’s not too late to change your mind.”
Shaking her head in reproach at him, she reached for the candy basket. “Let’s go see your family.”
Ron didn’t bother to ring the bell at the front door, but turned the knob and stepped inside, motioning for Haley to accompany him.
“Hey,” he called out in the small entryway. “I’m here.”
At first glance, Haley noted that the inside of the house was as neat as the outside. A few inexpensive prints hung on the white painted walls, and three red silk poinsettias in craft-store-decorated pots were arranged on an old-looking sideboard in the foyer.
The smells wafting into the foyer from the back of the house were mouthwatering. Haley could hear children squealing in another room, Ron’s nephews, she assumed. All very homey and welcoming.
A short, comfortably padded woman with tousled, collar-length hair the same sandy color as Ron’s bustled out to welcome them. “There y’all are. We were wondering what was keeping you.”
“We’re exactly on time, Mom.” Ron leaned over to kiss his mother’s cheek. “Something smells great.”
“It should. I’ve been cooking for three days getting everything ready for today.” Carolyn turned to Haley with open curiosity. “Hello. Since my son hasn’t bothered to introduce us, I’m Carolyn—we don’t bother with the Mr. and Mrs. part here. You must be Haley.”
She hadn’t even given Ron a chance to introduce them, but he didn’t bother to protest, merely smiled wryly.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Carolyn. Thank you for having me today.”
“Haley made Christmas candies for the family, Mom.”
Carolyn took the offered basket with a light of anticipation in her blue eyes, though she shook her head with a cluck of her tongue. “Dad and I don’t need all this candy on our diets, but it was nice of you to think of us, Haley. Y’all come in.”
“They’ll eat and enjoy every piece of it,” Ron murmured into Haley’s ear as they followed his mother into the living room. “That was her idea of expressing gratitude.”
She didn’t have a chance to respond.
Two men sat in recliners facing the television in the living room, one younger, one older, both holding cans of beer. Another man sat on the worn couch next to a blonde who had to be Ron’s sister, judging from the resemblance. Two little boys—maybe five and three—played on the carpeted floor in one corner of the room beneath a colorfully decorated Christmas tree.
Only one of the men stood when Haley entered, the dark-haired, dark-eyed man from the couch. With his Hispanic coloring and features, it was obvious that he was not Ron’s brother.
Carolyn harrumphed loudly. “Don’t you guys see we have a guest? Get up and introduce yourself, Mick. You, too, T.L.”
Dutifully, the other men lowered the footrests of their recliners and rose to their feet, though Haley noticed the older man looked reluctant to tear his eyes from the football game.
“Everyone, this is Ron’s girlfriend, Haley Wright. Don’t expect Ron to introduce you to her. Haley, this is my husband, T.L., our son, Mick, our daughter, Debra and her boyfriend, Luis Rodriguz—”
“Ramirez,” Deb corrected with a sigh.
Her mother ignored her. “And Deb’s sons, Kenny and Bryce, are back there playing with their trucks.”
“It’s nice to meet everyone,” Haley assured them with a smile. “Please sit back down, I don’t want to keep you from your game.”
Nodding in approval, Ron’s father immediately took his seat again.
“I brought some gifts to put under the tree, Mom,” Ron said, hefting the bulging bag.
She nodded. “Put them under, then. We’ll open gifts after lunch, since Deb won’t be coming back for Christmas Day.”
The broad hint of accusation in the comment made her daughter sigh again.
Having arranged the gifts beneath the tree, Ron came back around to shake Luis’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Luis. I didn’t realize Deb was seeing anyone.”
“That’s why I wanted to come this weekend.” Deb flashed her left hand, revealing a sparkle of diamond. “Luis and I are getting married. Sometime next summer, probably. I’ve already told everyone else.”
“Yeah? Welcome to the family, Luis.” Ron shook his hand again, then turned to brush a kiss across his sister’s cheek. “I hope you’ll be very happy together, Deb.”
“Now that everyone’s finally here, we can go ahead and eat before the food gets cold,” Carolyn announced from the doorway. “T.L., turn off that TV and come to the dining room. You’re saying the blessing.”
“Why don’t you say the blessing this time?” T.L. argued, though he climbed to his feet again.
“Don’t start with me,” his wife told him with a shake of her finger. “This is as close as a family Christmas as we’re going to get this year, since Deb’s determined to spend the holiday in Florida. Least you can do is say the blessing.”
“Looks like we’re going to eat now,” Ron murmured to Haley, placing a hand at her back to escort her to the dining room.
Giving him a “behave yourself” look, she followed the crowd.
During the noisy, rather chaotic meal, she saw some of the issues Ron had warned her about. Carolyn was a chronic complainer, seemingly incapable of being completely satisfied with anything. Her rather taciturn husband, a thicker, more weathered version of Ron, made a habit of tuning her out except to occasionally complain back at her. Deb, a thinner, more finely honed clone of her mother, had a chip on her shoulder that Haley could almost see, as if daring anyone to offend her—which seemed to happen on a fairly regular basis.
Mick, an odd mixture of both his parents, sported a thinning ponytail and several prominent tattoos. He seemed to be an observer, sitting back and watching everyone else while he ate, his thoughts hard to read. Occasionally he made a wry observation or told an amusing anecdote about his life on the road.
Ron had implied that Mick had a temper. That wouldn’t surprise Haley. She suspected he’d have to in the rough-and-tumble life he seemed to favor. She sensed a lot of tension between Mick and his parents. Had he chosen a life on the road to get away from that tension, or was it caused by the path he’d taken? Maybe a little of both.
There was love here, she reflected, eating the excellent, country-style food and watching Ron’s family try so hard to interact with each other. But it was masked in habitual bickering and criticism, clouded by the haze of beer and smothered beneath years of hurt. No one mentioned the missing member of the family, but even Haley felt his absence, and she’d never met Tommy.
Most of the initial conversation centered around Deb’s engagement, Carolyn’s trials in her job as a middle-school secretary and the stories Mick told about his life on the road. Ron participated, as she tried to do when it seemed appropriate, but she noted that there were few questions about his life. Maybe because the others just didn’t know what to ask about medical school?
They certainly didn’t hold back on their criticism of him. He didn’t call enough, didn’t visit enough. His dad wanted to know why he’d bought the particular vehicle he was driving.
“Because I needed a new one and I got a good deal on that one from a friend’s brother,” Ron replied.
“Should have asked me first. I’d have told you that model’s nothing but trouble.”
“I haven’t had any trouble with it so far.”
“You will. And don’t expect me to keep it running for you. I don’t work on those. More trouble than they’re worth.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t ask.”
The predicted storm hit while they were having dessert. Rain hammered the roof and slammed against the windows while thunder and lightning made the children whimper. Deb comforted her little one. Her mother plied the older one with cake and pie to distract him from the weather. Deb criticized her mother for giving the child too many sweets, to which Carolyn retorted that she knew all about raising children, thank you very much.
T.L. and Mick began to quarrel about some arcane sports statistic, causing Ron to sigh and mutter beneath his breath. “Great. Here we go.”
“I’m going to clean up this mess and then we’ll open our presents,” Carolyn announced, standing to gather the dirty dishes. “You all go into the living room and entertain the babies until I get done in here.”
