JAKE
My older brother John sat waiting for me in the shade under a red umbrella. Behind him, the front door of the coffee shop opened and closed constantly as customers came in and out, in and out, in and out. He had his broad back to me, and his head was down. Knowing him, he was reading some article about sailing or real estate investments.
He looked up when I moved around to the other side of the table and sat down. “Jakey.” He gave me a big grin and put his phone down. His screen was lit up with an article of some sort or another, as predicted. “I ordered you an Americano. You still drinking those nasty things?”
“I am.” I hated that he called me Jakey. He’d done so since we were boys, and I’d hated it even then. My mother used to tell me that if I didn’t let on that it bothered me so much, John would stop, but I never had much emotional control as a child, so John knew just how much it pissed me off, and he ran with it.
While I shrugged out of my suit jacket, a café employee came outside to deliver our coffees. She set down napkins, a handful of creamers, and a couple packets of sugar. John and I touched neither and sipped our coffees black.
“So, when are you going to ask me about Texas?” John asked.
“I wasn’t going to.”
He let out a dry laugh and shook his head. His hair, dark like our mother’s, danced along his eyebrows. “Smart ass. For the record, it went well. The ranch isn’t the same as it used to be. Parts of the property have gone unkept for years. Old machinery is falling apart. The house is the same, though. Big. Cold. Smells like cedar and tobacco.”
“Nice.”
“Dad isn’t as capable as he used to be.” John studied me like he was looking for sympathy.
He wouldn’t find any. “He’s getting old. Maybe if he wasn’t so stubborn, he’d hire some fresh blood to keep the place running. Some of those ranch hands must be just as old as he is by now.”
“Several are dead.”
“Dad must have been clicking his heels for joy that he didn’t have to pay them severance.”
“Jesus, Jakey.”
I decided to change the subject. “You were gone a long time. Were you in Texas the whole month?”
He sipped his coffee, set it down, and shook his head. “No, I went down to Hawaii for a sailing conference afterward. Stayed there a couple weeks to decompress.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Decompress?”
My older brother had sold his company over a year ago, and he hadn’t gotten back to work since. He’d made more than a pretty penny and didn’t need to work for a living, but I couldn’t wrap my head around how he could spend day in and day out so leisurely. Where did he find his purpose? How did he appease the need to accomplish something burning up inside him? Did he not feel that fire to hustle like I did?
John chuckled. “I know you don’t approve, Jakey. And that’s just fine, you don’t have to. But I’m enjoying my time. You don’t have to worry about me.”
“Who said I was worried?”
“Fine.” He leaned forward to rest on his crossed forearms. “You don’t have to be jealous.”
I scoffed. “Jealous? Of your unemployed ass? Never.”
“You should have come back home with me. I think it would have done you some good. Dad, too.”
“This again?”
“Yes, this again. Our old man only has a certain amount of time left, and even though you might think you’re at peace with never seeing him again, I think you’ll regret it one day when he’s gone and wish you could have buried the hatchet.”
“There’s no hatchet to bury.”
“Bullshit. You’ve hated Dad’s guts for decades. Hell, so have I. But he’s the only father we’ve got.”
I rolled my shoulders. “If making amends made you feel better, then I’m glad for you. But I don’t need to go home. I don’t need to make things right with Dad. My life is here.”
“Uh huh. Some life, Jakey.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”