The Homecoming
Page 27

Seth sat up. “Considering the EMT said he could see my molars through my cheek, not bad, huh?”
Will was standing in front of Seth, holding out a lollipop.
“A parting gift?” Seth asked.
“You get candy if you get through it,” Will said.
“Do you need help cleaning up?” Iris asked. “Or locking up?”
“No, I’m fine. It won’t take five minutes. Then the kids and I are going to go home, finish our movie and they’re going to bed,” Peyton said.
“Thanks for opening up,” Seth said.
“Aw, you’d do the same for me,” she replied.
Iris and Seth stood on the sidewalk outside the clinic. “You were very brave,” Iris said. Then she laughed.
Seth just unwrapped the lollipop and stuck it in his mouth. “I had higher hopes for this evening.”
“It couldn’t possibly have been more entertaining,” she said. “I’ll take you out for ice cream. Come on. If we go back to Cliff’s, we can probably have it for free.”
“I’m not going back there.” He looked at his watch. “McDonald’s is still open. Let’s go there. We can eat it in the car. You drive.”
“All right, that’s not too much to ask,” Iris said. “Then I’ll drop you here to pick up your truck. And, Deputy, be sure to mind your manners or we’ll be putting stitches in the other side of your mouth.”
“Do I look crazy? I don’t want to tangle with any more scary people tonight.”
* * *
After going through the drive-through, Iris and Seth sat in the McDonald’s parking lot with their soft ice cream. He had vanilla. She had vanilla with chocolate, strawberry, sprinkles and whipped cream. Since the football game was out of town, the parking lot wasn’t crowded.
“Troy was hoping for an evening alone with you,” Seth said.
“Nah,” she said.
“He was. I screwed up his plans.”
“At great cost,” she said. “Why did you come back here?”
“Here?”
“Thunder Point,” she clarified.
“Besides the fact that it’s home? Well, there’s lots of unfinished business.”
“Me? Am I some of your unfinished business?”
“Definitely, but I had no idea how unfinished it was until the day I cut your grass. Another reason is my father. He’s seventy-two and he’s not mellowing. Just the opposite, I think. He’s still angry with me, too, but the reasons are entirely different. I really want my father to let go of that if he can, for my mother’s sake. It makes her so unhappy, having Norm resist me and act hostile toward me the way he does.”
“I don’t understand why he’s so angry.”
“Because he thinks I had the world by the balls and threw it away by getting in that wreck. Norm was really disappointed—he expected so much more from me. When I left Thunder Point for college, the whole town was proud of me. I had a great freshman year, short-listed for the Heisman, ending with a pro contract. I don’t think it ever occurred to my dad that just because I was a good football player in high school and my one year of college, there was no guarantee I’d perform in the NFL. Hell, I might’ve wrecked my knee or my head in my first season. It’s a risky game.”
“You also could’ve been hit by a bus in Seattle. Then would he be mad?”
“Probably. I’ve tried letting it be Norm’s problem, but I don’t think it’s good for him and I know it isn’t good for my mom. My brothers have had about enough, too. Norm doesn’t make family gatherings very soothing. I’ll do what I can with him. I realize there might be nothing I can do.”
“But you’re going to try.”
“I’m going to try,” Seth affirmed. “I love my father. I don’t enjoy his company very often, but he’s my father. And the pain in my ass.”
That made her laugh for a moment, but she grew serious. “What about Sassy? More unfinished business?”
“Seriously?” he asked, stunned. “Iris, I didn’t even know Sassy still lived here.”
“I think she left and came back more than once. She was done with this one-horse town.”
“I had no idea she’d married Robbie Delaney,” he said. “I just found that out since coming back!”
“Twice,” Iris said. “I’m not sure of any of the details. We’ve never been friends. But she married him for a short time when they were real young, got divorced, married him again, got divorced again. I think there was another husband in there somewhere, but I’m not sure. I did see you talking to her down on the field at the last football game....”
“She found me,” he said. “I tend to stand out these days. Especially in uniform.”
“You didn’t look particularly annoyed,” she pointed out.
“I’m the town cop,” he said, spooning ice cream past his stitches. “I’m going to do my best not to look annoyed no matter who talks to me, no matter how annoying they are. But I did tell her that I’m not going out with her for any reason, not to catch up, not for coffee, not for anything.”
“She did ask you out!”
“Iris, I haven’t given Sassy a second of thought since high school. We dated for a few months in high school, I remember it as mostly horrible.”
“So do I,” she said in a fairly quiet voice. She cleared her throat. “She’s not fat and she’s not missing a tooth in front.”
He grinned. “That put me in a bad spot,” he said. “The first time I ran into her was at Cliff’s, at the bar. I was meeting Mac and she was picking up some takeout. I couldn’t drive the image you’d painted of her out of my mind and I couldn’t stop laughing. She accused me of laughing at her and stomped off. It was embarrassing,” he said, laughing, rubbing his eyes. When he looked up, he found Iris smiling. “I mean, hell, she does have pink hair. And she dresses like she’s still in high school.”
“Sorry,” she said.
“No, you’re not. You always liked getting me into trouble.”
“Not that much. Why are you bringing me gifts, leaving them on my doorstep?”
He lifted his spoon of ice cream. “I’m warming you up. I made a lot of mistakes and I get it, but, Iris, you’re chilly. And so f**king unforgiving.”