Jack folded his arms over his wide chest and smiled. He'd won this round and he knew it.
"You have to promise, no more fighting."
"Agreed."
"We have to get along."
"In front of Nathan."
But Daisy wasn't through with him. "You have to pretend to like me."
He tilted his head back and the shadow from his hat slid from his nose, over his lips, to his chin. "Don't pushyour luck."
Daisy added water to the vase of fresh-cut lilies and returned it to the spot on the stand next to her sister'shospital bed. Daisy disliked the cloying scent of lilies. They reminded her of death. "I'm not going to be herewhen you go home tomorrow," she said and reached for the vase filled with peach tulips and white roses.
"Are you and Nathan going home?" Lily asked as she reached for the lime Jell-O on her dinner tray.
"Just me, and just for a few days." Daisy moved to the sink and added water to the vase. "It seems we're goingto stay the summer" Lily didn't say anything and Daisy looked over her shoulder at her sister. She had a whitebandage covering the stitches on her forehead. One eye was black and blue, the other green and yellow. Her toplip was still a little swollen, her left forearm was bandaged and her right ankle and foot were in some sort oftraction cast.
"What happened?" Lily finally asked. "Did you tell Jack about Nathan?"
"Not exactly." She set the vase next to the other and sat in a chair beside Lily's bed. "Nathan kind of told him,"
she answered, then filled her sister in on the rest. "I tried to tell Jack how sorry I am, but he isn't ready to hearit."
Lily turned her head on the pillow and her blue eyes gazed out from all the color on her face. "I'm sorry is justtwo words, Daisy. They don't mean anything unless you really mean them. Ronnie used to tell me he was sorryevery time he cheated, but what he really meant was that he was sorry he got caught again. Sometimes sorryisn't enough."
From outside the room, Dr. Williams was paged to star-line four; inside, Daisy got a real good glimpse intosuffering on the other side, from the person feeling the most pain.
"Yes, I know." She wrapped her hands around the wooden arms of the chair. "That's mostly why I've agreed tostay for the summer. I owe Jack. I may have done things for what I thought were the right reasons, but Ishouldn't have waited fifteen years to tell Jack about Nathan. I have a lot of guilt about that."
"Don't let guilt make you crazy." Lily set her Jell-O back on the fray. "Remember the night we went to SlimClem's?"
"Of course."
"I slept with Buddy Calhoun that night."
Daisy was too stunned to speak.
"He came over after I got home and we hooked up. He was real sweet and the sex was great. But after he left, Istarted to feel guilty, like I was cheating on my marriage. Ronnie had cheated on me for years, left Pippen andme for another woman, and I was feeling guilty" She scratched her forehead next to the bandage. "It was crazy,and I got so mad I drove over to his house. He wasn't home, but I drove up and down his street waiting for him,getting madder and madder. I don't remember much after that, but I guess I got so mad, I drove my car into hisfront room."
"Lily." She stood and walked to the bed. "What are you saying? Not to let guilt make me that insane, or I shouldprobably expect Jack's Mustang to plow through mother's front room?"
"Neither. I don't know. I just know that I want to feel normal again." She pushed the tray away. "Can youscratch my big toe?"
Daisy moved to the end of the bed scratched her sister's toe. Lily's ankle was huge.
"What did you tell the police about the accident?"
"That I was going to see Ronnie about child support and I must have gotten one of my bad migraines andaccidently hit the gas instead of the brake."
"They bought it?"
She shrugged. "I went to school with Neal Flegel. He never did like Ronnie very much. He gave me a ticket forfailure to control speed. My insurance is paying for the damage to the house, but I'm sure the premiums will goso high I won't be able to drive for a while."
Which Daisy figured was probably a blessing.
"Have you given any more thought about counseling? - "Yeah, I've thought about it. Might not be a bad thing."
Lily reached for the controls and lowered the bed. "But I think running my car into Ronnie's put things intoperspective for me."
That sounded healthy.
"No man is worth making me feel so bad about myself. When I'm not being crazy, I'm a pretty nice person."
Daisy smiled. "Dam right."
"Ronnie isn't worth spit, let alone worth me."
"Nope."
"I'm going to concentrate on getting better and raising Pippen. I'm over feeling bad about Ronnie. I don't need aman in my life to make me feel important."
"That's true." Lily really did sound as if she were on the road to complete mental health.
"Why should I base my self-worth on a man who counts his hard-ons as personal growth?"
Daisy laughed. "You shouldn't."
Lily pulled off a piece of tape holding a cotton ball to the inside of her elbow. "Men are the scum of the earthand should be killed."
Well, maybe not complete mental health.
Chapter Fourteen
Jack watched his son as Billy showed him how to remove the crankshaft from the Hemi 426. Since he'd pickedNathan up at the high school that first day, he'd been trying not to stare. He didn't want to scare the kid again,but after three days of him working in the garage, he was finding it more difficult not to study him. Even withhis hedgehog hair and lip ring, Nathan resembled the Parrish side of the family even more than Jack didhimself.
Jack rolled up his sleeves, grabbed a socket, and removed the few remaining bolts. He didn't work on actualrestoration as much as he used to. Mostly he spent his time making deals or chasing parts all over the country.
Running the business side while Billy was in charge of the labor side, but for the last three days, he'd beenspending a lot more time in the garage with the mechanics.
"The lobes are retarded," Billy said as he inspected the camshaft. "Just like we thought."
"What does that mean?" Nathan asked.
"It means they're warped," he answered.
"And it means that the valves stay open too long or not long enough and the engine loses power," Jack added.
Nathan looked up at him from across the big V8, and there was a hesitance in his eyes that Jack hated to seethere. He kept his gaze on his son as he spoke, "The replacement should be here by the time you and Billy areready to rebuild."
My son.
Billy handed the shaft to Nathan, and he held it up to study the lobes. "What do we do with this old one?"
"Toss it in the scrap-metal Dumpster I showed you outside," Billy told him.
As Jack watched Nathan move from the garage, his blue coveralls baggy in the butt, he thought he should feelmore than he did for the boy. Something more than a lump in his throat and an avid curiosity. He should feel aconnection to Nathan. A connection like he'd had with his own father, but he didn't.
Nathan was connecting with Billy, though. He'd watched them work side by side all week. Nathan seemed tofeel comfortable with the other mechanics who worked in the garage, too. But around Jack, he was more quietand reserved.
That night over a bottle of Lone Star in Billy's backyard, he talked to Billy about it.
"I don't think Nathan likes me much," he said as he watched Lacy and Amy Lynn play on the big jungle gymBilly had built for them last summer. It was around seven o'clock and shade from two oaks crept halfway acrossthe lawn to the patio where he and Billy sat. "He seems to like you a lot more than me."
"I think he's just more nervous around you."
The two brothers sat on Adirondack chairs, legs stretched out in front of them, their cowboy boots crossed at theankles. Jack wore a jean shirt with the arms cut off while Billy had on a wife-beater. Rhonda had taken the babywith her to some sort of makeup party and had left Billy in charge of the older girls.