WPFAAT, Winter
I know the wait for this chapter was long, and I'm sorry about that! Hopefully the next update will come sooner.
"Bobby sounded a lot better." Jack remarked a few days later. They were driving out the far pasture to check the fence and break the ice on the water.
"Yeah," Ennis agreed. "You think Lureen's getting better or is he just trying to make us think he's okay?"
"I dunno. I don't see why he'd want us to think he's fine if things weren't okay if he really wanted to come home so bad."
"Mm." Ennis mulled that over. "You ever worry..." He stopped.
"Worry what?"
"Never mind."
"Ennis."
Knowing Jack wasn't going to let it go, Ennis shrugged. "You ever worry that maybe..." He hesitated and cleared his throat. If Jack wasn't worrying about it, he didn't want to plant the thought and make him start. "Maybe he'll like it more there? With her? And want to stay?"
Jack didn't say anything for a minute. He looked out the window at their land; the snow on the ground, the cows nosing at each other, the bare trees. "Yeah." He finally said quietly. "I do."
Neither of them said any more, but Ennis reached over without looking at him and took his hand, rubbing small circles and holding tight.
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"Gretty, will you please put your sweater on?" Louisa pleaded. She was tired and frustrated and Gretty was refusing to cooperate and she was close to her breaking point. They'd already gone through a lot of tears and screaming in Gretl's bath and hair washing and then hair brushing and even brushed her teeth and clipped her fingernails and why was Louisa was so mean when Gretl wasn't even that dirty and she didn't even need her fingernails clipped?
"I don't want that one!" Gretl repeated stubbornly. "I want the blue one."
"The blue one's dirty!" Louisa snapped back, for the third time. "I already told you that, now put this one on and quit whining!" The phone started ringing, and of course none of the boys could be bothered to answer it.
"No!" Gretl screamed and stomped her foot.
"Fine!" Louisa screamed right back at her. "Go naked then! Freeze to death; I don't care!" She left Gretl crying behind her. She felt bad already, but good Lord that girl could drive her crazy like no one else. And she couldn't help the resentment bubbling under her anger. Why did she have to suddenly be a teenage mother? Her mom hadn't gotten out of bed at all today. The phone was still ringing.
"No, don't move!" Louisa yelled bitterly at Friedrich, who was sitting at the kitchen table reading and really, with as tall as he was getting he only had to move about three inches and stretch a little to reach the phone. "I'll just run out from Gretty's tantrum and get that for you!" Friedrich gave her a wounded, confused look.
"What's your problem?" He muttered, going back to his book.
"Hello?" She tried not to sound annoyed as she answered.
"Hey there Louisa, it's Jack. How ya doing?" He sounded cheerful and happy and it made Louisa kind of want to scream, but at the same time he was charming her even over the phone.
"Oh, you know." She laughed a frustrated laugh and he seemed to pick up on it.
"Rough day already?" He asked. "Slow done, honey, it ain't even noon."
She sighed. "I know. Yeah. Just having some issues with Gretl's bath and her sweater's dirty and I don't..." She trailed off, realizing she was babbling and she didn't really want to explain it all to Jack anyway.
"Oh, that's too bad. So listen, me and Ennis were thinking you kids might wanna come over for lunch and some horse time. You know, get out of the house for a while. You tell Kurt to bring y'all over. I got a hunch he was planning on spending some time with Junior anyhow."
Louisa laughed again. Junior and Kurt sure had been spending some time together while Bobby was away. "That sounds really great, Jack. You sure it's not going to be trouble?"
"Oh, I know it will be, honey, there're seven of ya and that dog of yours counts for about four. But we love it, so come on over."
Louisa couldn't help the lump that sprang into her throat. With everything that had happened lately-losing her big brother, basically losing her mother, losing her home and her friends and having to be the one in charge even though she was not even sixteen yet-it just felt really good to hear someone say that.
"Okay. Thank you." She couldn't help the break in her voice.
"Don't you worry about it." Jack said kindly.
It took fifteen minutes to get everyone in the car. Gretl finally put her sweater on, because G pointed out that Jack's eyes were blue and her sweater would match. Louisa could've kissed him. Louisa glanced at Kurt.
"You and Junior going out?" She asked, right to the point.
"Going out where?" He responded innocently. Louisa rolled her eyes.
"You're a doofus." She declared. "You like her. Ask her out."
"Louisa, could you please get in the car if you're coming?" Kurt ignored her previous statements.
"Um...you think we should bring Mom?" She asked timidly. Kurt pursed his lips.
"I'll ask her." He said, squaring his shoulders. Louisa followed him halfway down the hall. He knocked softly and opened the door a crack.
"Mom?" He called quietly. "You awake?" She must've answered, but Louisa couldn't hear it. "We're all heading over to Bobby's to ride horses and eat lunch. You think you want to come?" His voice was easy, but his back was stiff. "You sure?" He asked, slumping a little. She wasn't planning on getting out of bed, then. "Okay. Well, I left their number by the phone, okay? We'll be gone for a couple hours. I love you."
Louisa wanted to cry. Her mother wasn't supposed to rebuff her brother that way. She felt a wave of reflection for Kurt, standing there composing himself against the closed door for a second. He was a good kid. Man, she realized. Her brother wasn't a kid anymore. Neither was she, really. It made her sad. They were in high school. They were supposed to go on dates on weekends and ignore their parents and fight and scream. Instead, Louisa made dinner every night and bathed and dressed Gretl and Kurt drove all the kids everywhere they needed to go and tried to cajole their mother into getting out of bed.
"Jack!" Gretl screamed in G's ear. He punched her and she started crying, which made Max punch him and Louisa yell at everyone to stop hitting each other and for the love of God stop screaming.
"You're screaming more than anyone else." Rolfe pointed out, making Friedrich snicker. Louisa blew out a frustrated breath as Snappy started barking loudly and trying to climb over everyone to get out and run around. Jack pulled Gretl out of the car and wiped at her tears, shooting G a scolding look before ruffling his hair.
"You kids hungry?" Ennis called, grabbing Rolfe before he tripped over Buddy, who was excited by all the people and by Snappy.
"Yes!" Friedrich yelled.
"You got any volume besides scream?" Ennis muttered.
"No!"
"Didn't actually need an answer."
Jack started cracking up at the look on Ennis's face. This was going to be an adventure, that was for sure.
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Bobby's arm hurt. A lot. But that belt buckle sure looked nice on his belt. He and Lureen had been hanging out, not doing much, the last couple days. And he hadn't taken off that belt buckle.
"Guess you're pretty proud of yourself, huh?" She smirked.
"I won the whole damn competition!" He crowed. "First time on a bull and take home the buckle."
"What do you mean, first time on a bull?" She asked, suddenly not laughing.
"Well, I mean, I've ridden the steers before, but Daddy never let me get up on a actual bull." He shrugged like it didn't matter.
"Robert. Jack. Twist." She was so mad she could hardly breathe.
“What?” He went on munching on chips or whatever he was eating-that boy could find snacks in a minefield-like nothing was wrong.
“You-you-never-first time-I can’t believe!”
“Uh…” He grinned at her. “You’re going to have to be more specific.” He caught sight of her face and wiped the grin off his own.
“You could have died!” Lureen shouted. “You bragged so much I thought you’d been riding forever!”
“Hey, I can’t help if I talk big!” Bobby said indignantly. “Ever met my Daddy?”
“Bobby, this isn’t a joke! Your daddy’s gonna kill me! He’s gonna think I’m some horrible crazy person who thinks it’s okay to shove a teenager on a two ton bull without any practice and I’ll never see you again!” She was reaching hysteria.
“Whoa, calm down! He knows I’m a idiot, so I’ll just tell him I lied and said he let me ride all the time. Trust me, we gotta be worrying ‘bout my butt, not yours.”
“It don’t work that way, Bobby. You see your kid hurt and you’re not going to blame him. You do no wrong in your daddy’s eyes.” Somehow, it sounded wistful and accusing at the same time.
“Well, don’t worry.” Bobby said. “I got two of ‘em, and it’s hard to fool ‘em both.”
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Jack was talking to Bobby the next night, deciding if he was coming home for New Year’s or staying in Texas. Bobby was torn. He wanted to go home, but he felt guilty leaving his mother in this big ol’ house all alone. But then he felt bad telling his daddy he wanted to stay. Divorce sucks. He told himself, the only person he didn’t feel guilty saying anything to. He decided to ring in the New Year in Texas and then hop on a plane later that day to go home. He still had homework waiting for him, after all.
“Hey Daddy…could I talk to Junior?” Bobby asked.
“Sure you can!” Jack answered, big smile in his voice because him and Ennis’s kids loved each other, yes they did.
“Junior.” Bobby whispered urgently. “Is my daddy listening? Or yours?” Junior glanced over at them as casually as she could. They were arguing over something in the newspaper.
“Uh-uh. What’s going on?” She was near-whispering too, without really realizing it.
“Listen, don’t act freaked out or anything, ‘cause they’ll see, but I broke my arm.” He said it flippantly. Junior bit back a gasp.
“Oh yeah?” She said, struggling for nonchalance. “How’d that happen?”
“Won me a bull riding contest. Got a big ol’ buckle and a slew of money. It was something else, seriously. Anyway, Daddy and Ennis are going to lose it. So could you like…do something real bad, get in huge trouble, distract ‘em so they don’t really care ‘bout a silly little broken arm?” His voice was hopeful.
“Bobby.” Her voice was not. Jack and Ennis looked over, curious. She rolled her eyes so they’d see it was just Bobby being Bobby. They both grinned-well, Jack did; Ennis half did-and went back to their argument.
“Seriously though, do you think they’re gonna freak out?” Bobby asked.
“Uh, yeah.” Had Bobby ever met the two of them? Was he really asking if they were going to overreact and blow things out of proportion?
“Yeah. I know. I’ll just have to think of a really good argument.”
“Yeah. Like, the best in the world.”
“I know. Lureen’s worried they won’t let me see her anymore.”
“Would that be a good thing or a bad thing?” Junior asked carefully.
“I…” He hesitated. “It’d be bad.” He said decisively.
“Oh. Well…that’s good.”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Isn’t that how your dad learned?” The change of topic was so fast Bobby didn’t understand what Junior was saying.
“Huh?” He asked.
“I mean…it was your, uh, first try, right? At the contest?” She turned to glance at Jack and Ennis. They weren’t paying her any mind.
“The conte…oh! Bull riding. Yeah, it was the first time I’d ever been on a bull.”
“So, isn’t that how your dad learned to do it? By just doing it?”
“Yeah, it was! Junior, you’re a genius!” Bobby exclaimed.
“Okay, calm down. You’re still gonna need more than that.” But she was smiling.
“I know, but that’s a good one!”
“Yeah, yeah, you can pay me back by a lifetime of servitude.” She teased. Jack caught that and grinned at Ennis.
“Listen to that.” He whispered to Ennis. “Just like brother and sister.”
They were plotting behind their parents’ backs-Jack didn’t know just how much like brother and sister they were being.
"Bobby sounded a lot better." Jack remarked a few days later. They were driving out the far pasture to check the fence and break the ice on the water.
"Yeah," Ennis agreed. "You think Lureen's getting better or is he just trying to make us think he's okay?"
"I dunno. I don't see why he'd want us to think he's fine if things weren't okay if he really wanted to come home so bad."
"Mm." Ennis mulled that over. "You ever worry..." He stopped.
"Worry what?"
"Never mind."
"Ennis."
Knowing Jack wasn't going to let it go, Ennis shrugged. "You ever worry that maybe..." He hesitated and cleared his throat. If Jack wasn't worrying about it, he didn't want to plant the thought and make him start. "Maybe he'll like it more there? With her? And want to stay?"
Jack didn't say anything for a minute. He looked out the window at their land; the snow on the ground, the cows nosing at each other, the bare trees. "Yeah." He finally said quietly. "I do."
Neither of them said any more, but Ennis reached over without looking at him and took his hand, rubbing small circles and holding tight.
------------------------------------------
"Gretty, will you please put your sweater on?" Louisa pleaded. She was tired and frustrated and Gretty was refusing to cooperate and she was close to her breaking point. They'd already gone through a lot of tears and screaming in Gretl's bath and hair washing and then hair brushing and even brushed her teeth and clipped her fingernails and why was Louisa was so mean when Gretl wasn't even that dirty and she didn't even need her fingernails clipped?
"I don't want that one!" Gretl repeated stubbornly. "I want the blue one."
"The blue one's dirty!" Louisa snapped back, for the third time. "I already told you that, now put this one on and quit whining!" The phone started ringing, and of course none of the boys could be bothered to answer it.
"No!" Gretl screamed and stomped her foot.
"Fine!" Louisa screamed right back at her. "Go naked then! Freeze to death; I don't care!" She left Gretl crying behind her. She felt bad already, but good Lord that girl could drive her crazy like no one else. And she couldn't help the resentment bubbling under her anger. Why did she have to suddenly be a teenage mother? Her mom hadn't gotten out of bed at all today. The phone was still ringing.
"No, don't move!" Louisa yelled bitterly at Friedrich, who was sitting at the kitchen table reading and really, with as tall as he was getting he only had to move about three inches and stretch a little to reach the phone. "I'll just run out from Gretty's tantrum and get that for you!" Friedrich gave her a wounded, confused look.
"What's your problem?" He muttered, going back to his book.
"Hello?" She tried not to sound annoyed as she answered.
"Hey there Louisa, it's Jack. How ya doing?" He sounded cheerful and happy and it made Louisa kind of want to scream, but at the same time he was charming her even over the phone.
"Oh, you know." She laughed a frustrated laugh and he seemed to pick up on it.
"Rough day already?" He asked. "Slow done, honey, it ain't even noon."
She sighed. "I know. Yeah. Just having some issues with Gretl's bath and her sweater's dirty and I don't..." She trailed off, realizing she was babbling and she didn't really want to explain it all to Jack anyway.
"Oh, that's too bad. So listen, me and Ennis were thinking you kids might wanna come over for lunch and some horse time. You know, get out of the house for a while. You tell Kurt to bring y'all over. I got a hunch he was planning on spending some time with Junior anyhow."
Louisa laughed again. Junior and Kurt sure had been spending some time together while Bobby was away. "That sounds really great, Jack. You sure it's not going to be trouble?"
"Oh, I know it will be, honey, there're seven of ya and that dog of yours counts for about four. But we love it, so come on over."
Louisa couldn't help the lump that sprang into her throat. With everything that had happened lately-losing her big brother, basically losing her mother, losing her home and her friends and having to be the one in charge even though she was not even sixteen yet-it just felt really good to hear someone say that.
"Okay. Thank you." She couldn't help the break in her voice.
"Don't you worry about it." Jack said kindly.
It took fifteen minutes to get everyone in the car. Gretl finally put her sweater on, because G pointed out that Jack's eyes were blue and her sweater would match. Louisa could've kissed him. Louisa glanced at Kurt.
"You and Junior going out?" She asked, right to the point.
"Going out where?" He responded innocently. Louisa rolled her eyes.
"You're a doofus." She declared. "You like her. Ask her out."
"Louisa, could you please get in the car if you're coming?" Kurt ignored her previous statements.
"Um...you think we should bring Mom?" She asked timidly. Kurt pursed his lips.
"I'll ask her." He said, squaring his shoulders. Louisa followed him halfway down the hall. He knocked softly and opened the door a crack.
"Mom?" He called quietly. "You awake?" She must've answered, but Louisa couldn't hear it. "We're all heading over to Bobby's to ride horses and eat lunch. You think you want to come?" His voice was easy, but his back was stiff. "You sure?" He asked, slumping a little. She wasn't planning on getting out of bed, then. "Okay. Well, I left their number by the phone, okay? We'll be gone for a couple hours. I love you."
Louisa wanted to cry. Her mother wasn't supposed to rebuff her brother that way. She felt a wave of reflection for Kurt, standing there composing himself against the closed door for a second. He was a good kid. Man, she realized. Her brother wasn't a kid anymore. Neither was she, really. It made her sad. They were in high school. They were supposed to go on dates on weekends and ignore their parents and fight and scream. Instead, Louisa made dinner every night and bathed and dressed Gretl and Kurt drove all the kids everywhere they needed to go and tried to cajole their mother into getting out of bed.
"Jack!" Gretl screamed in G's ear. He punched her and she started crying, which made Max punch him and Louisa yell at everyone to stop hitting each other and for the love of God stop screaming.
"You're screaming more than anyone else." Rolfe pointed out, making Friedrich snicker. Louisa blew out a frustrated breath as Snappy started barking loudly and trying to climb over everyone to get out and run around. Jack pulled Gretl out of the car and wiped at her tears, shooting G a scolding look before ruffling his hair.
"You kids hungry?" Ennis called, grabbing Rolfe before he tripped over Buddy, who was excited by all the people and by Snappy.
"Yes!" Friedrich yelled.
"You got any volume besides scream?" Ennis muttered.
"No!"
"Didn't actually need an answer."
Jack started cracking up at the look on Ennis's face. This was going to be an adventure, that was for sure.
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Bobby's arm hurt. A lot. But that belt buckle sure looked nice on his belt. He and Lureen had been hanging out, not doing much, the last couple days. And he hadn't taken off that belt buckle.
"Guess you're pretty proud of yourself, huh?" She smirked.
"I won the whole damn competition!" He crowed. "First time on a bull and take home the buckle."
"What do you mean, first time on a bull?" She asked, suddenly not laughing.
"Well, I mean, I've ridden the steers before, but Daddy never let me get up on a actual bull." He shrugged like it didn't matter.
"Robert. Jack. Twist." She was so mad she could hardly breathe.
“What?” He went on munching on chips or whatever he was eating-that boy could find snacks in a minefield-like nothing was wrong.
“You-you-never-first time-I can’t believe!”
“Uh…” He grinned at her. “You’re going to have to be more specific.” He caught sight of her face and wiped the grin off his own.
“You could have died!” Lureen shouted. “You bragged so much I thought you’d been riding forever!”
“Hey, I can’t help if I talk big!” Bobby said indignantly. “Ever met my Daddy?”
“Bobby, this isn’t a joke! Your daddy’s gonna kill me! He’s gonna think I’m some horrible crazy person who thinks it’s okay to shove a teenager on a two ton bull without any practice and I’ll never see you again!” She was reaching hysteria.
“Whoa, calm down! He knows I’m a idiot, so I’ll just tell him I lied and said he let me ride all the time. Trust me, we gotta be worrying ‘bout my butt, not yours.”
“It don’t work that way, Bobby. You see your kid hurt and you’re not going to blame him. You do no wrong in your daddy’s eyes.” Somehow, it sounded wistful and accusing at the same time.
“Well, don’t worry.” Bobby said. “I got two of ‘em, and it’s hard to fool ‘em both.”
---------------------------------
Jack was talking to Bobby the next night, deciding if he was coming home for New Year’s or staying in Texas. Bobby was torn. He wanted to go home, but he felt guilty leaving his mother in this big ol’ house all alone. But then he felt bad telling his daddy he wanted to stay. Divorce sucks. He told himself, the only person he didn’t feel guilty saying anything to. He decided to ring in the New Year in Texas and then hop on a plane later that day to go home. He still had homework waiting for him, after all.
“Hey Daddy…could I talk to Junior?” Bobby asked.
“Sure you can!” Jack answered, big smile in his voice because him and Ennis’s kids loved each other, yes they did.
“Junior.” Bobby whispered urgently. “Is my daddy listening? Or yours?” Junior glanced over at them as casually as she could. They were arguing over something in the newspaper.
“Uh-uh. What’s going on?” She was near-whispering too, without really realizing it.
“Listen, don’t act freaked out or anything, ‘cause they’ll see, but I broke my arm.” He said it flippantly. Junior bit back a gasp.
“Oh yeah?” She said, struggling for nonchalance. “How’d that happen?”
“Won me a bull riding contest. Got a big ol’ buckle and a slew of money. It was something else, seriously. Anyway, Daddy and Ennis are going to lose it. So could you like…do something real bad, get in huge trouble, distract ‘em so they don’t really care ‘bout a silly little broken arm?” His voice was hopeful.
“Bobby.” Her voice was not. Jack and Ennis looked over, curious. She rolled her eyes so they’d see it was just Bobby being Bobby. They both grinned-well, Jack did; Ennis half did-and went back to their argument.
“Seriously though, do you think they’re gonna freak out?” Bobby asked.
“Uh, yeah.” Had Bobby ever met the two of them? Was he really asking if they were going to overreact and blow things out of proportion?
“Yeah. I know. I’ll just have to think of a really good argument.”
“Yeah. Like, the best in the world.”
“I know. Lureen’s worried they won’t let me see her anymore.”
“Would that be a good thing or a bad thing?” Junior asked carefully.
“I…” He hesitated. “It’d be bad.” He said decisively.
“Oh. Well…that’s good.”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Isn’t that how your dad learned?” The change of topic was so fast Bobby didn’t understand what Junior was saying.
“Huh?” He asked.
“I mean…it was your, uh, first try, right? At the contest?” She turned to glance at Jack and Ennis. They weren’t paying her any mind.
“The conte…oh! Bull riding. Yeah, it was the first time I’d ever been on a bull.”
“So, isn’t that how your dad learned to do it? By just doing it?”
“Yeah, it was! Junior, you’re a genius!” Bobby exclaimed.
“Okay, calm down. You’re still gonna need more than that.” But she was smiling.
“I know, but that’s a good one!”
“Yeah, yeah, you can pay me back by a lifetime of servitude.” She teased. Jack caught that and grinned at Ennis.
“Listen to that.” He whispered to Ennis. “Just like brother and sister.”
They were plotting behind their parents’ backs-Jack didn’t know just how much like brother and sister they were being.