“He’s a tough nut, you know, your dad.”
We watched as the firefighters piled into the truck in front of us. It was blocking our way, and it seemed like forever until the fire truck moved and we pulled out of the lot.
Boon gunned the truck, heading to the highway. The hospital was fifteen minutes away, in the next town over. The way Boon was driving, we had a chance of making it in ten.
“Your mother is on her way,” Boon told me. “She wanted you to call her, but I told her to concentrate on driving.”
I imagined my mother having a meltdown in the car after talking to Boon and my grandmother tapping her arm and saying, “Drive now. Enough nonsense. Life is ninety-nine percent how you handle it.”
I knew it drove my mother bananas, my grandmother’s one-liners. The other day my mother was sitting at the table with her head in her hands, her laptop in front of her when Grandma walked in and asked her what was wrong.
“Writer’s block,” my mother grumbled.
“Where there is no struggle, there is no progress,” Grandma quipped.
After she left, my mother had looked at me.
“At least it wasn’t ‘that which does not kill us,’?” I told her.
My grandmother never even finished that one. She’d just nod her head and let her voice trail off.
I was relieved my mother had Grandma with her now. Maybe she’d say something aggravating and keep my mother’s mind off my father.
Boon turned the truck sharply to the right, and we merged onto the highway, my shoulder pressing against the soft pad of leather on the door. I saw the needle pushing eighty as we eased into the fast lane.
“Tell me what you know,” he said, looking over at me.
I told him what I knew, which was next to nothing. He crinkled his nose when I mentioned Alex.
“How is this Alex character involved?”
“He’s my friend. The one that called about Dad at his house.”
“His house?”
“Yeah. Alex said Dad showed up there and was angry. Something about someone stealing from his traps.”
Boon hit the steering wheel with his hand, swore under his breath.
“What?” I asked, alarmed, twisting in the seat to face him.
He shook his head, hit the steering wheel again.
“Boon!”
He glanced over at me and sighed. “God forbid he pick up the goddamn phone or answer the radio.”
“Boon. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Boon looked over at me, sighed. “I got a call from Finn this morning. Right after your father left on his boat. Apparently, Finn’s been going several rounds with your father these last couple of months. Things got messy the other night. Physical. And Finn went on a drinking bender and pulled your father’s traps. Managed to off-load it somewhere down the coast. He woke up this morning with a hangover and an envelope of cash. When he put two and two together, he came to me. Rock-bottom sort of moment, he said. Anyway, I took the money back, said we wouldn’t press charges, and sent him out to bait your father’s traps. Then I spent the next hour trying to hunt down your father, but he wouldn’t pick up.”
“He must have found his traps empty. That’s why he was at Alex’s.”
He looked over at me, confused. “Why would he go to your friend’s house? Wait. Is this the kid you had lunch with that day? Brown hair, had a baseball hat on, kind of goofy?”
“He’s not goofy.” It came out defensive. My face went from pink to red.
“Ah, the lady doth protest. . . .” Boon winked, and I saw he was just being Boon.
“Finn’s his stepfather,” I said.
Boon turned and looked at me. Looked at me for so long that I gave him a look and pointed at the road, reminding him that he was driving. He shook his head, his eyes sliding to the highway in front of us. “This keeps getting better,” he muttered under his breath.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He kept his eyes on the road, his thumb drumming the edge of the steering wheel. But I saw his leg tense and felt the truck pick up speed, as if this news had sent a jolt from his brain to his foot.
“Um. What’s going on?”
“Let’s change the subject. When’s school start?”
“I don’t want to change the subject. What’s the deal with Ryland Finn?”
Boon sighed. “It’s old stuff. Nothing to do with your friend.”
“Well, what does it have to do with? Why were they fighting in the first place?”
“Let’s just say your father and Finn have a history. And not a good one.”
I looked at him to continue, and he held up his hands, letting the wheel go for an instant before he put them both back on the wheel.
“I’m not going to say any more, Jess. It’s not my business. Wasn’t then and isn’t now. I will say I’m glad it was Alex he found and not Finn. Your father left the dock like he was shot out of a cannon. Your friend must be able to hold his own to deal with your father when he’s like that.”
“Wait. You saw him leave the dock this morning?”
“Saw him? I yelled to him, damn near chased him down. Thought about getting in my truck and following him, but he was gone. I didn’t know where to start looking.”
He turned off the exit and pulled into the entrance of the hospital, a sign marked Emergency leading us to a semicircle in front of a pair of glass doors.
“You found him,” I said quietly, looking out the window.
The electronic doors opened, and my mother rushed out to the car. I opened the door and jumped down.
“He’s okay,” she said, pulling me into her. I felt my body go slack when I leaned against her. “He’s in with the doctor, but he’s okay.”
She tilted forward with me still in her embrace and squeezed Boon’s outstretched hand through the passenger window.
“I’ll park and be in,” Boon said.
“What’s wrong with him?” I asked my mother as we walked into the hospital.
“Double pneumonia to start. Maybe a lung infection because he ignored it.” She muttered stubborn under her breath, then kissed the side of my head. “A gash on his head from something. The doctor was surprised his temperature wasn’t higher with the infection, but he thinks the time in the water cooled his body down. But he swallowed a bunch too, so there’s that. That’s all I know for now. Go sit with your grandmother. I want to check in with the nurses.”
My grandmother was in the waiting area, and I gave her a hug, sat down next to her. I let my head rest on the back of the chair and closed my eyes. The relief I’d felt when my mother said my father would be okay was so overwhelming, it was almost numbing.