Page 59 of Misguided
“You know what?” Beth says. “I reckon you should go catch Crackers now, while he’s around, and ask him about Hooch. We all miss the big ole troublemaker. I’d sure like to know if they’ve heard anything.”
“He’d tell me if he knew anything.”
“You sure about that?” She lifts both eyebrows and then slips away to put her empty cup in the sink. “You know how these boys like to play the martyr and keep their cards close to their chest.”
That, I do. I nod, sliding off my stool. “Yeah, okay. I think I might.”
She leaves with a smile and crosses over the hallway to the adjacent dining room. The messy pigs around here eat and run, leaving all their dishes piled up for somebody else to clear—Beth. I don’t know how she does it day in and day out without losing her cool with the idiots.
I stretch my back out with a yawn, eyeballing the notes before tearing my gaze away to my phone, which sits at the end of the counter. Twice last night, I almost dialed Hooch’s number, if not to talk to him just to hear his voice on the message service. Times like this I’d lean on him for his opinion. Without him around it seems empty: in the clubhouse, and in my mind.
I wonder if anyone’s told my mother about Dana and Daddy? If anybody even knows where she is these days?
Stashing the notes to collect later, I snatch up my phone and head across the house to Hooch’s office—Daddy’s old office. The door sits ajar.
“Heya.” I push it open and step in to greet Crackers.
He lifts his head from his focus on the laptop before him, a thick finger poised over a bill.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to find us some cheaper power.” He pushes the paper bill aside and leans back. “What can I do for you, sugar?”
“Do you know if anyone told Mom about Dana? About Daddy, even?”
He shrugs. “You’d need to ask Hooch about that when he’s back. I haven’t heard anything, and he doesn’t really talk about her much anyway.”
“Yeah, I know.” Hooch has it in his head that if Mom had stayed, things would have worked out better.
I guess he was young enough to forget the real reason Mom up and left: Daddy gave her no other choice.
“You heard anything from him?”
Crackers’ chest rises and falls before he answers. “Not for a couple of days.”
Nine days have passed since I left my brother in a cold barn, not knowing how long it would be for this time. Nine days of torturous hell.
“How are things in Lincoln?”
He eyes me suspiciously. “Why do you ask, Mel?”
I intend to shrug, but the nervous movement comes out more as some sort of jerky twitch. “Curious.”
“Everything’s fine,” Crackers says slowly. “You know, I’m sure Dog would be okay if you just called.”
Damnit. Am I that transparent? “I don’t know. We left things kind of … strained.”
“You don’t say,” he deadpans. “Can I ask what the sudden curiosity about our beloved playboy is about?”
“He said something about taking me hunting, and to be honest the idea seems better by the day.”
“Hunting?” Crackers snorts.
“Yeah. Why not?”
He shrugs, eyebrows raised. “Nothin’ at all. Just didn’t see you as that kind of girl.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me. What you see ain’t always what you get, you know.”