“Ain't really cooking. Just eggs and bacon. Y'all have a seat.”
Jenny and Seth sat in the mismatched chairs at the old table in the kitchen.
“You planning to stay long?” her dad asked, while stirring the eggs with a spatula. His back was to them, but Jenny could hear a little sadness in his voice.
“I'm sorry, Daddy,” Jenny said. “We got problems to deal with.”
“Homeland Security,” her dad said. “They done been here three, four times asking questions about you.”
“That's one problem,” Jenny said.
He served them the eggs and bacon on his chipped dinnerware. Jenny went to the fridge and poured orange juice into the vintage Happy Days glasses and brought them to the table.
Her dad cleared his throat as he sat down. “Okay. Tell me what else you got to deal with.”
“There's another guy like us,” Jenny said. “But he can touch dead people and make them do stuff for him. Farm. Fight.”
“Sounds like them Living Dead movies,” her dad said. “Your momma and I saw one at the old Star-Nite drive-in off 278. Guess you don't remember that. Closed up in '90-something.”
“The sign's still there,” Jenny said.
“Old Roy Cramer kept that thing goin' a long time, though,” her dad said. “Used to be the place to go on Friday nights. Had them a Pac-Man, a foosball table, just about everything you could want. Your momma liked the popcorn. Had to get one with extra salt and butter every time.” His eyes were distant now. He was obviously thinking about Jenny's mother. Jenny wondered if he was thinking how much happier he would have been if Jenny had never been born.
“This guy's going to come back for Jenny,” Seth said. “He feeds on her power. He won't let her escape long.”
“So you're going back on the run,” Jenny's dad said.
“Not exactly,” Jenny told him. “We're going to let him come to us first, here in Fallen Oak. We've already talked it over with Seth's parents. But I was hoping you could help us, Daddy. We have a few things to prepare.”
“Want a slice of hoop cheese?” Her dad stood up and lifted the glass bowl from a half-eaten hoop of cheddar on the cutting board.
“I'm full. This was really good, Daddy, thanks.” Jenny gathered up the dishes.
“So, can you help us?” Seth asked. Jenny scowled at him for rushing things.
Her dad bit into a slice of cheese and chewed it slowly.
“You know, Jenny,” he said. “Whatever the hell you kids are, you're still my little girl. I'll help you if I can. I'm just worried for you.”
“Let me tell you what Seth and I have planned,” Jenny said. “Then you can decide.”
“I already decided,” he said. “Can we talk about it later on tonight? I want a little while when I can just be happy you're home. I'm not ready to think about you leaving again, Jenny.” He scraped a few scraps of bacon and egg from the pan into Rocky's food dish, which was now in a corner of the kitchen instead of out in the shed. Rocky bounded over to it, his tail whipping.
“Okay,” Jenny said. “It's good to see you again, Daddy.”
“Used to see you every day.” He looked out the window, into the thick woods behind the house. “Guess it won't be like that no more.”
“I guess not. I'm sorry, Daddy.”
***
Later, her dad went to the Piggly Wiggly to buy some ribs to grill, and Jenny and Seth sat on the bed in Jenny's room. Rocky napped on the floor nearby.
“It's so strange,” Jenny said, looking around at her country music posters, stuffed animals, misshapen attempts at pottery. “It's like this is just one more past life. It's never going to be the same, is it?”
“We're not kids anymore,” Seth said. “I'm going to miss my parents, too. But I'll be happy as long as we're together. I love you more than anything in the world, Jenny.”
“I love you, too, Seth.”
“Even if you stab me with a scalpel and set me on fire, I'll still love you.”
“Hey, it got us out of there. I need an album cover.” Jenny fished a record out of a milk crate full of dusty, wrinkled LP sleeves. All of them had belonged to her mother, another lifetime ago. Jenny looked at her mother's picture on the wall, where Miriam stood against the neon signs in McCronkin's Pub, raising a Bud Light and smiling. Jenny liked this picture because it made her imagine that her mother had spent her short life being wildly happy, surrounded by friends.
Jenny slipped the record out of its cover and dropped it on her tabletop record player. The scratchy speakers hissed.
“Hey, this one's for you, Seth,” Jenny said. She placed the needle in the groove, and the long-ago voices of a very young Johnny Cash and June Carter sang “Darling Companion.”