“We’re going to make it. I don’t know if Lisa is, but we will.”
“Everything okay in here?” Val asked from the kitchen doorway. Clover stood up straight immediately.
“Great, Mom. What’s up?”
“Came for a refill,” Val said as she picked up the red wine bottle and topped off her drink. She’d hardly made a dent in her first glass. She wasn’t there for a refill. She was spying on them.
“Well, dinner’s almost ready,” Clover said. “We’ll start bringing stuff out soon.”
“I’m sorry we couldn’t meet your daughter, Erick,” Val said, not taking Clover’s hint. “I hope she’s not missing you too much.”
“She’s seventeen. A week away from me is a vacation for the both of us. But you’ll get to meet her eventually, I’m sure.”
“Seventeen. That’s a handful age,” Val said. “Does she wear you out?”
“Not so much anymore,” Erick said as he opened the oven door to check on the bread. All done. He put on oven mitts and pulled the pans out. “She got into a little trouble a while back, but working for Clover’s been great for her. Helped her channel her energy into something constructive.”
Clover picked up the sweet potato casserole and the three of them walked out to the table now covered in a fine white linen tablecloth and October-orange napkins.
“A little boy trouble?” Val asked as she laid down dish towels on the table where the hot dishes would go.
“I wish. That’s what normal teenagers do. No, my daughter joined an ecoterrorist group online and set a factory farm barn on fire,” Erick said. All conversation in the room stopped.
“She did what?” Val asked. Erick had to force himself not to smile. Ruthie was always good for getting a strong reaction, even when she wasn’t there.
“Arson,” Erick said. “She committed arson. But for a very good cause. She’d run away from home if she ever caught me buying non-cage-free eggs. A new factory farm was under construction and the group she belonged to decided to torch it before they finished building. It was a protest. She’s a nature worshipper.”
“So she’s an environmentalist?” David asked.
“No, she’s a literal nature worshipper,” Erick said. “Neo-pagan, according to her. Although technically she says she worships Mother Nature but I’ve never figured out if that’s an actual person in her theology. She can worship Gozer for all I care as long as she keeps her room clean and doesn’t get arrested. Again.”
“Well.” Val blinked a few times. “What an interesting girl you have. You’ll probably be relieved when she starts college. Do neo-pagans go to college?”
“Mine plans to,” Erick said.
“And this girl works for you?” Val said to Clover.
“She’s my assistant at the nursery. She’s my best hire ever.”
“I don’t know what we would have done without Clover,” Erick said as he placed forks, spoons and knives on the napkins Clover had laid out. “Ruthie got probation for the barn burning and had to pay ten thousand dollars in restitution for the fire damage. She emptied out her car fund and then had to get a job to pay the rest. No one would hire her because of her criminal record, but if she didn’t find a job, she’d probably have had to do some jail time. The only thing Ruthie seemed to care about was the planet and nature so I thought maybe someone at a nursery would hire her. Clover was the only one willing to give her a chance. Still don’t know why, but I appreciate it. For many reasons.” He winked at Clover.
“She’s so smart and driven,” Clover said. “You just have to channel that energy into something positive.”
“Your daughter is a miracle worker,” Erick said to Val, hoping to counter some of the digs her family had taken at Clover with a few compliments. “Ruthie came back from the interview and said Clover was the coolest woman she’d ever met. I asked her why and she said, ‘Clover says there’s two ways of making the world a better place—you can destroy the bad or you can create the good. I think I want to focus on creating the good.’ She’s been a great kid ever since. All thanks to Clover.”
“And you,” Clover said, wearing a bright blush and the first genuine smile he’d seen on her face all day. “She’s very lucky to have you in her life. So am I.”
“She is,” Erick said. “I tell her that all the time. Eventually she’ll believe me.”
“She believes it now.” Clover gave him a quick kiss on the cheek as she walked past him to pick up her wineglass. Maybe they could make it through this day, after all.
“That’s very sweet,” Val said. “David, we might get to have a neo-pagan ecoterrorist for a stepgranddaughter.”
“Hey,” David said, lifting his glass in a toast. “Better than nothing, which is what we’ve got now.”
“I don’t know about that,” Val said with a brittle smile.
Erick flinched as the wineglass in Clover’s hand hit the floor and shattered into a million pieces.
“Shit,” Clover said.
“Stay right there,” Erick said. “I’ll get the broom and the towel.”
“You go check on the turkey, Erick,” Val said. “I’ll help Clover clean it up. Our little dropout is a bit dropsy today. Too much wine?”
“That was my first glass,” she said. Clover was ghost white in the face. Had dropping the glass scared her that much? Erick looked at her but she wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“I’ll just, um, check on the turkey, then,” he said. “Should be done.”
He was alone on the deck for all of two minutes before Clover came outside.
“I’m so, so sorry,” she said, looking like she was about to burst into tears. “I can’t believe my mother said that about Ruthie. I can’t—”
“Clover, it’s fine,” he said. “I’m fine. Ruthie didn’t hear it. She’s fine.”
“I’m not fine,” Clover said.
“I know, sweetheart. Look, I’m going to bring in the turkey. Everyone will eat and that’ll keep them busy. We’re going to make it. Just hang in there.”
“Mom said something in the kitchen.”
“What did she say?” Erick asked, keeping his voice calm. Clover was on the verge of losing it, he could tell. He didn’t blame her. He was about ready to throw her over his shoulder, carry her out to his truck, drive off into the sunset, and never let her family within a hundred miles of her ever again.
“I told her she shouldn’t say stuff about Ruthie like that and that you and I just started going out so even joking about Ruthie being her granddaughter made me uncomfortable. And she said, ‘I just want the best for you, dear. Stepchildren are second-best and we want you to have the very best.’”
“Ouch,” Erick said, wincing. “Wish Ruthie were here. She’d put your whole family in their place.”
“Ruthie is not second-best,” Clover said. “She’s the best. Your daughter is the absolute very best.”
“I know that and you know that, and God knows, Ruthie knows that. Who cares if your parents don’t know that?”
“I care,” she said. “I care, Erick.”
He tried to say something else to comfort her, but it was too late. She had already gone back into the house.
Erick brought in the turkey on the platter and got out the carving knife and fork.
“You want me to do that?” Hunter asked.
“My turkey,” Erick said. “My knife.”
“You the man,” Hunter said, raising his hands in surrender. Clover had put all the dishes on the table and everyone was taking their seats. Hunter sat at the opposite end of the table, the head.
“You’re sitting in Clover’s spot,” Erick said.
“Am I?” Hunter said. “I always sit at the end of our table at home.”
“It’s okay,” Clover said. “I’ll move.” She picked up her new wineglass and moved it from the head to the seat nearest Erick, who was considering telling Hunter that it was exactly where Clover had been sitting when he’d fucked her there on Monday morning. He thought better of it but at least the memory kept him from stabbing Hunter with the carving fork.
“So how’s business going, sis?” Hunter asked. “You selling a lot of flowers this year?”
“Flowers and trees and garden equipment.” She picked up her wineglass and took a sip of it. Erick saw her hands were shaking, but she was doing a good job faking a good mood. “In fact, I have some news.”
“Good news?” Kelly asked as she sat opposite Clover.
“Great news,” Clover said. “PNW Garden Supply offered to buy me out. I have until Monday to accept their offer. But it’s a good offer.”
“How much?” Hunter asked, leaning in and grinning.
“Five million,” Clover said.
The room went silent immediately, a shocked silence much like the one that had greeted the news that Erick’s daughter was a felon.
“Five million dollars?” Hunter repeated.