discussion, Al. I’m going to sleep.” I rolled to my side away from her. Allyson turned the opposite direction. Nothing more was said.
Chapter 14
I ’ve always been close to my brothers. The sons of Chuck are like war veterans, I suppose, bonded as survivors of the same calamity. I have three brothers, all of them older than me: Stan, Marshall and Phil. Stan is the oldest. He’s thirty-six and runs a successful sprinkler and irrigation company. Marshall is one year younger than Stan. He’s a software designer for a Provo-based software firm. He is my only married brother. Phil is in the Air Force and stationed in Dunkirk. We rarely see each other, but we e-mail each other weekly. Of all of us, Phil is the most like Chuck. I don’t say that to be disparaging; he just fits into the military regimen more naturally than the rest of us. To him Chuck is just a former officer.
I am closest to Stan. More than anyone else, Stan understands my feelings about Chuck. Stan hasn’t spoken to him for even more time than I, five years and counting, the likelihood of a reunion growing fainter with each passing year.
Stan had started the Harlan Sprinkler Company as a summer enterprise to earn money for college. The company grew faster than he had expected and he never went back to school. Even though Stan’s abandoning his quest for a degree made Chuck mad, Stan didn’t care. In fact he seemed to relish disappointing him. And in proving him wrong. Stan’s success was indisputable. He had a nice home on the east side, a sports car, a boat, season tickets for the Utah Jazz basketball team and he spent most of his winter skiing when work was scarce. He had a secretary and ran a crew of twelve men. I was the thirteenth.
By this time I had pretty much given up on my book. Of the manuscripts I had sent out, nearly twenty rejections had come back. The remaining five agents didn’t even bother to respond. Still my book was being read. Nancy had read it and raved about it. She called Allyson the night she finished it, full of tears and praise. She had shared it with a few other friends at work and they shared it until it had been passed around the entire credit department at R. C. Willey. I wondered how they could love the book so much while the agents rejected it. I figured that the agents knew better than I. And that I better just get used to a life doing something else besides writing.
I spent the first weeks at my new job digging troughs for sprinkling systems and laying sod. I still had the soft hands of a radio salesman and I came home each evening with fresh cuts and blisters. Manual labor gives one time to think. In my case, too much time. When I signed on with Stan, it was under the guise of temporary employment, but I wondered if I, like Stan, would spend my life there.
One night during my second week of work I arrived home with my clothes and body caked with mud as black as tar. I suppose that I looked pretty pathetic, and I could tell that Allyson wasn’t sure if she should laugh or cry. Her nose wrinkled as I entered the house. “What have you been doing?”
“You don’t want to know.”
I had already kicked my shoes off outside, and I pulled off my shirt and dropped it to the ground by my feet. “Just burn it.”
“You look like you fell into a swamp.”
“Worse. We had to dig out a septic tank. I’m going downstairs to shower then to hang myself.”
Allyson walked over and put her arms around me.
“Careful,” I said. “This stink is contagious.”
“I don’t care. Thank you for working so hard for us.” We kissed then she stepped back. “Dinner ’s almost ready so don’t be too long.”
As Allyson was setting the table, the phone rang. The caller ID showed an out-of-area call. The woman on the phone asked for Mr. Robert Harlan, and Allyson cloaked her voice with the formality she reserved for phone solicitors. “He’s busy right now. May I take a message?”
“Yes, my name is Camille
Chapter 14
I ’ve always been close to my brothers. The sons of Chuck are like war veterans, I suppose, bonded as survivors of the same calamity. I have three brothers, all of them older than me: Stan, Marshall and Phil. Stan is the oldest. He’s thirty-six and runs a successful sprinkler and irrigation company. Marshall is one year younger than Stan. He’s a software designer for a Provo-based software firm. He is my only married brother. Phil is in the Air Force and stationed in Dunkirk. We rarely see each other, but we e-mail each other weekly. Of all of us, Phil is the most like Chuck. I don’t say that to be disparaging; he just fits into the military regimen more naturally than the rest of us. To him Chuck is just a former officer.
I am closest to Stan. More than anyone else, Stan understands my feelings about Chuck. Stan hasn’t spoken to him for even more time than I, five years and counting, the likelihood of a reunion growing fainter with each passing year.
Stan had started the Harlan Sprinkler Company as a summer enterprise to earn money for college. The company grew faster than he had expected and he never went back to school. Even though Stan’s abandoning his quest for a degree made Chuck mad, Stan didn’t care. In fact he seemed to relish disappointing him. And in proving him wrong. Stan’s success was indisputable. He had a nice home on the east side, a sports car, a boat, season tickets for the Utah Jazz basketball team and he spent most of his winter skiing when work was scarce. He had a secretary and ran a crew of twelve men. I was the thirteenth.
By this time I had pretty much given up on my book. Of the manuscripts I had sent out, nearly twenty rejections had come back. The remaining five agents didn’t even bother to respond. Still my book was being read. Nancy had read it and raved about it. She called Allyson the night she finished it, full of tears and praise. She had shared it with a few other friends at work and they shared it until it had been passed around the entire credit department at R. C. Willey. I wondered how they could love the book so much while the agents rejected it. I figured that the agents knew better than I. And that I better just get used to a life doing something else besides writing.
I spent the first weeks at my new job digging troughs for sprinkling systems and laying sod. I still had the soft hands of a radio salesman and I came home each evening with fresh cuts and blisters. Manual labor gives one time to think. In my case, too much time. When I signed on with Stan, it was under the guise of temporary employment, but I wondered if I, like Stan, would spend my life there.
One night during my second week of work I arrived home with my clothes and body caked with mud as black as tar. I suppose that I looked pretty pathetic, and I could tell that Allyson wasn’t sure if she should laugh or cry. Her nose wrinkled as I entered the house. “What have you been doing?”
“You don’t want to know.”
I had already kicked my shoes off outside, and I pulled off my shirt and dropped it to the ground by my feet. “Just burn it.”
“You look like you fell into a swamp.”
“Worse. We had to dig out a septic tank. I’m going downstairs to shower then to hang myself.”
Allyson walked over and put her arms around me.
“Careful,” I said. “This stink is contagious.”
“I don’t care. Thank you for working so hard for us.” We kissed then she stepped back. “Dinner ’s almost ready so don’t be too long.”
As Allyson was setting the table, the phone rang. The caller ID showed an out-of-area call. The woman on the phone asked for Mr. Robert Harlan, and Allyson cloaked her voice with the formality she reserved for phone solicitors. “He’s busy right now. May I take a message?”
“Yes, my name is Camille
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