the size of a house in no time if I do.”
Hutch was fresh out of self-restraint. He was simply too hungry, and the food looked and smelled too good. He took up his knife and fork and dug in. After complimenting Opal on her cooking—by comparison to years of eating his own burnt sacrifices or his dad’s similar efforts, it seemed miraculous they survived—he asked about Joslyn and the baby.
“They’re doing just fine,” Opal said with satisfaction. Her gaze followed his fork from his plate to his mouth and she smiled like she might be enjoying the meal vicariously. “Dana—that’s Joslyn’s mother, you remember—is a born grandma, and so is Callie Barlow. Between the two of them, Slade, Shea and of course the little mama herself, I was purely in the way.”
“I doubt that,” Hutch observed. Opal, it seemed to him, was more than an ordinary human being, she was a living archetype, a wise woman, an earth mother.
And damned if he wasn’t going all greeting-card philosophical in his old age.
“I like to go where I’m needed,” she said lightly.
Hutch chuckled. “So now I’m some kind of—case?” he asked, figuring he was probably that and a lot more.
Opal’s gaze softened. “Your mama was a good friend to me when I first came to Parable to work for old Mrs. Rossiter,” she said, very quietly. “Least I can do to return the favor is make sure her only boy doesn’t go around half-starved and looking like a homeless person.”
That time, he laughed. “I look like a homeless person?” he countered, at once amused and mildly indignant. Living on this same land all his life, like several generations of Carmodys before him, letting the dirt soak up his blood and sweat and tears, he figured he was about as unhomeless as it was possible to be.
“Not exactly,” Opal said thoughtfully, and in all seriousness, going by her expression and her tone. “A wifeless person would be a better way of putting it.”
Hutch sobered. Opal hadn’t said much about the near-miss wedding, but he knew it was on her mind. Hell, it was on everybody’s mind, and he wished something big would happen so people would have something else to obsess about.
An earthquake, maybe.
Possibly the Second Coming.
Or at least a local lottery winner.
“You figure a wife is the answer to all my problems?” he asked moderately, setting down his fork.
“Just most of them,” Opal clarified with a mischievous grin. “But here’s what I’m not saying, Hutch—I’m not saying that you should have gone ahead and married Brylee Parrish. Marriage is hard enough when both partners want it with all their hearts. When one doesn’t, there’s no making it work. So by my reckoning, you definitely did the right thing by putting a stop to things, although your timing could have been better.”
Hutch relaxed, picked up his fork again. “I tried to tell Brylee beforehand,” he said. He’d long since stopped explaining this to most people, but Opal wasn’t “most people.” “She wouldn’t listen.”
Opal sighed. “She’s headstrong, that girl,” she reflected. “Her and Walker’s mama was like that, you know. Folks used to say you could tell a Parrish, but you couldn’t tell them much.”
Hutch went right on eating. “Is there anybody within fifty miles of here whose mama you didn’t know?” he teased between bites. He was ravenous, he realized, and slowing down was an effort. Keep one foot on the floor, son, he remembered his dad saying, whenever he’d shown a little too much eagerness at the table.
“I don’t know a lot of the new people,” she said, “nor their kinfolks, neither. But I knew your mother, sure enough, and she certainly did love her boy. It broke her heart when she got sick, knowing she’d have to leave you to grow up with just your daddy.”
Hutch’s throat tightened slightly, making the next swallow an effort. He’d been just twelve years old when his mother died of cancer, and although he’d definitely grieved her loss, he’d also learned fairly quickly that the old man believed in letting the dead bury the dead. John Carmody had rarely spoken of his late wife after the funeral, and he hadn’t encouraged Hutch to talk about her, either. In fact, he’d put away all the pictures of her and given away her personal possessions almost before she was cold in the grave.
So Hutch had set her on a shelf in a dusty corner of his mind and tried not to think about the hole she’d left in his life when she was torn away.
“Dad wasn’t the best when it came to parenting,” Hutch commented belatedly, thinking back. “But he wasn’t the worst, either.”
Opal’s usually gentle face seemed to tighten a little, around her mouth especially. “John Carmody was just plain selfish,” she decreed with absolute conviction but no particular rancor. To her, the remark amounted to an observation, not a judgment. “Long as he got what he wanted, he didn’t reckon anything else mattered.”
Hutch was a little surprised by the bluntness of Opal’s statement, though he couldn’t think why he should have been. She was one of the most direct people he’d ever known—and he considered the trait a positive one, at least in her. There were those, of course, who used what they liked to call “honesty” as an excuse to be mean, but Opal wasn’t like that.
He opened his mouth to reply, couldn’t think what to say, and closed it again.
Opal smiled and reached across the table to lay a hand briefly on his right forearm. “I had no business saying that, Hutch,” she told him, “and I’m sorry.”
Hutch found his voice, but it came out gruff. “Don’t be,” he said. “I like a reminder every once in a while that I’m not the only one who thought my father was an asshole.”
This time it was Opal who was taken aback. “Hutch Carmody,” she finally managed to sputter, “I’ll thank you not to use that kind of language in my presence again, particularly in reference to the departed.”
“Sorry,” he said, and the word was still a little rough around the edges.
“We can either talk about your daddy and your mama,” Opal said presently, “or we can drop the whole subject. It’s up to you.”
His hunger—for food, at least—assuaged, Hutch pushed his mostly empty plate away and met Opal’s gaze. “Obviously,” he said mildly, “you’ve got something to say. So go ahead and say it.”
“I’m not sure what kind of father Mr. Carmody was,” she began, “but I know he wasn’t up for any awards as a husband.”
Offering no response, Hutch rested his forearms on the tabletop and settled in for some serious listening.
When she went on, Opal seemed to be picking up in the middle of some rambling thought. “Oh, I know he wasn’t actually married to your mother when he got involved with Callie Barlow, but she had his engagement ring on her finger, all right, and the date had been set.”
Hutch guessed the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, as the old saying went. He hadn’t cheated on Brylee, but he’d done the next worst thing by breaking up with her at their wedding with half the county looking on.
“That was hard for Mom,” he said. “She never really got over it, as far as I could tell.”
Opal nodded. “She was fragile in some ways,” she replied.
Hutch felt the sting of chagrin. He’d loved his mother, but he’d always thought of her as weak, too, and maybe even a mite on the foolish side. She’d gone right ahead and married the old man, after all, knowing that he’d not only betrayed her trust, but fathered a child by another woman.
A child—Slade Barlow—who would grow up practically under her nose and bear such a resemblance to John Carmody that there could be no doubt of his paternity.
“I