One Way Road - Cassidy Shay (red white royal blue txt) 📗

town again, like we did when Dad first died. We can rent out the guest house. Horse riding lessons. We’ll find a way, Mom. But he needs his home. He’s staying.”
“Don’t you dare boss me around, young man. I know what’s best for you, and what’s best for this family.”
“Really?” Levi snapped. “It’s best for me to only take half my classes? It’s best for Jared to be on the brink of suspension, cutting class, and God knows what else? It’s best for our grandpa to go live in a nursing home because you’re too cheap to let him live here?”
He stormed out the door and into the yard. He turned left, to the garage, where his truck was. For the next three hours, Levi worked on the truck, mainly just cleaning the engine parts and putting it back together.
He didn’t notice Harold watching him, until Harold stepped in, grabbed a bandana, and started cleaning a different part.
Levi didn’t stop, but he made room for the old man. There was something comforting, something so familiar, about having someone else working beside him. They worked until dinner time, and walked back to the house in silence.
For three weeks, Grandpa Harold didn’t say a word. He woke up, had breakfast and a cup of coffee, and sat on the porch until the kids left for school. When Levi got back to the farm at lunch time, his grandpa still sat in the rocking chair. He came in the house for lunch, and had dinner with the family. But he never said a single word.
Levi, because he didn’t go to school all day, spent more time with his grandfather than any of the children. They learned to work around each other so that they didn’t get in the way.
And every night, Levi watched from his window as Grandpa Harold walked to the barn, and then later as he walked back to the house. Levi knew that the man wasn’t sleep walking. After three weeks of watching him, Levi followed Harold.
“You’d love it here, Clarice. I know you would. The farm is older now, but these kids have taken good care of it. The skies are just as blue as they were that summer, when I was with you.”
For over an hour, Levi listened to Grandpa Harold talk to Clarice. He’d never heard of her, but he was positive that she was someone close to his grandpa’s heart.
When Harold left the barn, he left the flashlight on the hay bale that had been his seat. At first, Levi assumed that he had simply forgotten the flashlight. But as he lay in bed that night, he knew that that wasn’t the case. Harold knew that Levi was out there, and he’d left the flashlight for him.
The next day, Harold asked someone for the salt over breakfast. Everyone froze, unsure of what to do. Levi reached over and grabbed the salt, then handed it to Grandpa Harold. They all watched in amazement as he shook out salt onto his eggs. All except Levi. After hearing the man talk so much the night before, he wasn’t impressed by one sentence.
The rest of the day, Harold didn’t say anything. The whole family spent all afternoon waiting for something else, but nothing came.
At dinnertime, they had stopped expecting him to say anything, so they settled into their normal routine.
“So, kids, how was your day?” asked Marie. The girls looked at each other, snickered, and then looked at Jared. Jared glared at them across the table. Marie sighed. “Jared, what happened?”
For several moments, it was silent. The whole time, Levi stared at his plate, waiting for his brother to confess. Finally, Levi looked at his mom. “During first hour, he wasn’t in class. He was behind the school, with a bunch of other kids.” He looked at Jared, who hung his head. “Since they didn’t actually catch him with the pipe in his hand, they couldn’t do anything. And the school isn’t going to have him tested. They don’t have that kind of money. He didn’t act high, so they didn’t do anything.”
Levi looked back to his mom. “He has detention next Monday after school.”
For a minute, it was silent. Then, “Jared, go to your room, please.” She stood up and reached for Jared’s plate, but he pushed it out of her reach.
“I didn’t do anything wrong. I wasn’t smoking. I just didn’t want to go to class.” He stared at his mom, challenging her.
“Jared. Go to your room. Now.”
“No! Didn’t you hear him? I didn’t get in trouble. Just detention. That’s-“
“Enough!” The outburst startled everyone. They all looked at Grandpa Harold, whose face was starting to get red. He was glaring at Jared. “Go to your room,” he said quietly. “It’s not about whether or not you got caught. It’s about discerning right from wrong. Go.”
Jared moved immediately. As he walked up the stairs, everyone started at Grandpa Harold, who had gone back to eating his beans.
That night, Levi followed Harold out to the barn again. “Clarice, I don’t know what I’m going to do about these kids. I don’t know what I should do. Do I let their mother try to do it all on her own? I guess not alone. Levi helps an awful lot. But Marie… she just seems so lost. It’s only been a year since she lost her husband.”
Levi listened to every word, the mystery growing at the end of each sentence. Who is Clarice?

Levi had never heard of this woman, from anyone in the family. He watched his grandpa as he stood to pet the horse’s nose.
“Theresa and Amy are so sweet. Marie won’t have much trouble with them. And Levi… he’s grown up too fast, but that’s a good thing for the family. He’s a hard worker and he does the best that he can to help his mom.”
Levi felt his chest swell up, the pride too great in volume for the small space in his ribcage. Although he knew that his mom was grateful for all that he did, she was often too tired to thank him, or even say anything about it. Hearing his grandfather acknowledge his work was more than Levi could ask for.
“But that Jared… Oh, he’ll be some trouble. He’s more like his dad than any of them.” This was news to Levi. He’d always assumed that he had been the most like his dad. He remembered his dad as calm, hard working, tenacious, and responsible. None of those words described his little brother.
“Clarice, I just don’t understand what’s gotten into that boy. I know he’s lost his father, but so did all the other children, and they’re not like that. And a child like that, causing trouble all the time, is the last thing that poor Marie needs.”
Grandpa Harold moved over to the two cows, Lazy Sue and Betty Lou. Levi smiled, remembering when he and Jared had names the cows. They’d been nine and seven, and they liked the sound of the rhyming names.
He watched his grandfather look into the large, brown eyes of Lazy Sue. “What Jared needs is a little dose of growing up, reality, and responsibility.” He sighed. “That’s what Levi got, and look where he is now. I always thought that living on a farm would teach people that kind of stuff. But I just Jared just needs to be pushed more.”
With those as his final words for the evening, he left the barn. Once again, Levi noticed that he’d left the flashlight.
In the morning, as Jared stepped from the truck to the gravel of the school parking lot, Levi put a hand on his shoulder.
“I’ll be picking you guys up today, because I have to run to the feed store and I’ll need your help.” Jared mumbled something, and Levi rolled his eyes. He was definitely not looking forward to that afternoon.
As he’d listened to his grandpa the night before, Levi had gotten the feeling that the old man had been talking to him. He decided that he needed to push Jared, because he knew his mom wouldn’t.
In first hour, Levi was trying to concentrate on his English assignment, but the two girls to his left were distracting him. He knew that they were intentionally talking loud enough for him to hear, just like they had been for the last week and a half.
“Do you think Levi will go to the homecoming dance?” asked one of them. Her name was Lisa, and she’d had a crush on Levi for over a year.
Her friend laughed. “Maybe, but I doubt it. He doesn’t even come to any football games anymore to watch his best friends play. He’s busy on the farm. You know that.” She paused for a moment. “If he does go, he’ll probably take that cow, Becky Sue, or whatever her name is.”
Levi did his best to not visibly cringe. Meagan’s family lived up in Castle Mountain, one of the richer subdivisions in the small town. Like him, she was supposed to be graduating this year. However, she’d taken a year off of school to travel with her family, so she was taking junior classes with Levi. For almost his whole life, he’d suffered her demeaning comments about life on the farm.
He heard Lisa sigh. “I wish he would ask me. He works so hard. He could probably use a night off, don’t you think?” The conversation slowly shifted to something else, and they quieted down.
Levi smiled. Unlike Meagan, Lisa lives on one of the farms. They didn’t grow crops, but they had plenty of animals, and she was no stranger to hard work. Levi liked Lisa. She was a nice girl, and had beautiful brown eyes, almost as big as Betty Lou’s. Levi wouldn’t even mind taking her to the dance. But he knew that he had no time for things like dances and dates.
After he picked up Jared that afternoon, Levi set him to work. Jared complained for the first hour or so, but shut up when he realized that he was going to have to do the work.
That night at dinner, Jared was quiet. “You look tired,” Grandpa Harold commented. Once again, as they had the night before, everyone stared at the man.
“You should be tired. You worked hard today. Hard work is good for you.” He looked at Marie. “How about I go pick up these kids after class, and Jared can help Levi instead of going to hang out with all his friends.”
Through all of this, Levi looked at his plate. He heard his mom clear her throat, and then she answered, “That would be nice, actually. The barn looks a lot better than it has in a long time. And it would lighten Levi’s load a little.”
And that was the end of the discussion. Every day, Grandpa Harold picked everyone up from school and Jared went to help Levi with that day’s tasks.