At 61, Amanda Witt still dressed to accentuate the curves that had caught my father’s eye in college. She took pride in coloring her hair the same auburn it had been on their wedding day, though now she wore it in a daring pixie cut. She golfed, worked part-time as a school counselor, and breathed life into every room she entered.
“Mom?” I croaked, automatically leaning in for a hug.
“Lou, isn’t this the cutest little cottage you’ve ever seen?” she said.
My father grunted. He had his hands stuffed into the pockets of his shorts and was nudging the porch railing with the toe of his sneakers. “Seems solid,” he said.
Mom was impressed by pretty things. Dad preferred to appreciate sturdiness.
“How you doing, kiddo?” he asked.
I transferred my hug to him and laughed as my toes left the ground. While Mom was a few inches shorter than Tina and me, Dad was over six feet tall. A bear of a man who always made me feel like everything was going to be okay.
“What are you two doing here?” I asked as he carefully put me down.
“Sweetheart, you can’t tell us we have a granddaughter and not expect us to drive straight here. Did we get you out of bed? That’s a lovely nightgown,” Mom noted.
Bed.
Nightgown.
Sex.
Knox.
Oh, God.
“Uhhh…”
“I told you we should have cut that cruise short, Lou,” Mom said, slapping Dad in the shoulder. “She’s obviously depressed. She’s still in her pajamas.”
“She’s not depressed, Mandy,” Dad insisted, rapping his knuckles on the door frame as he stepped inside. “What is this? Oak?”
“I don’t know, Dad. Mom, I’m not depressed,” I said, trying to figure out a way to get them out of the house before my naked guest woke up. “I just…uh…worked late last night, and there was a family emergency—”
Mom gasped. “Is something wrong with Waylay?”
“No. Mom. Sorry. Not our family. The family who owns this place and the bar I work at.”
“I can’t wait to see it. What’s it called again? Hanky Pank?”
“Honky Tonk,” I corrected her, spying my dress on the floor. “Did you see the living room?” It came out as an almost shout, and my parents exchanged a glance before pretending to be enthralled with the space I was waving at.
“Just look at that fireplace, Lou.”
“Yes, look at the fireplace,” I all but screeched.
Dad grunted.
As my parents admired the fireplace, I hooked the dress with my toes and swept it under the kitchen table.
“And you got a dog! My, you have been busy since the wedding.”
Waylon lifted his head, a jowl still stuck to the pillow. His tail thumped on the cushion, and my mom dissolved into a puddle of affection. “Who’s a handsome boy? You are, sir. Yes, you are!”
“See, Mandy, she’s not depressed. She’s just busy,” Dad insisted.
“Isn’t the view of the woods great?” I said, the words sounding strangled as I pointed frantically at the windows.
When they turned to admire the woods through the glass, I grabbed Knox’s jeans off the floor and threw them into the cabinet under the sink.
“Beeper, come meet your niece or nephew doggy!” My mother was using her “straight-A report card on the refrigerator” voice, which was definitely loud enough to wake the man upstairs in my bed.
“You guys brought Beeper?”
Beeper was my parents’ latest rescue dog. She was a mix of breeds—I got them the DNA test for Christmas the previous year—that had been scrambled together and came out looking like a large, brown Brillo pad with feet. The Brillo pad appeared in the doorway and trotted inside.
Waylon sat up and gave an appreciative “woof.”
“This is Waylon. He’s not mine. He belongs to my…um. Neighbor? Hey, do you guys want to get out of here and go for breakfast or lunch or just leave for any reason at all?”
Waylon hopped off the couch and booped noses with Beeper. Beeper let out a high-pitched yap, and the two of them began to zoom around the minuscule first floor.
“Daisy, baby, what the fuck are you doing down there?”
I watched in horror as bare feet attached to naked, muscular legs appeared on the stairs. Mom and I froze to the spot as boxer briefs—thank God for penis-covering miracles—came into view.
Dad, moving quickly for a big guy, put himself between us and the approaching boxer briefs.
“State your business,” Dad shouted at Knox’s bare torso.