Thank you for asking me in, Cole said. Was standing now too. She looked at both of them. Eyes were bright and her back was straight and she was the most composed person in the room. What was beginning to understand was simply who she was, not a woman without feeling, but a woman whose feeling ran so deep it had long since stopped needing the surface to show it.
"Right," she said. "Sit back down, both of you." They sat. She poured more coffee and then in the way that families absorb enormous things and then return to the business of the living because the living still needs to be done. They talked.
They talked for 3 hours at that kitchen table. Oh, told them everything. Not just the accident. Everything. Oh, Rachel the ring.
The Thursday specials he drove past. The 11 years of motion. The particular kind of silence that chases you when you're trying not to let it catch up. And Evelyn listened the way only certain people can listen completely, rushing to fix anything without filling every pause with consolation. They just received it.
And in receiving it, they gave Cole something he hadn't known he was starving for of being known. Around noon, Cole's phone went off. Bag, he let it ring. It went off again 30 seconds later. I'll answer it, Evelyn said.
Cole picked up. I'm in the middle of something. I know, dirt bag said, "You need to hear this right now. I looked into the Parker Farm situation to three people in Harland County this morning." A brief pause.
Oh, there's more going on here than back taxes. Cole went still. What do you mean? There's a development company that's been acquiring land in that county for the past 2 years. Farmland, mostly old family properties that have hit tax trouble.
They've been, let me be careful about how I say this, they've been accelerating that trouble in some cases. Making sure certain properties hit the auction block. Another pause. Her farm is on their acquisition list. Cole looked at Thomas across the table.
Thomas had gone very still watching Cole's face read the conversation. How sure are you? Cole said into the phone. Sure enough, dirtbag said. Names?
I've got the company. I've got two other families in that county who went through the same process in the last 18 months and lost their land. Cole stood up from the table to the window. He kept his voice level. What do we need to fix it?
He said for the taxes, that's the simple part, but there's also a legal angle. If we can document the pattern, we might be able to flag it with the state AG's office and stop the auction on procedural grounds. High time at minimum, maybe more. Do you know a lawyer? I know four lawyers, dirtbag said.
Let fence of a man with an MBA from Vanderbilt. Let him do property law. I'll make calls. Do it. Cole said Bag.
Get the chapter together. Not a ride. Work weekend. I need hands, tools, and whatever else we can bring to be here Friday morning. Silence on the other end for a moment.
All of them. Dirt bag said every single one. Cole said. He hung up and turned back to the table. Thomas was watching him.
Was watching him. And the look on Thomas's face was the complicated look of a proud man receiving help. He has decided to accept not easily, without cost, consciously, deliberately, as some things are larger than pride, and he was old enough to know it. To this than we knew, Cole said. He sat back down, told them what dirt bag had told him plainly, directly, softening it past what was useful.
Thomas listened without interrupting. All finished. There was a silence. Then Thomas said in a voice like gravel, I knew something was wrong. Radis.
When the notices started coming faster than they should. County office was suddenly very efficient about the timeline. He pressed his mouth into a hard line. I didn't have proof. I thought I was being paranoid.
"You weren't," Cole said. Looked at his hands. Evelyn said, "What do we do?" "We fight it," Cole said. "I certain that's what we do."
He looked at both of them. "Oh, my chapter is coming Friday. They'll work the property, whatever needs doing." Do it. A lawyer is going to look at the legal angle and see if we can stop the auction before it happens.
He stopped. The money we'll handle. Ask me how right now. Just let me handle it. Thomas opened his mouth.
Cole said, "Your son pulled me out of a burning car away without his name. He never asked for anything back." Cole kept his eyes level. Give something back. Not to you.