this is where everybody ended up.”
“They came here after leaving Rex’s,” I answered. “Nobody was pressured to quit.”
He asked whether I’d come back to the family store until Aubrey figured out how to manage everything. → I wiped the grease off my hands with a red rag and looked him dead in the eye.
“No, Dad,” I said quietly. “I’m not coming back.”
Dad shifted his weight, wincing as a sharp spasm hit his lower back. His knuckles were white against the steering bar of Otis’s mower. He looked past me, trying to catch Chad’s eye, then Joan’s. Neither






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