Free Faultlines by Barbara Taylor Sissel Page B

oil industry.
    “I guess Dad will have to put off retiring for a bit,” her mom said. “Not that he was that serious about it.”
    Her mother wanted it more than her dad. She was ready to travel, do things other than work. Sandy didn’t blame her. She’d helped them sell their home in Wyatt and move into their patio home in a community for older folks, where lawn-care and housekeeping services were provided if you wanted it. You could even have your meals brought in or walk to a centrally located restaurant if you didn’t feel like cooking. But her dad still came to the office in Wyatt a couple of times a week; he and Emmett would drive around and talk to customers together. Emmett missed him, though. He’d been used to running with her dad almost every day. They’d go as much as five miles, sometimes more. They’d competed in marathons together.
    It had started when Emmett was in high school. Her dad had coached him on the side when he joined the track team. Even then no one had questioned the notion that Emmett would go to work for her dad after he got his business degree from the U of H. It was the motivation for hiring on as a roughneck, so he could learn the business from the ground up. It was Emmett’s nature to be thorough and methodical, to follow a plan. As long ago as their high school days, Emmett had talked about how important it was to do the grunt work. The shit work, he called it. He wasn’t too proud to get dirty, to work hard. He’d work till he dropped, if that’s what the job took. The guys he bossed now respected him; they looked up to him.
    Jordy admired him, too, but he didn’t share his dad’s drive, his no-nonsense work ethic, or his sense of responsibility. They’d fought about it in May when the letter came from UT, advising Sandy and Emmett that Jordy was on scholastic probation. Jenna had gotten a letter, too, telling her Trav had made the dean’s list. Sandy had barely been able to offer congratulations. Emmett had yelled about the money Jordy was pissing down the drain, not to mention his future. He’d accused Jordy of being a slacker. Sandy thought Emmett was too hard on Jordy.
    Emmett had dismissed her concern. “We’re throwing our hard-earned money down the drain while he wastes time,” he’d said.
    Neither one of them had talked about the way in which Jordy might be wasting time; they hadn’t considered that his poor performance might be the result of excessive partying and drinking. Instead, Sandy had brought up the past.
    “You wasted time. Remember?” she’d said. “When you took off and went to Berkeley in the middle of our junior year, when you decided you didn’t want to be tied down? How many hours did you lose—that my dad helped you pay for?” Sandy had regretted bringing up all that old business, but she’d felt pushed to remind Emmett that even he wasn’t perfect. “I thought I’d never see you again,” she’d told him, loud voiced, offended.
    They’d gone to bed angry, slept little, and woken up still fuming and feeling as if they were hungover. Sandy cringed now from the memory. Jordy had been in need of guidance, a firm hand; there had been all kinds of warning signs, but she and Emmett had left him to founder. Shame rose hot and thick in her throat. She had never wanted to be that sort of mother, the one who clings to her delusions, who can’t face the facts.
    “Grant sends prayers,” Emmett said. “He wanted to know if there was anything he or Brenda could do.”
    “They’re always so nice,” Sandy said.
    Grant Kennedy had worked for the company going on twenty years. He and his wife, Brenda, were close friends of her parents, and god-grandparents, an honorary title they’d laughingly created, to both Jordy and Travis.
    “He offered to donate blood. Harvey and I talked about it, too.”
    Sandy turned to look at Emmett.
    “In case Jordy needs more than the transfusion he’s getting now.”
    “Aunt Frances had a transfusion