Nobody's Fool

Hattie’s,” Rub said, sounding not a little like a child suffering a broken promise.
    â€œAnd here I am,” Sully pointed out.
    â€œIt’s almost lunchtime,” Rub observed. “You probably aren’t even going to let us eat lunch today, are you?”
    â€œGo ahead,” Sully suggested. “If you’re going to sit around all day, you might as well go eat.”
    â€œWe was just waiting for the truck,” Rub explained. “We’d have to make about ten trips in the Canimo.”
    â€œCamino,” Sully corrected him. Rub was unable to pronounce this word. “El Camino.”
    â€œWe needed the truck,” Rub stated, too wise to try the word again, knowing the price of failure around Sully.
    Sully handed him the keys. “Try not to wreck it,” he suggested. “At least not until I make the first payment.”
    â€œI’ve never wrecked a single truck of yours,” Rub pointed out.
    â€œIt’s the reason we’re still friends,” Sully assured him.
    Rub shrugged. “You’re more
his
friend now,” he remarked sadly, his voice lowered so Peter wouldn’t hear.
    â€œPeter’s my son, Rub,” Sully told him. “I’m sorry if you object, but I’m allowed to be friends with my son if I want to.”
    â€œHe doesn’t even like you,” Rub said.
    â€œTrue,” Sully admitted, not minding if his voice was audible to Peter. “But I’m growing on him. He just needs a little more time to get over the fact that I ignored him for about thirty years. He hasn’t quite figured out yet that I did it for his own good.”
    Rub’s brow furrowed deeper. “How come he always calls me Sancho? It’s like he thinks I’m stupid.”
    â€œWell,” Sully said.
    Rub surrendered a half grin. “How come I don’t mind when
you
say I’m stupid?” he asked with genuine curiosity.
    Sully was grinning too now. Nobody could cheer him up faster than Rub. “Because we’re friends, Rub. Friends can tell each other the truth.”
    â€œHow come I don’t get to tell you you’re stupid?”
    â€œBecause I’m smart,” Sully told him.
    Rub sighed. They’d had this conversation before, and it always came out the same way.
    Peter had been talking to Will in hushed tones, the boy seated on his lap. Peter listened, nodded knowingly, glanced at Sully, then said something to his son that Sully couldn’t quite make out. Then the boy scooted down the steps past them, down the walk and into the front seat of the El Camino, which was parked at the curb.
    â€œI guess I’ll take him back,” Peter said to no one in particular. “Mom should be getting home about now.”
    â€œOkay,” Sully said, meeting his son’s accusing eye.
    â€œYou want to tell me what happened?”
    Sully shrugged. “I wish I knew,” he said truthfully. “I looked over and he was crying.”
    â€œHe said you got angry.”
    â€œNot at him.”
    â€œWell, something sure scared him,” Peter insisted.
    â€œJust about everything seems to,” Sully said and was immediately sorry. “If I scared him, I sure didn’t mean to,” he added lamely.
    Peter snorted. “You forgot all about him, didn’t you? You forgot he was even there.”
    Which made Sully wonder if Will had told him about the lumberyard.He decided probably not. If Peter’d found out about that he’d have said something. Or he’d have said, “You forgot him
again.
”
    â€œI don’t remember
you
being there,” he said weakly. Nevertheless, Sully was stung by the accuracy of Peter’s intuition.
    â€œThat’s
my
line,” Peter said by way of a parting shot. He fished in his pocket for the keys to the El Camino. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
    Sully and Rub watched him depart. Starting the El Camino up, Peter did a U-turn and whipped the car back down Main. Sully caught just a glimpse of his grandson’s white face in the front seat before it and the car disappeared, leaving Sully to contemplate the fact that his son had just echoed Ruth’s refrain—that he was never around when needed. It had been one of Vera’s principal complaints, too, Sully remembered, though it had gotten lost in all her other complaints. Other people also offered variations on this same theme. From his old