Page 136 of Spur

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I find a chair next to Roan and Spur sits across from me beside Banshee.

Marlena puts a plate in front of me without asking—eggs over easy, bacon thick-cut, biscuits split open and buttered, a spoonful of the canned peaches Grace has been slicing.

The kind of plate I remember eating when I was eight years old. "Eat, kiddo."

"Yes, ma'am."

She kisses the top of my head and moves on to Spur with another plate.

And then for a long while it's just the sound of people eating.

Forks on plates. The coffee urn refilling. Waylon laughing at something Bex did with her face. Cal making small noises in the playpen.

Uncle Holt breaks the quiet first. He's looking at Cash. "You drove that Suburban up?"

"Yeah."

"Ugly truck."

"It hauls four men and a body."

"Still ugly as shit."

Cash sets his fork down. "Holt. We've been here for ten minutes."

"I know. I waited."

Roan laughs into his coffee.

Pops, behind his paper that he isn't reading: "Holt."

"What?"

"Eat your damn breakfast."

"I am eating."

"You're picking on ‘em."

Marlena laughs from the stove. "He always picks on folks when he’s eating. I know that from your phone calls."

"He’s just a rude bastard when he's drunk and when he's full," Pops says. "He's on his second plate."

"Then I'll be drunk by lunch."

"Holt."

"Eatin', Phantom. I'm eatin'."

Bex laughs from the table by the window. I realize I'm laughing too.

This is the first time I've laughed in two weeks.

Uncle Cash leaves first, around eleven.

He walks down the porch steps of the clubhouse with Pops on one side of him and Marlena on the other. He hugs Marlena hard and kisses her cheek. "Mar."

"Cash."

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