Page 17 of The Only Seconds that Matter
“He only met her four months ago.And now they’re engaged!I’m not happy about it.I’ve met her twice, and each time she was rude.The second time, they drove out here to meet me, and she refused to come into the barn because she said it smelled bad.Well, you can imagine how I tookthat, and I was about to throw them both off my property.”
“What’s her name?”
“Violet.I doubt she’s any better with money than Oscar, judging by her get-up.She told me she’s a nurse’s assistant.That’s not a well-paying job, so how does she drive an Audi?”
Leave it to Oscar to have the worst taste in women.It would be just like him to find his mother’s polar opposite, just to spite her.To Victor it sounded like Violet and his mother might be alike in personality and different in execution.“Sounds perfect for Oscar.”
“What if they have children?You know Oscar’s not responsible enough for that, and I doubt there’s a maternal bone in that woman’s body.”She sighed angrily.“I had hoped my first grandchild would come fromyou.”
Victor decided to ignore that remark.“Have they said they want kids?”
“Violet said she wants them.”
That made it much more likely to happen.Maybe kids would do Oscar a favor.Or maybe he’d continue being bad with money and bad with women and it’d all end in a messy divorce.Victor didn’t know what he was supposed to do about it.He was not his brother’s keeper.Horses were far easier to train than Oscar.
“He’s an adult, Mom.He can do what he wants.”
“That doesn’t mean I have to like it!”
“Maybe the horse gene skips a generation.Maybe that grandchild will want a pony.”
“I’d rather you have a kid.You’d do a better job with it.”
“Mom, can we please not talk about this?”
“You’re thirty now, which means you’ve only got another, what, five years?Maybe seven if you’re lucky?You told me that was what you wanted.”
“Yeah, ten years ago, when I was engaged.”
“Have you changed your mind?”
“I’m not engaged anymore.”
“There are sperm banks.”
“Mom!”Victor rubbed his face with both hands, Venus still nuzzling his elbow in search of treats.“I don’t want to have this conversation.”
“I just think it’s important that you really think about this farm and what you want your future to look like.What matters more to you?The horses or a child?I’m glad I didn’t have to make that choice.You may have to.”
Victor reached out to pet Venus’s forehead while her weanling pasture mate rubbed his lip against Victor’s forearm, a silent request for similar attention.
“Call your brother,” his mother said after a long silence that Victor refused to end.“Talk some damn sense into him.”
“Oscar does what he wants.He doesn’t care what I think.”
“He cares even less what I think.”
“Fine, I’ll call him.”
“Thank you.”
Twenty seconds of pleasantries later, Victor was able to hang up.He shoved the phone in his pocket and stared blankly out across the paddock, knowing that ten years ago that conversation might have brought him to tears.He didn’t cry that easily anymore.In fact, he hadn’t cried since his aunt’s funeral two years ago.
His mother could be a difficult person.No one knew that more than Victor, because they hadn’t talked for a whole year after Victor came out.It wasn’t a decision he’d made lightly, but their conversations had become too upsetting to continue.She was grieving a daughter she’d never had.Their interactions turned toxic, and she said hurtful things, usually about what his father would think, then refused to apologize for them.Victor had inherited his father’s easy going nature, but even he had to put his foot down.In the time they weren’t speaking, she’d done some work on herself with the help of a therapist, and they were better able to communicate.He’d been her favorite child, her protégé.She’d tried life without him and couldn’t do it.So she came back.She made her apologies.Victor had forgiven her to the best of his ability.Sometimes that resentment slithered back, especially when she chastised him for not having the things he wanted.
He wished his father were alive.He wished that every week.As a kid his mother’s worst tendencies had been tempered by his father’s protection, and he’d made Victor feel safe.Whenever he got into fights with his mother—something that happened weekly back when he was a teenager—it had been his father who came to his room, dragged him into an embrace, and assured him that everything would work out.They’d go for a ride together and have a long chat.She’s not an easy woman to love sometimes, his father had said,but I know she does her best.
If his father were alive, Victor would have called him and relayed the whole conversation, just to hear him laugh and sayNo te preocupes, mijo.It’s your life to live.Don’t you worry about anybody else.Of course, Victor worried about everything.As the “responsible” older sibling, it’d been his job to make his parents proud.There was no way to win his father’s ghost’s approval, and yet he still wanted it, along with his mother’s.
