I stared at him.
“You have no idea,” I said. “You have no idea who my father is.”
“I don’t need to,” Brent said.
And he shut the door.
I walked back home across the lawn, past the fence, past the corn.
Dad was sitting on the back porch in his old metal lawn chair, shelling peas into a bowl. He’d seen me go. He’d seen me come back.
“Well?” he said.
“He says you’re running an operation. Selling vegetables without a license.”
Dad laughed. An actual laugh. I hadn’t heard him laugh like that since before Mom died.
“An operation,” he said. “That’s a good one. I’ll have to remember that.”
“Dad, it’s not funny.”
“It’s a little funny.”
I sat down hard on the porch steps.
“He saw your truck,” I said. “He said you leave before sunrise every week. Loading up boxes.”
