Keeping the love alive

 

"You weren't expecting anything Irish were you?" That laugh of Lindy's father rang through the house as he poured some moonshine for Jay.

Jay only cleared his throat. So this was the farm that Lindy spoke of.  Far from the city down a few country dirt roads. They'd taken a drive most of the day to get there. Hope wasn't with them so that was a plus.

Jay only nodded with a grin and took a sip. He choked. Thinking this was going to knock his socks off. Even his eyes watered. Lindy was off in the kitchen with her step-mother making supper.

Her father talked about Lindy's mother some. It was how he got his hands on this place.

"Damn me," he shook his head. "I'd only wanted a place of my own and when I met Libby, well..I didn't know about her problems." Evidently, they were mental and she hadn't lasted long in this world.

Frank looked sad about it, but he took another sip of the moonshine and sighed with a smile as if he did remember the good times. 

"Problems?" Jay looked at him trying to figure out the time-line. Frank was a bit of a lover but a fighter too. He'd had some run-ins with the law.

"We didn't get right together like expected." He looked a Jay all serious standing there in the livingroom with practically a  million pictures on the wall. Mostly, of Lindy in various stages of her life.  But he pointed to the picture of him and Lindy's mom from high school.

"She liked to carry this babydoll around, you see." He didn't look directly at Jay as if he knew it was a crazy story from the get-go. It seemed Libby couldn't take care of Lindy. It was as if a light went out of her and she couldn't even talk.  "I wasn't as good as I could have been."

There had been a fight at the feed store where he worked when he was young. He'd put a teenage boy in a coma back then.

"It was Libby who saved me, even if I did have to be in the detention center for a while."

Jay nodded wondering if that was why his mom never kept Lenny/Daniel. She just wanted to give Lenny a better life. 

"You love my Lindy, now don't you?" Frank cracked a smile. Jay's face only tensed as he smiled back nervously.

"Of course, I do." was all he could manage to say.