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The arms of exhaustion were still trying to pull me into sleep, but my anxiety over Dad being mad at me was winning.
“I have other things to do.”
“Are you serious?”
I showed him my phone. “Work calls.”
“This is your dad.”
“Yep. And my boss. I’ll rest later.”
That wasn’t the answer Cain wanted, but I darted out of the truck before he could lock me in and force me to sleep. I grabbed my laptop and went up to my room so Cain wouldn’t witness my dad yelling at me.
Then I finally answered my phone.
“I knew I shouldn’t have let you work remotely,” he started before I could even say hello. “You’re not focused, and I can never reach you!”
I winced and covered my cheeks. It took a lot to get Dad this angry.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I had something come up.”
“And so have we. Multiple times, Mollie. You need to be focused on your job. Not prancing around in fields.”
The embarrassment morphed into annoyance. I wasn’tprancing. I was working my ass off to make something. And even though it wasn’t perfect, I was proud of how it was coming along. Sure, some nights I fell into bed and passed out immediately, but it was more than what I’d had in Nashville.
But I did owe my dad eight hours a day too. I should have been reachable.
“I know,” I said. “I’ll do better.”
I wasn’t sure how. I was already working on somethingevery single hour I was awake. Sometimes, I had to take my dinner to my bedroom to catch up on work emails. Cain tried to argue with me that I was breaking the number one house rule, but I was too exhausted to even pretend like I cared. All I could do was survive until the berries were planted. In the darker months, I’d have less to do, but I wasn’t sure if Dad was going to give me the leeway to make it that far.
“Trevor thinks I should fire you. He said this would happen when you went out there. If it were anyone else, they’d be gone.”
I was sure Trevor wanted Dad to fire me for other reasons too, though I knew my work hadn’t been top-notch.
“Dad, I’m trying. I promise.”
“Are you?”
“Yes,” I said. “You see how late I’m online.”
“But you should be here during theday.Not when no one else is working.”
“I’ll try.”
“You’ve been saying that this whole time. I need to see youactuallybe better. Or ...” He trailed off.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be better.”
He hung up not too long after, and I sighed. I had rows of strawberries to get done, and I’d planned on doing those in the morning, but with Dad’s threat, I needed to be online at that time.
I thought about asking Cain for help, but he had enough on his plate as it was.
Shaking my head, I got to work, firing off emails and making sure everything was organized for the day.
I set up a tentative schedule and planned on bringing my laptop outside so I could hear it when I was contacted. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do.
The sun was low in the sky by the time I had everything done with Dad’s work.