Many of my friends jokingly, jealously accuse me of not needing to take any notes in class. That's not exactly true; I just take very succinct notes. Once I understand the theory behind an engineering principle, along with the practical mathematical formula to apply it, I only need one or two examples before it's filed away accordingly in my brain. The rest of the class period I use for other pursuits, which is how I found myself musing over a difficult conversation that I would be having later this evening.

She should be expecting it sometime soon anyway, right? We'd only been seeing each other a few months, and graduation was only three weeks away.

"I hope I'm not disturbing you," my best friend, Ted, teased as he slid into the seat beside me. I realized that class had just ended.

"Not at all." I managed a grin, and packed up my books.

We joined the funnel that jostled to exit the building, and Ted elbowed me knowingly. "Tonight's the night, huh? Distracted?"

"Yeah…I've been through it plenty of times before, but it never gets easier."

"I've got an idea, Romeo. Maybe it might actually work out with Angelia? I don't know where this fear of commitment comes from with you, Adam. If I had the selection of ladies that you do, I would have chosen one by now."

I knew exactly where my fear of commitment had come from. The flow of traffic graciously spat us outside the building, and we shielded our eyes from the afternoon sun.

"Excuse me," I said vaguely to a man who was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, and passed on his right. "After all," Ted was lecturing, "It's not like with the salary you'll be getting, you're not going to be able to afford to rent her a room or something in Connecticut—"

"Adam!" the man called. I recognized the voice and stopped abruptly, hugging my books tightly to my chest like a schoolboy. I felt a work-roughed hand on my elbow, turning me around.

And I stared straight into the eyes of the reason behind my commitment issues.

Ted looked quizzically from one face to the other. "Uh…are you going to introduce us?"

My teeth began to grind, a stress habit that could cause terrific headaches if not managed properly. I gestured to Ted. "This is my friend, Ted. And Teddy….meet my father. Ben Cartwright."

Ted's naturally energetic charm froze with his hand halfway raised to a handshake. He turned slowly to face me, a glint of steel hardening in his eyes. I cringed, recognizing that look that I'd seen on a variety of faces over the years. The look that said, me too? I knew you kept secrets from everyone else, but me too?

Pa rescued the situation by meeting the handshake where it was, grasping it firmly and adding a warm, Southern smile. He tipped his hat slightly. "Pleased to meet you, sir."

"You as well, sir." Ted attempted a smile, but his underlying anger turned it into more of a grimace. "Glad to see you alive and well. If you'll excuse me, I have another class starting right after this one." Nodding curtly, he turned and used quick strides to put as much distance between us as possible.

"Ted—Teddy!" I yelled. "I'll see you tonight, I'll stop by!" I watched as he turned a corner. Then, slowly I turned to face the man who had traveled so many days for this visit.

Pa eyed me warily, curiously, hopefully. My face may have been blank, I don't know. I waited for him to break the silence.

"Good to see you, son." Pa extended his hand. I shook it cautiously.

"You too, Pa. What brings you out here?"

"I wanted to speak with you. In person. I told you in the letters that I was coming."

"Oh. Yes."

A flicker of uncertainty passed across Pa's features, but he passed a hand over his eyes and the look was gone. "Is now a good time? Can I take you out to dinner?"

"I'm taking a woman out to dinner in a couple of hours, Pa."

"Well, it's only four o'clock, let's get a drink instead."

I knew Pa was a teetotaler; he was making an exception for me. "Come on," I said, nodding my head toward the direction I'd been going. ""Come this way, I know a place."

Pa had to work slightly harder to keep up with my longer legs, and I walked in silence, trying to digest my new circumstances. We did not speak again until after we'd fought our way through a cloud of bodies, smoke, and profanity, to the front of Cassidy's Bar. Cassidy's was the watering hole of the upwardly mobile, and, especially after class on a Friday, the students tended to flush their brains of everything they'd learned that week.

"Bourbon and water, please, Maggie," I shouted to the well-buxomed woman behind the counter.

"I'll just have a beer, please. And, uh—how about a table? Off in the farthest corner?" Pa smiled and handed Maggie a crisp, green bill.

Maggie looked at the bill and fulfilled her task all too eagerly. Well-played, Pa. I'd wanted to stay in the noise and debauchery.

Procrastination over. We were alone with our poisonous beverages.

The poor lighting helped us face each other, along with the dull roar in the background. "Welcome to Boston, Pa," I said. "You look good."

He looked almost the same as he had four years ago, with slightly less hair and some more crow's feet around the eyes. Years of hard work had weathered his skin, and sun spots were beginning to discolor parts of his face and arms. He was still young, early forties, but he looked…a little bit wiser now.

"Thanks, Adam," Pa said, pretending to nurse his beer but barely getting his lips wet. "It's good to see you, and you're looking well too. Your brothers have missed you. As have I."

"Is that so? Does Joe even remember me?" I finished my drink and gestured for another.

"He remembers you, theoretically at least. It ripped him apart when you first left. It was only a year after Marie died, and then he lost you, too." His eyes took on the faraway glaze that it did when he spoke of an old wife, and it annoyed me.

"Have you met Number Four yet?" I asked, more sarcastically than I'd intended.

He flinched, and took a deep breath. "No," he said, meeting my eyes. "There were a couple of women in the past few years, nothing long-lasting, nothing serious."

"Ah," I said.

Pa appeared uncomfortable, and changed the subject. "How's college been? You're about to become the first Cartwright ever to have a degree."

"College was terrific," I answered truthfully, and was saddened to hear myself speak of it in the past tense. "It will be hard to go back to the daily grind. It was wonderful, to wake up in the morning with my only thought of how to improve my mind."

Pa grinned. "What an opportunity. I'm so proud of you."

I nodded, and stayed silent. I felt reticent about speaking of the rest of college: the social aspect, the first times, the philosophy classes. How could Pa possibly understand Plato, Shakespeare, Adam Smith? I didn't even want to tell him that I'd changed political parties.

Pa sensed the gulf between us, and decided to respect it. He took a deep breath, and swirled his beer thoughtfully. "So…what are your plans after graduation?"

"I got a job in Connecticut with an up-and-coming agricultural engineering company. They sent me a draft of their current production methods, I sent a synopsis of the ways I could make their operations more efficient, and I contracted for one year to start following through on my promises." Despite myself, I searched his features for his reaction.

Rather than being proud, he blanched. He looked like something was beginning to obstruct his windpipe. He actually took a swig of his beer.

"Oh, no. No. No." I couldn't believe it had taken this long for light to dawn on my marble head.

"Stop. Wait, Adam," Pa said forcefully, his old fire beginning to show. "I didn't say anything."

"I'm sorry you came all the way out here, Pa. But I can't come back. And I really can't believe you'd want me to, after the way I left."

"It's not that I didn't want you to come, Adam. It's just that I didn't think it was the right time." Pa sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

I still wasn't feeling my bourbon nearly enough, and frantically motioned for a third. "I can't believe we're going through the steps of this dance again, Pa. Hey—" I pounded my fist on the table, and dragged in a shuddering breath. "I'm sorry. I didn't want it to be like this, I really didn't. When I left, I'd sworn that we would have a professional relationship."

"And then we didn't have any relationship at all." I stayed silent. "I wrote you every damn month the last four years, Adam, sometimes not even sure if it was the right address anymore, and…first you send these perfunctory letters, like you're at gunpoint. Then the letters come only at holidays, and then not at all."

This was exactly the moment that I'd dreaded once a month, when I'd thrown his letters into the closet corner as if that would make them not exist. "I didn't mean—it just happened. I was just creating my own life, that's all."

"And you didn't want any reminders of the old one. Yet you always managed to remember it when you sent the tuition bill every semester."

It was my turn to blanch. "This job has a decent starting salary, Pa, I'll start making payments—"

He shook his head emphatically. "No. It was a gift, I'm happy to help get you started in the world. It would just have been nice if you had sent a friendly note with the bill. Or, God forbid, visited one summer."

I closed my eyes. And opened them, but he was still there, and his words still hung in the air. How had it gotten this bad between us?

Pa smiled then, a sad one. "We're too much alike, Adam. Plus you've got your mother's passion."

He had a tendency to do that, compliment us based on similarities to our mothers. We were all fiercely proud of our mothers, although really just theoretically. "I'm sorry I never knew her, Pa. I only knew my stepmothers. My many stepmothers."

Pa bristled.

"I'm a man now, Pa, and I want to talk about it," I said, leaning forward. "I know I was never allowed to speak one word about it growing up—"

"And please be careful how you speak of them now."

"I speak only of their existence, and relationship to you. There was always a woman there, Pa, you were always looking for someone. Couldn't be comfortable in your own skin." And I was never enough for you. The thought shocked me so badly that I was barely willing to acknowledge its truth to myself, much less consider speaking it aloud to Pa.

"Come on, there were years between them. You know the stories behind each one of them."

"Of course. But I mean, Pa—even raising me and Hoss both, you still dropped everything to go after—"

"I'm sorry that you and Marie didn't get along, Adam. It was not a terrific position to be in, caught between the two of you."

"Every time you took her side, Pa, every time, without even asking me my side of the story. Ahhh, I can't believe we're having this argument, I can't believe in the span of a half-hour I'm a little kid again. You see why I can't come back, and why I'm surprised that you're even asking me to. Are you trying to make up for lost time, since you spent my childhood chasing women?"

Pa's chair scraped loudly as he stood up suddenly, leaning over me dark and terrible. But I was a man now, and felt no fear of him. We got a few glances from people around us, mildly curious looks that turned away when no further action took place. Pa slowly sat back down. I saw that he shook slightly. He cleared his throat and continued.

"In truth, I am asking you to return for two reasons. The first is as a business proposition. I need a foreman, someone as passionate about quality and product as I am. And I'm sure you've learned plenty of techniques in your classes that would help the Ponderosa run more efficiently."

"Are you still using the same stone-age irrigation system in the northwest grove?"

"Yes."

I rolled my eyes. "Pa, those tree roots significantly affect the rate of soil erosion. If you take—"

He put up a hand to stop me. "Adam, your expertise is what I'll be paying you for, and I don't expect you to give it to me for free."

"That man you met, Pa, Teddy? He's got some of the highest grades in our class. I'll re-introduce you to him, he'd make you an excellent foreman."

Pa narrowed his eyes at me, irritated by the suggestion. "I would pay a family member a lot more than I would pay him. And it won't be a regular flatrate paycheck, either."

I waited.

"You're my firstborn. I'll draft a contract for twenty percent of the Ponderosa's profits."

I suddenly felt the effects of my bourbon. "Wh—What?"

"The only condition is that you not ever speak of your pay rate to your brothers. I will need to create separate agreements for them when they come of age. Eventually I'll need to contract with you all for part ownership. We'll see if Joseph chooses to stay."

That piqued my interest. "What makes you think that Little Joe won't stay?"

"Joe already has your same wanderlust. Only so far it's without the work ethic, the sense of responsibility and pride that you have. I know he's only ten, but some kind of intervention needs to happen to cultivate these values in him. Which brings me to the second reason I want you back on the ranch."

"You need a babysitter."

Pa flashed angry eyes in my direction. "My sons do not need babysitters. Don't push me, Adam. I want you back and I'll drive a hard bargain, but it will be on my conditions."

"Alright, Pa. I'll hear you out."

"I'm surprised you haven't asked me yet about Hoss."

Suddenly my legs became too restless, and I stood up and shook them out. I paced back and forth, the tiny distance that the overcrowded bar would allow. I needed air. "Dammit, let's get out of here," I growled. Without a word, Pa handed some bills to Maggie and caught up to me on the way out.

The wind was blowing colder with the setting of the sun, and I expertly navigated around winding corners, following the fresh air to its source at the ocean. Once again Pa hurried to keep up with me. I was taking deep breaths, steadying myself for whatever news I had to hear. Who knows, it might be good. Suddenly I checked my pocketwatch. I had twenty minutes before I had to get ready for Angelia. What an awesome night this was turning out to be.

Pa noticed. He caught up to me, breathing in the fresh water air that he hadn't smelled since dropping me off at college. I knew that living on the sea had been his boyhood dream, something that never really took off, but it had helped attract him to my mother. I could see the memories stir inside him, and it led to his next remark. "This woman you're seeing, son—there's plenty of room at the Ponderosa for her. We could give her a room, or you could marry and live in the master bedroom while we build-"

"I'm seeing her tonight to break it off, Pa. Now about…about Hoss."

Pa squinted into the glare of the sunlight, and pulled his jacket closer to him. He felt the chill more keenly than I did, coming from the hot Nevada farmlands. "Can we—do you mind?" He gestured to a bench.

"Not at all." We sat down.

"Alright," he began. "Hoss—well, first of all, he's sixteen now, and he weighs at least seventy-five pounds more than when you last saw him."

I exhaled sharply. Hoss was naturally stocky and carried the weight better than other men would, but that was still awfully large.

"He, uh…he had his first date several months ago, and it did not go as planned…she ended up making some comments to him that were calculated to wound the most."

"Who was it?" I asked vehemently.

"We're not going to get into that. Also, uh…well, you know he's happiest the most with animals, he can do an unbelievable day's work, it's just that…puberty hit him hard. He learned to be ashamed of some aspects of his appearance and his personality."

I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees and my face in my hands, as much to comfort myself as to hide my face from my father. "Did he finish school?"

"He hasn't dropped out. He's determined to finish. However, he's the oldest one there…I mean, you and I know he's not stupid, he just needs more time to let the ideas sink in, and he can't get that kind of individualized attention in that overcrowded classroom. Adam—now I don't want to antagonize you, but please help me understand—I know that you were angry with me, but Hoss—"

"I never meant to shut him out." I stood and paced again. "I was just living my own life, I don't know, you're right, it was hard to be reminded of what I left. I tried a couple of times to return his letters, but I felt so…so guilty. I knew I was making you proud by going to college, but Hoss had just lost his second mother, plus me—believe me, I was listening to your side of those screaming fights we had, and I knew when it came to Hoss, you were right. I just had to get out, it was my time, and I felt horrible that it wasn't Hoss's time. How does he feel about me now?"

Pa leaned an elbow on the back of the bench, watching me walk back and forth. "Little Joe got over your absence in a month or two, he's young and distractible, but I don't think Hoss ever did."

I felt a metallic taste in the back of my throat.

"He's not angry with you, if that's what you're asking. He's all but incapable of negative feelings toward another human being, which is not always a good thing. It means that if there's a rift, he assumes it must be from his own fault."

"No! Pa, I hope you explained to him that these are all my own issues."

"Sure. But they're just words." Pa shrugged. "Come on, Adam, sit down and let's face this."

I took a last shuddering breath, and complied. Pa turned to me and put a hand on my shoulder. "I'm telling you, the equilibrium is off in that house, Adam," he said. "Think of the personalities there. I have to use all the daylight hours running the ranch. Joseph is a firecracker, getting wilder every day."

"Really," I muttered under my breath.

"And Hoss—well, Hoss has many good qualities, but leadership isn't one of them. In another year or two, Little Joe may even be dragging Hoss along on some of his harebrained schemes."

"Oh, hell no."

"Yes. They've got no mother, and I'm not there a lot…and, as you've reminded me, I'm…not a perfect father, either." He sighed and looked away.

It was the first time he'd admitted it. I used the silence to begin to process everything I'd just heard.

A minute went by, and he spoke again. "So now you know the pertinent facts. What…what's your decision? Or do you need more time?"

I stared into the water, the wakes from the boats gently lapping into the shore. I was going to be awfully late for my miserable date tonight.

"About that other contract…uh, I haven't exactly sent it back yet, Pa."

His shoulders lowered, tension visibly leaving them.

"How about giving me a week to think about it?"

Pa nodded. "Fair enough."

"And tell Hoss—"

"No. No messages to him. You will communicate with him directly, whether by wire or, hopefully, in person." He pulled out a thick envelope, handing it to me. "This will be your contract if you return to the Ponderosa. Compare it with your other job offer, and may you make the decision that will bring you more happiness." He stood up, sending the signal that this conversation was over.

I stood up as well. "You really drafted a contract for me, Pa?"

He arched an eyebrow. "I thought you said you wanted a more professional relationship with me."

I gave a small smile. "Yes, you're right."

"Best wishes with your decision." He stuck out his hand, which I grasped much more readily than I had earlier this evening. He turned to cross the street.

"Wait—Pa!" I called. "Where are you staying? I'll give you directions from here."

Pa grinned at me. "You forget, this was my haunting ground once as well."

I gave a small wave, and watched him go. I looked at the envelope in my hands. I would read every word of it, several times. After all, I was a businessman. But it was really just a formality.

I had made my decision.