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said. If his mother was gently persuasive with her marching orders, his father was downright dictatorial, Tom thought as he finished the eggs, ham, grits and redeye gravy the cook had prepared for him. It seemed he’d never had a conversation with Thomas Barlow McDonald that didn’t end with one of them walking out in a huff. He’d give anything to avoid that this morning, but trying to slip away without paying his respects to his father would just lead to a tearful phone call from his mother later in the day. If arguing with his father was tedious, then listening to his mother’s guiltinducing lectures was worse. It was too late to escape, anyway. His father strolled in, already dressed for his regular Saturday-morning golf outing at the private country club where McDonalds had been members ever since the eighteen-hole course had been carved out of the countryside.
    “I thought you were taking off first thing this morning,”
    his father said as he filled his plate from the serving dishes on the antique sideboard.
    Tom swallowed the desire to answer honestly and admit that he’d considered doing just that. “We didn’t have much chance to talk last night,” he said instead. “I thought we could catch up this morning. How’s your golf game?”
    “Still better than yours, I imagine,” his father replied.
    “You playing at all, or do they even have a course in that place you’re living?”
    Tom clung to his patience by a thread. “The town is Serenity, Dad, and yes, there is an excellent golf course nearby and another one being built just a few miles away. If you and Mother would take a drive over one day, you’d discover there’s a whole big world that isn’t Charleston.”
    “So, you are playing,” his father said, sticking to his favorite topic with characteristic tenacity.
    “Actually, I haven’t had the time,” Tom told him. Or the desire, for that matter. Golf wasn’t active enough to suit him, or maybe he just played it badly. At any rate, the prospect of coaching Little League was much more appealing.
    “Are you determined to turn your back on everything I do?” his father inquired, finally hitting his stride on his favorite complaint about Tom.
    Tom was way past the stage of wanting to rebel against everything his parents stood for. “I’m just making choices that work for me, Dad. I wish you could understand that.”
    “What I understand is that you’re wasting opportunities. You could have put that law degree of yours to good use right here in Charleston. You’d be making the right connections at the club. In another year or two, you’d be in a perfect position to run for governor or even Congress. That’s your destiny, Tom, not counting the pennies in the treasury of some nothing little town.”
    “Seems to me the folks in Washington could do with a few lessons in counting pennies,” Tom commented dryly, drawing a scowl from his father.
    “You know what I mean,” Thomas McDonald scolded.
    “You’re way overqualified for this job. You have an undergraduate degree in business, a law degree and all the right connections to make something of yourself. You won’t do that in Serenity.”
    Tom pushed aside his plate and sat back with a sigh. “I’m sorry that I’m not ambitious enough to suit you. I like knowing the people in my community. I like seeing the results of decisions I’ve made when I step outside my office. I like solving problems for individuals and for the town.”
    “What the hell do you think politics is about?” his father bellowed. “It’s all that, but on a much grander scale.”
    “Maybe so,” Tom conceded. “When it’s not about raising enough money to win an election or taking the most popular stance to win the next election or doing the expedient thing to get the backing of some organization. I’m not saying there aren’t decent, hardworking politicians who can do a lot of good, but I don’t have the patience to deal with all the rest of it.