Mason shook his head. “They were burnt.”
Chase smiled, and it was clear that all the talk about their fun times together had dissolved some of the tension from earlier.
“Why don’t we toast some marshmallows tonight?” Mason suggested.
Chase’s eyes lit up with excitement. He was obviously as interested as Mason was in revisiting fond memories from their childhood.
He’d acted so stuffy and closed off when he’d first arrived, like when he was younger and Ma had taken him in. He was guarded, but Mason could push past his defenses. He’d done it once, and he had to believe he could do it again.
But why? What good would it do him? Wouldn’t he only hurt himself once more? Wouldn’t he set them up for the same sadness they’d already been through?
Despite everything in him that told him he shouldn’t dare dream it, a faint hope lingered—the hope that maybe, just maybe, he hadn’t lost his husband after all.
CHASE STUCK A MARSHMALLOW ON A TWO-PRONGED ROASTINGstick before passing it around the fire pit. The gang sat on logs they’d recycled from an old oak tree they’d cut down when they were making room for what was soon to be the old milking parlor.
Chase had taken charge of distributing the supplies that Emery had gathered in her knitting basket beside the log he sat on.
The bonfire Mason had started, thick with shades of red and orange, moved with the wind, but didn’t wane.
Emery rested her hand on Jasper’s leg. She turned and offered him a light peck on his scruffy cheek. Adorable as it was, it pained Chase to see it because it only reminded him of what he couldn’t share with Mason—something he desperately wanted to share after their experience at the pond.
Chase reached into the basket by Emery and pulled out a box of graham crackers.
“Can I have one of those?” asked Timmy, who sat beside him.
On the other side of the fire pit, Mason held his roasting stick over the fire, keeping it at just the right distance so that it wouldn’t end up black like Chase’s.
But as soon as Chase had his supplies situated and ready for s’mores, he stuck his in, exchanging a knowing look with Mason.
“Oh, you’re the worst, Chase,” Emery teased, and Mason shook his head, but he smiled, surely because it brought back fond memories of all the times they’d come out to the fire and shared similar moments.
Emery’s expression turned serious. “You know, we haven’t actually done this since Ma passed.”
A deep despair rose within Chase, and his gaze shifted to Mason, who frowned.
Chase wanted to run to him and soothe him the way Mason had soothed him after he’d dropped the plate in the kitchen, but right then, in front of everyone, he knew he couldn’t be there for him the way he wanted to be.
“You’re right,” Pa said. “We haven’t really done this. And that’s a shame because she wouldn’t have wanted it that way. But I feel like there are a lot of things we don’t do anymore because she’s gone. She was something, wasn’t she? Right up until the end, she was a fighter.”
Through two diagnoses and two rounds of treatment over the stretch of three years until she had a heart attack, a side effect of the radiation therapy.
“I always admired that about her,” Pa continued. “When she first came up to me, I know you’ve heard this a million times—”
“We don’t mind hearing it again, Pa,” Emery said.
Chase felt the same way, and he assumed everyone else did too. Hard as it was to talk about Ma, when they did, at least they had a chance to hold on to what was left of her: the memories.
Pa smiled as he gazed into the fire. “We were both in the same group of friends at school when her family first moved here from Kentucky. I was working up the courage to ask her to the prom. I just needed to find a way to get her away from the other girls, which was easier said than done because everyone wanted to be around Tammy. One day, I finally walked up to her when she was by herself, and I couldn’t get it out of my mouth. I just couldn’t bring myself to ask this beautiful, vivacious girl to go out with me. I was talking about all these other things… trying to give her an excuse to stay and talk to me, until she pulled me aside and said, ‘Now you’re going to have to figure out how to do this because I’m not running around with someone who can’t man up enough to spit out what he wants, so I don’t want you to do it today, but you’re going to have to find a time where you can just do this because I’m gonna say yes, but only then.’ And she’ll never know what she did to me that day. The confidence she gave me. And she always kicked my ass like that, but that’s what I liked about her. She knew what she wanted, and she knew that she wanted to be with me.”
“Ma was amazing,” Chase said, and all eyes turned to him. But only Mason, Emery, and Pa could really understand the depth of his appreciation. “I’ll never forget how she changed my life just by offering me a hand when she saw I needed one.”
Chase avoided looking at Mason. He couldn’t handle that right then. He looked at Emery instead, who wiped tears from her eyes—he figured at least partially from hearing Pa’s story.
“I didn’t have the best of parents,” he confessed. He looked at Timmy, Dwayne, and Jasper—those who may have known bits and pieces of the story, but not his perspective, at least. “I never knew my real dad, and the only thing my mom ever told me about him was that he was some asshole she worked with at a Hardees… a guy who ran off the moment he found out about me, leaving her bussing tables for two. I don’t think she was always a horrible mother. I don’t remember her being the nicest woman in the world, but she took care of me. It wasn’t until she found my stepdad when I was eight that things got bad. Looking back, I’m not sure if she even liked him outside of him being able to support us and help her get a fix whenever she needed one. Some days I’d come home and they’d be lying on the couch, rambling on, slurring and saying stupid things to each other. I didn’t really understand what was happening. I just knew I had to wear shoes in the house because if I ran around barefoot, I’d wind up stepping on a needle. I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining. I had it better than some kids did. When they were high especially, they left me alone. When they weren’t, they were antsy and annoyed. They hit and slapped me around a little, but they typically just shouted for me to get out of their hair. I was a nuisance for them, and they wanted me out of the house, not bothering them. God, if it wasn’t for the fact that they had an obsession with Little Debbie snacks and potato chips, I’m not sure how I would have eaten.
“When I started helping out on the dairy, this looked like a whole other world to me. Ma was so loving and wonderful to Mason… and to me. I didn’t even know what to think of it at first, but I came to appreciate every moment I got to spend with what seemed like a fairytale family. Some days I’d wake up in my house thinking I’d dreamt all the wonderful days I got to spend with the Finleys, and I felt so lucky every time I got to come back… and then terrified that one day I wouldn’t be able to.
“I remember that day after my parents got in trouble. I was thirteen, and my stepdad got caught trying to rob some guy’s house when he was high as fucking shit. He’d lost his job already, and I figure he needed more money. Not for the mortgage because there was already a lien on the house, but likely because they needed to get some for their dealer. The cops came to the house and found my parents’ heroin stash. Funny, because when Child Protective Services came and they were talking to me, I wasn’t worried about ever seeing my mom or stepdad again. I was scared I wouldn’t be able to come back here. They were talking about making arrangements with some family to watch me, and I kept asking about you guys and hoping someone would call or let me call, but no one listened, and they were about to take me away… when in walked Ma and Pa, just mad as ever, storming in and demanding to talk to someone. Thank God word travels fast in a small town. Pa, I don’t think either of you could appreciate what that did for a kid who suddenly felt like he didn’t have anyone in the world.”
