19
“Come on, Frances! You got this!”Gabe called out from the chairs placed alongside the outdoor pool. In his gold jumpsuit, his arms raised over his head, he stood beside Wes and Art as the attendees watched the freestyle contestants line up along the short side of the pool, stepping into their appropriate lanes. The instructor directed the contenders not to jump until he blew thewhistle.
“You got this, Mama!” Wes heard Jessica call out behind him. Frances’s daughters and granddaughter were all present, as was Wes’s family, standing near him. Kelly whispered something to Justin, and they laughed together—Wes presumed because of how excited the crowd was over such a simple competition, but Wes was just as engrossed in the event, far more than he ever would have believed when his friends had first mentioned Field Day to him. But after all the training and the encouragement the night before, along with promises of Frances’s baked goods, Wes hollered as loud as therest.
“To the Fabulous Five!” Wes shouted, cupping his hands on either side of his mouth to help project the sound, particularly since Frances had earplugsin.
“Gold, gold, gold!” Gabefollowed.
In a black swimming cap and orange one-piece bathing suit, Frances grinned and waved from her place in line beside Bernice. She looked the epitome of grace and sportsmanship until she began pointing to Bernice and making a stink eye, one Wes was certain would be reported to Bernice by her peers who stood in the audience with them. As Wes surveyed the crowd, he noticed a few of them already muttering to oneanother.
The ref blew his whistle, and they all dived off the edge of the pool, Bernice hitting the water slightly sooner than Frances and evidently getting a good kick that gave her about a foot lead. The race was on, Frances giving it her all, which only made her support on the sidelines call out for her victory more. When they reached the other side of the pool, Frances kicked off just fine, and Bernice followed shortly after. They were cutting it close, and Wes hoped that Frances would manage to maintain her lead. She seemed to slow near the end, though, and soon Bernice was slipping past her, reclaiming her lead and touching the edge of the pool, Frances following just a few momentsbehind.
Frances popped up from the water. “Godfuckingdammit!” Apparently, she couldn’t gauge the strength of her voice or the volume because of the earplugs she had in. The sound resonated through the crowd, silencing all but a few of the attendees, whogasped.
As she removed her goggles, she didn’t seem to notice that anyone had heard her and turned to Bernice, who had a concerned expression on her face. Frances didn’t offer any congratulations or so much as let go of the twisted look on her face. She just bit her tongue like she was trying to keep from cursing the rightful victorout.
Meanwhile, Tony was already playing in the golf tournament, and the crew waited for Frances to change before they headed over to find him working his way out of a sandpit. And then he got a birdie…well, one of the geese in a nearby pond, but the jokes made about the incident were enough to make up for the poor game he played. At least it prevented any of them from feeling too bad about having to head off to catch Art’s Frisbee toss, which he lost to General Mayers, a champion in disc tossing in high school, or so he had boasted for the past few weeks leading up to Field Day. After that, Gabe and Wes took to their walking flag football, which proved just as frustrating as it had been during scrimmages, Gabe getting called out by their ref several times for moving too quickly and Kenneth Moore getting disqualified for tripping a few of the players on Wes’s team. In the end, Gabe and Wes’s team won gold—the first and only of theday.
The tug-of-war proved to be another loss for Wes andArt.
All that training and work leading up to that day, and mostly they’d been met withfailure.
However, Wes couldn’t have been more pleased with how much fun they’d had sharing the adventure, and at the end of the mile Nordic walk, when Wes and Art passed the finish line, Kelly and Justin awaited them, cheering loudly and with such enthusiasm in their eyes. Before Wes had a chance to say anything, Karl grabbed hold of Wes’sleg.
As Kelly was about to hug Wes, he warned, “Don’t get too close. Got this damn tug-o-war chocolate pudding all overme.”
“I can buy new clothes, Dad.” She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him in close in the sort of hug that only Kelly could give, that could convey all her love, respect, and appreciation toward herfather.
Heather joined in too, less reluctant thanusual.
“I didn’t know I just needed to rub pudding all over me to get some hugs,” heteased.
Based on everyone’s excitement, it seemed to Wes as though they had done something far more arduous than their little sports, but it was wonderful seeing the event had brought their familiestogether.
“Aww, isn’t this the cutest?” Justin said as he and his family joined in, including his mother, Tessa, who Wes was happy to see again. Through her smile, he was assured that at least while Mike had been with them, he’d been trulyhappy.
Wes grabbed Art from behind him and reeled him in. “Get in here,” heinsisted.
Art may not have had any family present, but Wes had more than enough to go around. It was a shame to Wes, though, because he knew from their conversations that it wasn’t for lack of wanting a family that Art had ended up on his own. It was because, as is its way, life had other plans, and he was just glad to be in Art’s plansnow.
“Here, I’ll get a picture,” Jessica, Frances’s eldest daughter, said as Wes’s family crowdedtogether.
“Get in here, Art!” Kelly insisted as she seemed to notice him trying to sneak away onceagain.
Wes grabbed him as he had before and forced him into the shot. He could tell Art was surprised about being included. Had it only been the two of them, Art wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but it was clear when Wes’s family was around that he thought he took a place apart from that, though Wes didn’t care for the separation. Like Wes with Art’s friends, Art was a part of his life now, and by extension, his families’ lives as well, whether he liked it or not, as indicated by how much Wes talked to him about them on a regularbasis.
They swapped off, taking turns with pictures between Gabe’s, Tony’s, and Frances’s families, and then took the appropriate photos of the Fabulous Five together. Afterward, they headed back to their units to clean off and change before meeting their families at an on-site restaurant, where they could celebrate what medals they’d managed to acquire, despite the sparse golds the Fabulous Fiveheld.
As they passed wine bottles around, families mingling and chatting with one another, Wes glanced around their table, appreciating the real beauty of Field Day. Not in the events they had worked toward, but as with so much of life, in the splendor of coming together with so many, of having an excuse to interact with such a friendlygroup.
He noticed Kelly had sat next to Art, surely intentionally. At one point, she seemed to catch Wes watching them and smiled at him, though he could see she forced it. He could see something more there. Because after all these years, he could read her so verywell.
When dinner came to an end, they all gave too many hugs and said more than two goodbyes to each other before Wes walked to the parking lot with Justin’s family and Kelly. They took Justin and his family to their van, waving goodbye as they drove off, leaving Kelly and Wes on their own. Wes asked Art if he could meet him back at the townhouse. He didn’t say more than that, but he could tell by the way Art went along with it that he knew he needed amoment.
“You did really great, Dad,” Kelly said, smiling brightly, but he could see a sort of sadness in her expression, like when she was chatting with Art atdinner.
“My beautiful angel,” he said, which must’ve been too much for her because she teared up. “Are youalright?”
