22
FIVE YEARSLATER
Wes helpedArt through the door. “Watch thatstep.”
“Wes Brenner, I can see the threshold,” Art insisted as he pressed his cane against the floor. He looked up to Kelly, who stood in theentryway.
Kelly said, “You know, Dad, I’m pretty sure you’d be more than annoyed if anyone was saying that to you,” which made Weslaugh.
“Can anyone blame me for trying to take care of myhusband?”
Kelly beamed as Justin followed behind them, having driven them from HeathrowEstates.
Wes gave Erin a hug as Heather and Karl offered their own greetings to Wes andArt.
“What are you now, Heather?” Wes asked as they embraced, Heather being far less self-conscious about expressing her affection than she had been in middle school. “Sixteen? What is that, a junior orsomething?”
“Papaw!” she exclaimed. “I’m in college now, and you know that! You gave memoney.”
“Ah, of course. The things this old company funds these days.” He gave her a smile, and she shook her head, unable to hide her owngrin.
“Art, Art,” Karl said. “I need to tell you about this play I made in football!” He may have been in high school, but he still had the enthusiasm of the kid who had forced Art to endure endless conversations aboutGundammobilesuits.
Gabe and Tony headed in from a short hallway off thekitchen.
“See!” Wes exclaimed. “I knew you were driving too slow, Justin. They beat ushere.”
Justin rolled his eyes. “Would you have preferred a drag race with their Uberdriver?”
Art’s expression twisted up. “I have the most peculiar visual for that,” he said, which earned a laugh fromWes.
After the necessary greetings, they migrated to the kitchen, where Jessica and Tyna were already sitting, Jessica’s daughter with her. It reminded Wes that Frances wouldn’t be attending this Thanksgiving dinner, the first time since they’d started their tradition five years earlier. She’d made it to all the ones they’d held since his and Art’s wedding, but the previous dinner was her last, as she had passed the next summer, lost to astroke.
However, Wes couldn’t have ever recalled anyone looking more stunning at their own service, such that he could imagine Frances rising from her final slumber to show off the violet dress she was so fond of. And she would have been as pleased as Wes was to see her children still attending this dinner, knowing they felt welcome in his family’s home, knowing that good people had a way of coming together like they did on this particularoccasion.
Justin’s mother, Tessa, arrived shortly after with some friends, and the varied guests made the rounds, mingling, catching up. Wes heard the same stories a few different times and told a few more himself. Art was able to get around some, but Wes could tell by how much he sat, either in a chair in the kitchen or the sofa in the living room, that he was having a rough day, and didn’t pushhim.
Art didn’t make a production of it. He never did. He bit his tongue as he had even when times had been much harder, during the various treatments for his colon cancer, when his face was far paler and their worries much stronger, when they clung on to life because they both knew it was all that trulymattered.
When they grasped onto it andfought.
Art had survived his battle up to that point, and scans assured them with confidence that their greatest struggle continued to be with Art’s decline, same as his own, only Art’s was worsened by the brutal nature of his treatments. Surgery and chemo, the effects of which remained in their lives, but had offered them moretime.
At one moment, when Wes was stealing a glance into the living room to check on his man, he caught Kelly seated next to him. The way she chatted with him and looked at him with an ease about her gave Wes such joy. It was the sort of assurance she always offered that showed how, over the years, she had come to release any worries she had that Art might have in any way eclipsed hermother.
“What are you two so busy with?” Wesasked.
“I found some old pictures of Mom’s when I was going through my storage unit,” Kelly replied. “I made duplicates for Justin, and I was just showing them toArt.”
“I’ve got to see this,” Wes said. “Come on, Karl. Give me some space next to myhusband.”
Karl, who sat on the opposite side of Art as Kelly, scootedover.
“Okay, Papaw,” he said, that same bright smile across his face asalways.
Wes sat, and Art teased him about various pictures taken of him as a baby, making his way through grade school and then finally high school. When Art turned one of the pages, Wes noticed a picture of himself in a navy polo and khakishorts.
“Aha!” Wes called out. He threw his head back, laughing, feeling totallyvictorious.
