"How old were you when he left?" I asked.
"About ten." He toyed with the straw in his milkshake. "My parents had a fight over something, I don't remember what. The next thing I knew he was packing his things and leaving. I kept thinking, 'Why is no one trying to stop him?'" His eyes glazed as he thought back, clearly still perplexed.
"You wanted him to stay?" I asked.
Cass' loyalty ran deep, but he was only a kid at the time. Too young to understand what was going on, and his own reaction to it.
He glanced down at the tabletop and swallowed, his throat bobbing.
"No," he said finally. "I wanted to help him pack up his stuff and go." He looked back up at me. "What sort of kid thinks like that?"
"One whose father is an asshole," I assured him. "We're not obligated to love people who are crappy to us because they're related to us."
"Harlow is right," Archer said. "I read a meme the other day that said, 'Stop insisting your kids let Uncle Fred kiss them at Christmas. Especially if Uncle Fred is a creeper.'"
"That," I said in agreement. "Family is what you make it. Not necessarily the people who are related to you by blood."
"Found family," Archer said. "Like us."
"Exactly like us," I agreed.
"Found family, I like that." Cass managed a smile. "Boner and Archer are like brothers to me. My brother almost qualifies." His smile widened a little.
I laughed. "Jules is a complicated man, that's for sure." A description he'd own wholeheartedly, no doubt. There was nothing simple about Jules Titmus. On the outside he was a blue collar guy, but he was multi-layered like an ogre. The kind who wanted people to stay out of his swamp. Only now I was imagining Boner as Donkey and trying not to laugh.
The analogy was accurate though, to some extent.
"He was twelve when your father left," I guessed.
Seventeen years ago. That was a long time to nurture a grudge. To let it grow and fester.
"Jules was the one who closed the door behind Forrest when he left," Cass said. "I think he tried to make it hit him on the way out."
"That sounds like Jules," I said. I could imagine him brushing dust off his hands and shouting out, 'Good riddance,' before going back to whatever twelve-year-old Jules liked to do.
He was three years younger than Boner was when he killed his own father. What would have happened if Forrest hung around for a few more years? Would he be long dead? Maybe everything that happened to my sister wouldn't have happened. Would I be sitting here with these men right now, in a coffee shop opposite the courthouse, watching for Forrest to step outside? Probably not.
My father would have found someone else to offer my sister and I to. I'd be hunting down different men, that I was certain of. I would have bumped into my guys one way or another.
The universe put us together. Whatever the circumstances, we would have found each other.
"What about you?" I asked Archer. "You don't say anything about your family."
"There's not much to say," Archer said with a shrug. "I grew up in Vancouver. The Canadian one. Not the island. I have a cousin who's a country music singer."
"Wait a minute. Morgan Hardwick is your cousin?" Cass asked. His jaw dropped like it was on a hinge, eyes wide with excitement.
"Yeah, but we're not close," Archer said. "Right now he's put down roots in a place called Aurora Hollow, somewhere off in the Rocky Mountains."
He could have been talking about no one special, not one of the biggest country music stars in the world. I was surprised we hadn't put two and two together sooner. Hardwick wasn't the most common name. This was a big continent, though.
"My parents are still together," Archer continued. "Every Saturday morning they ride their bikes around the neighborhood. My mother bakes cookies for my nieces. They're all obsessed with ice hockey."
"Including you?" I asked. This was more than I'd learned about him in months. If he was going to open up now, I'd keep asking questions.
"I've been known to watch a game or two," he said. He gave the impression he'd seen a lot more than that. Knowing him, he'd be able to rattle out all the stats for every team, every player.
I couldn't imagine him shouting at the TV though, insisting the players shoot the puck, but I'd like to watch with him one time, just in case.
