“Get me close to the hotdogs, I’ll steal them off of Marcus’ dad,” Oliver requested, in an effort to distract Aberlour by giving him something to do.
Aberlour gave a sharp nod and pushed him towards the grill.
Marcus’ dad looked—exactly what Aberlour would have expected Marcus to look like at 65. Greying hair, still fit and athletic, wearing a genuine smile.
“Oliver,” he said, warmly, as they both approached. The man standing at the grill put a gentle hand down on Oli’s shoulder.
“How are you doing, son?”
It was normally such an inane question but coming from him it felt—different.
“I’ve got a hankering for a hotdog,” he said, and while he sounded sure, Aberlour doubted he’d manage to eat more than one bite.
“I gotcha covered!” Marcus’ father replied happily.
He looked up at Aberlour, but his gaze didn’t hold. He didn’t remember him, perhaps. Or they’d never met. Aberlour didn’t know and couldn’t recall.
“What about you? Would you like a hotdog?” Marcus’ father finally asked Aberlour, as he handed Oliver his hotdog.
It was the same. The same eyes, the same smile. Abe wondered how Sabine could look at this man without crying.
“No, thank you,” he said, as calmly as he could. “Excuse me a moment,” he added, shooting Oliver a desperate look before walking away. He heard Oliver resume their conversation as if nothing had happened and Aberlour was glad.
He found some measure of peace and relief at the edge of the backyard where there were no guests. He could still hear the celebration—could still watch from afar, but it didn’t feel so—overwhelming. He sat on an old bench that had seen better days, silently watching children play and adults socializing.
He didn’t stay alone for long, though. They found him. All of them, one after the other. They found him in his quiet corner and approached him with cautious smiles.
The first was Caroline, JD’s wife—widow. She was glowing, like the past five years had gone well for her.
“It’s good to see you,” she said, her brown hair was now streaked with blond, and she’d curled it, so it flowed around herlike a shampoo commercial. She’d changed very little. She was older, wiser, more mature than the brunette Aberlour had met in the bar. She didn’t sit next to him, she simply hovered nearby, her long dress flowed around her gracefully.
“How have you been?” he asked, politely. He’d seen her at the funeral, but he’d been incapable of meeting her eyes. He tried it now and found her gaze far more welcoming than he deserved.
“Up and down,” she said honestly. She shrugged, and looked away, she didn’t seem sad, just pensive. She looked out at the crowd of children and smiled as she spotted the one who belonged to her. Aberlour had never met her child, he’d only heard about the pregnancy. She’d been only a few months pregnant when—
JD had been over the moon when she’d announced it. He’d have made an amazing father.
“The twins made it easier, and worse—at times, but it’s—I’m carrying on,” she said with confident aplomb.
“Twins?” Aberlour said, surprised.
“Boy and a girl,” she answered, her smile wider, as she nodded towards two children, who, while they were mingling with the others, were obviously related. JD’s daughter was beautiful. With short black hair cut at chin length and big blue eyes, she looked like a Disney princess. She was waiting in line for the bouncy castle, twirling from side to side, her white and blue dress fluttering around her. Her brother was unmistakeably JD’s kid. He was hanging from the swing set upside down, his jet-black hair pointing down in sharp edges, wide eyes full of mischief as he grinned from ear to ear with the same goofy expression his father had always worn. He was a well-built boy. Large shoulders, and tall for his age. Aberlour had to blink the tears away from his eyes. It was like watching JD as a child,except JD was dead, and this was the child he’d never gotten to see. The unfairness of that hit him like a bolt out of the blue.
“Congratulations,” Aberlour said, voice strained.
“You got any of your own?” Caroline asked, still smiling.
“No.”
“JD used to say you’d be a great dad,” she replied, hugging herself tightly as she fought to keep smiling at him.
Aberlour couldn’t come up with an answer. There was nothing to say to that.
“Guess you were like the dad of the team, so that makes sense.” Maybe she felt like she needed to say that. Maybe it was because she wanted Aberlour to know how much she was hurting.
Aberlour had walked away from all of them that day at the funeral. It was the last he’d heard or seen of the wives of his brothers. He was supposed to protect them. They didn’t need his guilt. Nor his pain. Now, he thought perhaps he’d gone about it the wrong way. Perhaps they had needed to see his pain. Perhaps they’d deserved to see him suffer—if only to fulfill their desire for revenge.
“I’m not mad,” she said, after a minute of awkward silence.
