These people. This land. These family traditions. I see Jonah settling into it the same way I have, like a pair of boots that finally fit right after years of wearing the wrong ones.
A hand lands on my shoulder. I turn to find my dad beside me, two cold beers in hand. He twists one open and passes it to me without being asked, and we stand there together watching Jonah regale Sadie, whose laughter urges him onto even greater embellishment of his story.
“Those two get along like a house on fire,” my dad observes.
Across the yard, Jonah’s reached the climax of his tale. He throws both arms wide to demonstrate the explosion.
“Been like that from day one,” I say. “You know he can read a whole book cover to cover now? Fifteen pages, sits right down and reads every word aloud.” I shake my head. “Sadie's a miracle worker.”
“I'd say so.” My dad takes a slow sip of his beer. “Look at what she's managed with you.”
I look at him sideways. “What's that supposed to mean?”
“Just that when you came back home you were surly as a mountain lion with a thorn in its paw.” He squints out at the yard, perfectly innocent. “Now you can hardly wipe the smile off your face.”
“I'm not smiling.”
“You are. All the time. With your eyes.” He laughs. “Don't gotta act tough with me, son. I know the look. Same one on my face every time I looked at your mother.”
She should be here. It always hits me hardest on holidays, at celebrations like these. Especially at the same house I grew up in, with my own son tearing around the grass looking more like my mother with every year. The big green eyes, that look of intense concentration when he’s interested in something, the way he throws his head back to laugh. It’s pure Marianne Rhodes.
Mom would have loved Sadie. Would have recognized her as a kindred spirit immediately, would have been treating her like a daughter before the end of the first conversation.
“Mom should be here,” I say, voice thick. “She should be watching her grandbaby grow up and be playing piano and standing here with us right now, holding your hand. It was too soon. It’s not fucking fair.”
My father sucks in a breath. When I look at him, his eyes are misted with tears.
He’s always been the rock of this family, but who’s been the rock for him?
He lost the love of his life ten years ago. He still sets two coffee mugs out every morning before he remembers she’s gone. He told me that once, late at night, after enough whiskey. Saidhe doesn't try to stop anymore, that it's the one part of the day she's still there.
I think about the coffee I’ve been making for me and Sadie every morning before she wakes. In a few weeks I won’t need to make enough for two anymore.
I’m not gonna think about that right now.
I put my hand on my father’s shoulder. “I’m so damn sorry, Dad. I should have been around more when she was sick. I should have been home. For her. For you.”
He shakes his head. “No. Don’t you do that, Walker. She told you herself. Life is for the living. Your mother would've been spitting mad at you if you'd given up your dreams just to come watch her die. She wouldn't have let you try.Iwouldn’t have let you try.”
“I put my career first. Over my family. Over my own son.” I look down at my beer. “Don't let me off the hook for that.”
“You're here now. That's what counts.”
I look at my father's profile. Salt and pepper hair, tanned and weathered skin with deep lines carved into it. The face of a man who's spent his whole life outdoors. Strong shoulders that haven’t slouched an inch in all these years.
This man who built everything I used to take for granted. Who held this family together when Mom was dying and it felt like everything was falling apart. Who’s been helping me with Jonah ever since we moved back to Marble Falls and never once made me feel the debt of it.
How'd a selfish prick like me come from a man like this?
There’s so good answer for that, so I just clink my beer bottle against his. “Fuck cancer.”
“Amen to that.” He takes off his sunglasses and wipes at his eyes with the back of his wrist, quick and private, like he doesn't want to make a thing of it. Lighter, he adds, “Besides,tell me this, when in your life have I ever let you off the hook? Didn’t that jail cell sleepover teach you nothing?”He grins at me now.
The afternoon light shifts, going that honey color it gets when the sun is dipping and the moon is starting to rise. Across the yard Sadie surveys Jonah's hands with a patient sigh while he grins at her. Dad is watching them too.
“You’ve been doing letting me off the hook all day long,” I tell him. “Not asking about what’s going on with me and Sadie, even though I know you’re dying to.”
“I’ve got eyes, boy. Know what I'm looking at when I watch you two together.” His gaze swings to me then. “Question is, what are you going to do about it? Love like that don't come around twice. Trust me. I know.”
