“I know.”
“You came out good,” she says. “In spite of the both of us. Go home to your wife and your daughter.”
I still don’t go straight home. I let myself into Ralph’s through the back, chairs up, floor mopped, the neon out front throwing pink across the empty stools. I pour two fingers of whiskey and make my way to Mason’s stool, always vacant when the bar is full of patrons. Most of the time I don’t look at it. Tonight I can’t look at anything else.
Aside from Josie, Mason was the only other person who knew what it was like to grow up with Sterling as a father. Actually, Michael knows as well. He and Mason were there when I’d show up in the middle of the night because I couldn’t take it anymore. The Powell’s never once told me to go home. They never turned their backs on me.
Not like I did Mason all those years ago.
One time, when we were kids, my father caught me coming in the front instead of the back and put that same hand between my shoulder blades and walked me down the hall to my room without a word. Mason stood there in the foyer, watching. He never said a thing about it. The next day, he waited for me out front, and as much as I wanted to ignore it all, he pulled me into a hug.
That was Mason.
I take a sip.
If it was just me walking out at eighteen, I might forgive my father. But this man took his animosity, his anger, and his need to be better than everyone else and rejected Josie when she was pregnant with my son. My father could’ve helped her. He could’ve given her money, provided them with a home. Instead, he shunned her and made her feel like she wasn’t worth the pavement he walked on. He had every chance to tell me. He knew where I was and how to get ahold of me and he still chose to keep my son a secret.
“What do I do, Mason? When he asks to see me? To see our family?”
He’d tell me a man on a phone is still the man who made my life hell. You took from my unborn son, and you made his mother feel less than.
Mason would tell me to listen because words don’t cost anything.
I could listen. I already am. Do I owe this man anymore of my time?
The ice machine kicks on in the back and startles me. I catch myself alone in a closed bar, talking to an empty stool. Mason would have laughed at me for it, then poured me another and let me keep going. But he’s been gone since before I ever came back. Hell, he’s the reason I came back.
Josie and Noah are the reason I stayed.
I leave the whiskey where it sits and cut the lights behind me.
On my way home, I stop at the stop sign and realize this was where Mason died. It was raining that night, and he never stood a chance with the semi-truck barreling down the hill. This isn’t my normal way home and I wonder how I ended up here. I look to the right, there used to be a cross staked into the ground, his first marker. I don’t remember when it stopped being there, but it’s gone. Unless you know about Mason’s accident, you would never know that something horrible—life altering—happened here. His death destroyed this town.
Josie’s still awake when I walk in. She greets me at the door with a long hug. “Your mom called to tell me you’d gone out to see her.”
I hold her in my arms. “I’m okay,” I tell her.
“I know because you’d tell me if you weren’t.”
I nod and kiss the tip of her nose. “I stopped at Ralph’s too, so if you hear from Noah, and he calls you about a ghost leaving a whiskey glass on the bar top, it was me.”
“I’m sure he will look at the security cameras. Your mom also told me you offered her Linda’s old place.”
Another nod. “Are you okay with that? I know I should’ve asked you.”
Her hand caresses my face. “I am. Paige likes having her around, and honestly, I’d rather her be here where we can look after her and she can be near family. Especially as the holidays approach. Plus, the triplets are about to turn one. She’s going to want to be here for their party.”
I lean in and kiss my sweet, gorgeous, and understanding wife. “Thank you and I’m sorry for not checking with you first.”
“It’ll be good for everyone,” she says. “Are you hungry?”
For her, I am.
“Nah, let’s go to bed.”
She takes my hand in hers and tugs me behind her. I follow her up the stairs, pausing at Paige’s door, I raise my hand and knock. Josie gives me a “what are you doing?” look.
“Yeah?”
