Chapter Thirty-Three
Fathers and Sons
Colton
I feel like that eight-year-old boy again, sitting on the front porch step with a baseball card in my hand, waiting for Dad to notice me. Watching happy families drive by, counting the brick pavers of the front walkway, and growing irrationally annoyed that my dad isn’t mowing the lawn like our neighbors are.
I’m not holding anything from my Dad Box today, and Dad just mowed the yard yesterday. I am sitting on the front porch step, though, and I hold something far more significant than a baseball card for a player who meant nothing to me.
The papers in my hands hold a lifetime’s promise. They’re stapled in the top left corner and chocolate milk stained in the bottom right one. It’s a promise to myself, yes, but mostly to the little boy who shares my middle name and has a penchant for sailboats.
I follow Dad’s vehicle with my eyes as it comes down the street. He sets his phone on the hood of the SUV and ducks into the backseat, emerging with his suit jacket and a stack of manila folders. I wonder if this is what he’s always done; as a child, I was usually up to the table for supper or already in bed when he got home.
He steps slow when he sees me. Gusty wind pushes his white dress shirt against his chest and twists the tendrils of hair above his forehead. I don’t say anything and neither does he. He climbs the stairs, disappears into the house, and emerges a moment later without the jacket or the folders.
He sits on the step beside me. I wordlessly pass him the papers. The breeze flaps at the corners, but he smooths his thumb over them, his attention never shifting from the bolded, all caps words across the top of the first page.
PETITION TO ADOPT
All that’s left is to take them to the courthouse. Justin advised me, in an unofficial capacity, to shore up my patience after that. He also said most siblings prefer to petition for permanent legal guardianship so their sibling won’t be an heir. But while Milo isn’t my biological son, I think he’s my heart son . Vincent signed away his rights immediately following my mother’s death, and the boy needs a father.
I’m determined to be that man.
“I’m proud of you, Colton. I…” Dad swallows and shakes his head. “I know I should have more to say, but it boils down to that. I’m ridiculously proud of you.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. My elbows rest on my bent knees, and I resist the temptation to pluck a blade of grass to fidget with. “I’m going to need you, Dad. Not just for Milo’s sake, but…for me. I need my dad, too.”
He inhales deeply and looks me in the eye. “I’m here, Colton. I know I haven’t been, and for that, I’ll never fully forgive myself. But I’m here now. I can only hope that will be enough.”
I press my trembling lips together and nod, inhaling sharply. Dad sets the paper on the porch between us and sets his hand on my shoulder, just like he did on my first day at Del Ray in July.
“I’m scared I’ll end up like her, Dad,” I admit. “I’m trying— really trying—not to be, because I do want this. More than anything. But I’m scared I won’t be enough.”
“Colton, if I’ve never made this clear to you before, I did love your mother,” Dad says evenly. “I’m not proud of the hurt we put you kids through, and I never will be. But if I could go back, the only thing I’d do differently is be more present. I can’t speak for your mother, but take it from me, Colton. All anyone wants is your full, undivided attention. I just wish I’d realized that sooner.”
A tear jaggedly runs down my cheek and drips from my whiskered chin. “I used to sit right here and wait for you. I’d put those monogrammed silver cufflinks on my t-shirt and hold a baseball card and…” I shake my head, pressing the pads of my thumb and forefinger to my eyes. “And I’d wait.”
Dad’s grip on my shoulder tightens. I don’t want him to let go. The pressure of his fingertips against my collarbone, the weight of his palm, heavy and warm, through the cotton of my t-shirt—it grounds me. It makes me feel like, in an alternate universe, I would have been the boy who ran to his dad after he got home from work like Milo does with me.
“I’m sorry,” he rasps. His chin lowers to his chest, and he shudders an exhale. “I’m so, so sorry, Colton.”
I look at him through tear-blurred eyes. “I know. I didn’t before, but…” I swallow hard. “I know now.”
Beyond that, I understand. These three months have given me so much, but they’ve also taken. I’ve been stripped to nothing, and I’ve built myself back up through sheer determination to never sink that low again.
“You know that the only reason I liked baseball was because of my dad?”
My brow furrows in confusion.
“If baseball was on, he’d sit still long enough for me to sit with him. Otherwise, he had his path, and nothing could slow him down.” Dad holds out a hand in front of him, and it trembles from the wrist down. “He was always moving forward with little regard for anyone or anything else. I swore I’d be nothing like him, Colton.” He shakes his head irritably. “And then I turned out worse than he was.”
My paternal grandfather died before I ever truly knew him, but between glimmers of my childhood and what I’ve heard, this doesn’t surprise me. Pierce Del Ray looks as formidable and unwavering in pictures as his son sometimes does—slick suits and stern expressions.
I wonder if his dad was like that, too. If maybe, in the history of the Del Ray name, none of the men had the resources to heal their own trauma and break the cycle.
Until my dad did.
“Know this, Colton,” he says, his voice steadying. “Know that you can break the generational cycle with Milo and any other children you have. You’re not your mother’s worst days and you’re not my worst days; you’re our best days. That makes you a force to be reckoned with.”
“I still miss her sometimes,” I admit hoarsely. “I liked to think I didn’t, but knowing she’s really gone, that I’ll never see her again… Sometimes I wish I had one more chance to say goodbye, Dad.”
He inhales sharply and rubs a hand over his stubbled jaw. “I know, Colton. I know. I’ll always wish you and your brothers could’ve had that.”
Maybe it’s knowing I won’t ever have that chance. Maybe it’s Dad’s words about me being the best parts of him and mom. I’m not sure. Either way, it gives me the courage to say what I’ve needed to say for several weeks now.
The courage to make my decision final.
“I’m retiring from the circuit, Dad.”
His brows lift in subtle surprise but he says nothing.
“I knew it was coming, even before the interview.” I run my teeth over my lower lip. “I’m old compared to most guys out there competing. My body can’t keep up anymore, and truthfully, I don’t want to try. I guess I had to find out the hard way that it was time. I don’t feel completely ready, but I am. I know it’s time to say goodbye. It’s time to put down roots, so to speak.”
Dad is quiet for a moment. Long enough for a UPS truck to rumble by and for a group of teens to traipse down the sidewalk towards Palmer’s Park. Beach towels hang off their arms and I can see zinc sunscreen smeared on freckled noses.
I know I’ll miss it—the thrill of the ride, the resounding applause, the constant drive to be better. I do miss it. But not enough to sacrifice the ones I love.
“It’s not goodbye,” Dad says. “Not when it’s a part of you. And as for putting down roots, I don’t believe anyone is truly rooted, Colton. We leave pieces of ourselves everywhere we go and in everything we do. We also take them. Maybe it’s not about being rooted so much as being grounded.”
The observation washes over me like a wave, clicking into place like a missing puzzle piece. I’ve spent most of my life avoiding stillness because I thought it translated to stuck . But hearing it from that perspective feels like a relief, like I finally have a place to belong in this world.
I pick up the papers from the porch. “I love him, Dad. I don’t know how to describe it, because I’ve never felt it before, but I can’t live life without him. Without her .”
“That, my boy, means that you have stood still long enough to feel some big emotions,” Dad tells me with a half-smile. “But even when I wasn’t still, Colton, I never stopped loving you. I never will. A father’s love can’t be broken, and I think you might understand that now.”
I do. I so very deeply do.
“I love you, too,” I whisper.
We sit still on the front porch steps of our childhood home, facing forward. Maple leaves rustle against gnarled branches, and a black ant crawls across the top of my foot.
I know that I’m truly ready now.
Ready to move forward.
But it requires one more conversation.
Kolter Ranch sports a For Sale sign beside the wooden arch heralding the land, but my trip up the driveway is wasted. Clara advises me to search for her son elsewhere and sends me back to my truck with a dozen blueberry lemon scones. Warren approaches on horseback before I reach the gate to give me more straightforward directions on where to find Tripp.
I turn into the Palmer’s Park Beach parking lot. Tripp’s elbows rest on the stainless-steel railing of the pier and his cane is nowhere in sight. He looks like the man I’ve always looked up to, wearing faded jeans and an oil-stained t-shirt. If I didn’t know what his body had been through, I’d have never guessed it to be true.
I could make small talk about the weather. I could ask him if he’s heard about the crappy customer service at the BBQ place downtown. I could ask if they’re going to take any of the offers for the ranch. It would be easy. Tripp never rushes anyone to get to their point.
But today, I come right out with it.
“I want to marry your daughter,” I say. My voice is clear, my conviction clearer.
Tripp turns to face me, expression unreadable. He stares for a beat of silence before he faces forward again. He says nothing.
My heart sinks. He’s only been back in the real world for a couple weeks, but he reserves every right to see me as unfit for his daughter. The man I’m becoming is not the man he knows me to be.
I feel like he’s never really known me as a man. I’ve lived a lifetime since I left this town at seventeen, but until this summer, until I was faced with every fear that drove me away, I still felt like a child. I ached to fill the void inside with something better, something bigger, something less painful.
I resist the urge to pull at my shirt collar. If he wants to tell me no, so be it. But I will stand here, sweating under the August sun, fingers trembling, until he tells me to go.
“When?”
I blink. “What?”
Tripp turns to face me fully. “When do you plan to marry my daughter?”
The question catches me off guard. I want to ask if it’s a trick question, but I don’t. I know Tripp better than that.
“I guess after I’ve formally proposed to her and we make all the arrangements?” I say. I wish it sounded less like a question. “I don’t want to rush her. I want it to be a special day for her, and it’s not like we’ve discussed it yet with everything—”
“Colton.”
My mouth snaps shut.
“I give you my full blessing to marry my daughter.”
Relief floods me.
“I want you to do what’s best for the two of you,” Tripp continues. “But don’t make it about the wedding, make it about the marriage. Fifty years from now, you might not remember the shade of lipstick your bride wore. You will absolutely remember if your wife felt safe enough to call you her anchor, her husband, for the rest of her life.
“My Annie has had the big white wedding, son. She doesn’t need hundreds of guests and the most expensive gown to know how much you love her. She had that, and it fell apart. A picture-perfect wedding day does not secure an everlasting marriage,” he says. “For every dance under the sunset, love her quietly at home. For every one breathtaking grand gesture, find three mundane gestures. And do you know the most important thing of all?”
I shake my head, but I lift my chin with determination.
“Most importantly, Colton,” he says, squeezing my bicep, “don’t take her for granted. If you remember—but don’t dwell on—how quickly everything can be gone, it shouldn’t make you scared. It should make you live, breathe, and love just a little harder.”
TEXT THREAD IN THE COVETED DEL RAY FAMILY CHAT:
Colton: I’m going to need everyone’s help with something.
Jordan: Are you finally getting those hair implants we’ve been talking about?!
Graham: Gross. He has more hair on his head than you do.
Gran: What can we help you with Collie?
Ember: OH MY GOSH, is it happening??
Sam: Is what happening?
Indi: I bet *I* know what’s happening *winking emoji*
Ember: Graham you didn’t tell me!!
Graham: Tell you what?
Graham: Oh, in the spirit of telling you things, I accidentally ordered double the amount of books for Wildflower Acres.
Ember: WHAT?!
Graham: Just kidding *laughing emoji*
Gran: Grammy, you found the emotionals!!
Gran: emotions!!
Jordan: *emojis
Sam: We’re getting off track. What do you need Colton?
Colton: Relax everyone.
Indi: Yeah, like that’s going to happen
Gran: Don’t expect us to relax when we don’t know what we’re freaking out about!
Jordan: I take it it’s not the hair implants, then?
Colton: No and it never will be.
Jordan: Bummer.
Ember: I take it that discussion was before I was added to the group chat?
Graham: Lou Lou, have I ever told you how much I love your observation skills?
Sam: What do you need our help with Colton?
Colton: *typing*