Chapter Twenty #3
People were clapping, and Daughtry was gesturing for him to come up to the stage. Sheena squeezed his hand.
He looked at her, like he was hoping she would throw him a lifeline. “Go on.”
He did, but he didn’t want to. He got up to the stage and grabbed the microphone. “I don’t deserve the glory for this,” he
said. “It’s . . . it’s my family. It’s the collective. It’s this community. That’s what I’ve been trying to contribute to
for all these years. What I’ve been hoping to help heal. And that’s all I have to say about that. Everybody here deserves
the applause.”
He got down from the stage, and was met with more applause, which he chose to believe was for the rest of them. That it was
his turn to be in the position Sheena had been back in the bar.
And through it all, she stood by his side.
The party went until late.
It was nearly midnight when the doors to the barn opened, and he saw fat snowflakes falling from the sky.
Even though it let a rush of cold air in, they let those doors stay propped open, so that people could look out at the snow
from inside the glowing barn.
Right then, with the snow falling in the background, Abigail’s boyfriend got to his knee and pulled out a ring.
She put her hand over her mouth and nodded enthusiastically, even before he asked the question.
He looked at Sheena, who had her hand pressed firmly to her own chest.
“Did you know he was going to do that?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “I’m so . . . I’m so happy for them.” Her eyes glistened, her words wistful.
He didn’t know why it made him feel like he’d been stabbed in the chest. To see those two young people he didn’t even know
well get engaged.
“He put a hold on this place. For next year,” Arizona said.
He hadn’t even realized that his sister was standing there. Sheena smiled broadly. “He did? That is so . . . amazing. She
found such a good man.”
There was clapping and cheering when he slid the ring on her finger, and Arizona snapped a picture of them kissing in the
barn door. “Definitely going to send that to them.”
Sheena and Denver lingered until everybody had gone. Until the room was empty of people. All that was left were the tables.
The echo of that Christmas music, long gone quiet.
Sheena walked over to the bar and grabbed a bottle of wine. She poured a glass for herself, and then another, carrying it
over to where he stood. “How about we play a game?”
“What game?”
“Five-card stud. I’ve heard all about your poker skills, King. So let’s play.”
He stood there, feeling like he was having an out-of-body experience. Here he was in this place that a year ago had been an
old, dilapidated barn, staring at this woman who he hadn’t known a year ago at all, but who now felt integral to every breath
he took during the day. Holding a glass of wine. Being extended an invitation to play poker.
It was Vegas. But it wasn’t.
Sex. Alcohol. Gambling.
But made new. In a different place. In a different context.
It was almost unbelievable how different those same things could be here. With her.
“I’m going to win,” he said, shaking his head, trying to dispel that strange out-of-body feeling as he walked over to the
game table.
“That’s fine,” she said cheerfully. “Although, you don’t know everything about me.”
“Are you a secret card sharp?”
“It’s not a secret. I have won many poker games.”
“Probably not as many as me.” He picked up the stack of cards on the table and gave them a quick, competent trick shuffle
before starting to deal.
“Show-off,” she said.
“Yes, I am.”
He forgot to count cards. He forgot to do anything but stare at her.
They sat there, getting nothing and everything as they played. Hand after hand, letting it get later and later.
Like neither of them wanted the night to end. He looked across the table at her, at that purple gem she was wearing.
If he were to buy her a ring, he would get one that matched it.
He looked down at his hand of cards. And for a moment, he was frozen.
It was too easy to imagine them here, standing in the doorway, with him proposing and that whole audience of people standing
there cheering them on.
He looked up at her, and the first thing he wanted to do was apologize. Because he didn’t know how the hell he had let things
get to this point.
But the look on her face stopped him.
“I love my father,” she said.
“What?”
“I’m sorry. That must seem so desperately random to you. Watching my sister get engaged, I just . . . I had this feeling of
relief. I escaped. All the things I’ve been running from. I don’t have to keep running. My sisters are okay. They were even
before Abigail and Alejandro got engaged, but that just clicked something into place for me. I’ve still been living like the
past can hurt me. And the truth is, of course the past can hurt you. If you don’t learn from it. I thought a lot about the
kinds of things I do and am historically. But what it comes right down to is that if you don’t learn from history you are
doomed to repeat it. I learned a lot. And I need to trust that. I don’t think I’m doomed to repeat a damned thing.”
He didn’t say anything. He just kept looking at her. Held captive by every word that was coming out of her mouth.
“I don’t even like thinking about all the ways my dad was good.
Because it hurts too much. After he let his friend .
. . After he failed to protect me in that way, I just made a wall around my heart.
When none of his good intentions mattered.
Because everything he said didn’t mean anything if he didn’t protect his own daughters in the end.
But the truth is, my Christmas decorations came from my dad.
He used to buy us little presents. Little dollar store dolls every year.
There was always an orange in our stockings.
He used to read to us the night before Christmas.
” She laughed. “And then he got drunk and passed out, and he was often hung over on Christmas morning. He would make strong coffee, and he didn’t really see the use for breakfast. But he always did something for Christmas dinner.
Usually a ham and some store-bought mashed potatoes.
There was a time in my life when I believed in him.
I knew that he wasn’t always doing the right things.
I knew that he took drugs. That he drank too much.
I also knew that he didn’t want us to be hurt by that.
At least, that’s what he said.” Her eyes glittered with tears.
“I decided it was a lie. All of it. Because it was easier to believe that than it was to just believe that . . . that love failed. That it was weak. I just turned him into a villain, because that was so much easier.”
Her words made it feel like his chest was being wrenched apart. And part of him, a strange, small part of him, envied her
in the strangest way.
Because nothing his dad ever did or said was genuine. At least, not so he could trust it. He had believed his dad too. But
it had all been manipulation.
Maybe her father had believed at one time that he would stop what he was doing.
“When he died I was numb,” she said. “I miss him, Denver.”
Her eyes were bright, glistening, and a tear slid down her cheek. Dropped down onto the table. It didn’t make a sound, yet
somehow, left an impact in his chest that was something like an explosion. “I miss him, and I . . . I didn’t realize it until
now.”
Without thinking, he moved across the table, took her hand and stood her up. Then he pulled her into his arms. “I’m sorry,”
he said.
She cried. Against his shoulder, holding on to him.
The Denver that everyone here tonight thought he was would know the right thing to say.
The right thing to do. The right thing to feel.
He didn’t think her father deserved these tears.
And that was the problem. He wasn’t that Denver.
He was an angry, vindictive man, selfish to his core.
Because his gut instinct was to tell her that her father deserved to be writhing in the grave.
For all that he failed to do for her. That all his efforts hadn’t been enough.
And a bargain Barbie doll didn’t make up for the ways that he’d left them. But that wasn’t what she needed.
He knew enough to know that. “Let’s go home,” she whispered.
He wrapped his arm around her and they walked out of the barn together. He drove them back to the house. Her car was still
at the event space, but they would get it tomorrow.
Then he took her hand and led her upstairs. And when they got into bed together, he pulled her close to him. He didn’t kiss
her. Didn’t touch her. He only held her.
Until her breathing was deep and even.
Until he was starting to fall asleep.
For the first time, they didn’t lose themselves in the storm.
They just rested.