Twenty-Three
TWENTY-THREE
ETHAN
T he barn looks lovely with its twinkle lights and fake flower arrangements, and his daughter looks lovelier in her deep purple cropped ball gown with sparkly Dr. Martens beneath it and a punk rock tiara pinned in her hair. She stands behind a board of tall candles. Despite being surrounded by all this loveliness, Ethan can’t bring himself to feel lovely.
How can he when—judging by the time on his watch—Taylor is on a cross-country flight? Lovely is absent in his grab bag of emotions right now. His stomach and his head are warring for which hurts worse.
Samara continues the traditional ceremony. “My second candle goes to Ora and Smith. Photography club forever! Ora, thank you for always helping me find the perfect light. Smith, thanks for being the best assignment model a girl could ask for. You both are amazing friends. Please come up and light my second candle with me.”
Ed Sheeran’s “Photograph” blasts at an inhumane volume. Ethan hovers on the perimeter of the party, one hand holding a beer, the other stuffed into the pocket of the suit pants that he wore to officiate the wedding last week. His emotional life was much simpler then. He had to go and mess it all up by falling for the most off-limits person possible.
“My third candle goes out to someone who came into my life three years ago. Even though he had to leave suddenly for a family emergency, I still want to dedicate this candle to Taylor Frost. He may be my mom’s personal assistant, but over the years he’s become my friend—almost like a brother. Nobody is a better listener or has better taste in music.” She winks at the phone one of her friends is holding up, presumably videoing this to send to Taylor later. He hates that Amy told her a lie about what happened with Taylor. Like the situation with the napkin at The Thirsty Goat, she’s babying Samara. “Thanks for being the best chauffeur and sing-along partner a girl can ask for. Mom, since Taylor isn’t here, would you come light this one with me?”
Amy stands beside Giselle on the other end of the room. Since their blowout in front of the Snow White cottage, Amy’s given Ethan a wide berth. The only time they came within touching distance was when they walked Samara inside the barn to rapturous applause and phone flashes. She didn’t even bother picking up her camera to take a picture of the father-daughter dance. It’s remarkable how wedding-like these celebrations can be. Seems as if every life hallmark is just preparing young people for an inevitable exchange of rings.
Ethan and Amy are the only two in the room who can sense the black cloud of awkwardness. Samara, none the wiser, smiles brightly for the hired photographer who is snapping memento shots with a loud clicking shutter.
Ethan’s retreated so far into his own mind over how much Taylor means to Samara that he nearly misses his own candle. Crossing in front of the crowd overwhelms him, but as soon as he hugs his daughter, he returns to his body. He relishes the contact.
“Cheer up, Dad,” she says when he bends way down to kiss her cheek. “It’s my birthday! It won’t kill you to smile.” She shows him what she means, flashing that massive, toothy smile she’s had ever since she was a kid. He’d do anything for his daughter.
After the ceremony concludes and the cake is cut, out on the dance floor, his brothers, their wives, and his nieces and nephews dance happily around one another. Even his mother and father, on the outskirts of the main, rambunctious action, wiggle in their own way to whatever remix is shaking the floor, causing the table legs to jump.
His father, taking note of him isolating, wheels himself over. “What are you doing here all by your lonesome?”
Ethan looks down at his father, recalling a time when they were nose to nose. Ethan was probably eighteen or nineteen at the time before that last spurt of puberty shot him past his father’s six-foot-two frame. Now his father’s body may be unrecognizable from the man who taught him to fly-fish and shoot a bow and arrow, but his spirit is the same as ever. A phoenix, constantly on the rise. “I’m taking it all in.”
“Good. You should. That daughter of yours has got spunk,” he says, jutting his chin over to where Samara has set her phone up on one of the lavender ring lights Taylor had custom--made for the occasion. Samara and her friends are posing in double--time to the beat of the song as colorful lights dance and shimmer off their outfits.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Ethan says, letting an inkling of happiness infuse his mood. “Are you having a good time?”
His father toys with a quizzical look. His facial muscles, after bouts of drooping and spasming, don’t have the same strength they used to, but Ethan’s had a lot of practice in cataloguing his new range of emotions. “I think the better question is, are you?”
Ethan’s eyes land on his father’s wedding band. Did his parents hold the secret code to lasting love, or are they just of a different generation where staying together is expected? Granted, his mother is not the kind of woman to walk out on a man with an autoimmune disease that’s eating at him from the inside. But still. He wonders…
“Is everything okay?” his father asks in a warm tone.
He nods uncertainly. “It will be.”
“When you came to bring us our groceries last week, you told us you couldn’t stay because there was a young man named Taylor waiting for you back home. I don’t see him here today,” he says.
In this moment only, he wishes his father’s memory wasn’t so sharp. “He had to leave unexpectedly.”
“Does that have anything to do with the glum expression you’ve been wearing all evening?” he asks.
Ethan shifts at that. “That noticeable, huh?”
“By an old pro like me,” he says. “This Taylor wouldn’t happen to be the same one Samara mentioned in her speeches?”
“The very same,” Ethan admits, burned out from hiding behind his fortress walls too long today. The only living being he told any of this to was Nana and while she’s good for a listen and a cuddle, she’s not a paragon of advice beyond the occasional arf .
“Sticky,” his father says, referring to the situation.
“Very.”
“Did I ever tell you the true story of how your mother and I got together?” he asks.
“Of course. You taught her archery. You’ve mentioned this many times.” He slugs back a sip of beer.
“That wasn’t exactly the whole truth…”
Ethan’s jaw unclenches. It’s hard to hear his father fully through the roar of the music so Ethan helps them relocate to a table in the back of the room, eager to know a family tidbit he’s somehow missed all these years. “What is the whole truth?” Ethan asks.
“Your mother didn’t actually attend the school. Your grandfather, Jeb, who you never met, owned the school. He wanted to teach the next generation of archers, but I think he was peeved he and his wife had three girls and no boys. He wouldn’t let his girls near the sport. He said it was too dangerous and unladylike, but you know your mom,” he says.
“I do, I do,” Ethan says, eyes flicking over to where she’s dancing with abandon. Always an explorer. The only reason she wasn’t in any of their camping photos is because she was the only one who ever remembered to take any pictures on their trips.
“She didn’t like that reasoning, so when I became an instructor at the school, she would corner me after classes. At first I thought she was flirting with me. I wasn’t exactly a looker, but I was good at the sport, three years older, a big man around the school. Eventually, I realized she wanted me to teach her lessons without her father knowing,” he said.
“And did you?” Ethan asked, childlike eagerness nesting in his voice.
“Of course I did. I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to get close to a pretty, smart girl like her. A few months passed and our lessons grew more personal—some might even say romantic. There’s something about the secret that heightened all the feelings. Our time together grew more date-like, and as our feelings grew so did our sloppiness, which is how we ended up getting caught,” he recalls with a sense of humor only hindsight can provide. “Your grandfather was furious—threatening my job, threatening to ground her for life—but I looked him right in the eye and said, ‘Let her shoot.’ He didn’t know what I meant at first, but I suggested that if she performed a perfect shot, she’d get to keep learning and I’d get to keep seeing her. He laughed, but ultimately relented.”
“She got a perfect shot?” Ethan asks.
“No, not even close. But I was pretty persuasive back then and I asked him for a retest, one week later. If she couldn’t shoot a perfect shot, I’d resign and leave their family alone,” he says.
“And this time she shot a perfect shot?”
He chuckles. “No, she didn’t, but she was much closer, and she showed better form and skill than half the guys her age, and that was enough for Jeb,” he says.
“Why haven’t I heard this version before?”
“Because it was so long ago, and it always angered your grandfather. He was not a man who liked to be wrong,” he says. “Also, don’t tell your mother, but I agreed to take on some personal coaching for free to smooth over the rift and keep dating her. Sweetened the deal for him a bit.”
“You never told her?”
He looks up mischievously, does a hand motion that mimes zipping his lips.
Ethan nods, smiles. “Why exactly are you telling me this now?”
“Figured you could use a reminder that good people are worth fighting for,” he says with a knowing nod of the head.
“I appreciate it,” Ethan says. He doesn’t go into it all. He doesn’t say that it doesn’t matter now, that he was ready to fight for Taylor, but Taylor said he didn’t have room in his life for Ethan.
Maybe next time he won’t give up as easily.
If there ever is a next time.