Chapter 7
July
[Stone]
My sister has been dating my former best friend behind my back, and it comes as quite a shock to learn they are in love.
Cortland Haven is twelve years older than Vale, and I am overly protective of her, having raised her from birth.
Not to mention, Cortland committed the betrayal of all betrayals when we were younger, and I was at my most vulnerable.
I don’t trust him, but I trust my sister.
She’s had her own difficulties in life, but she has a good head on her shoulders, being a single mother to the most amazing eleven-year-old, my nephew Hudson.
Another child I’ve felt responsible for since birth, as Vale and I have shared a house since Hudson was born.
Family is important to me. I’ve made them the center of my world. The one commitment I embraced, instead of steering away from. They are my sun, and I’m simply a planet circling around them, trying to keep them safe and warm and protected from things that might burn.
And because family is sacred, a long time ago, I instituted a mandatory Sunday evening meal that fluctuates between afternoon barbecues in warm months to football days in the fall and casual dinners in the winter.
Our newest tradition began when our younger brother, Ford, decided to move home.
He cleared an overgrown meadow on our property to make a baseball diamond.
Now, we have our own little Field of Dreams right here in Sterling Falls, West Virginia.
Because his birthday is close to the Fourth of July, we celebrated his special day with our first family baseball game a year ago.
This is our second season. Over the course of twenty-four months, our family has grown, like the wild weeds once occupying this once-ignored field.
“You okay with this?” Clay asks, questioning me about the newest relationship in our family.
He means Cortland and Vale.
“Guess I’m going to have to be,” I say, squinting toward the lovebirds in the driveway just outside the fence line where they are awaiting extra visitors to this year’s game.
Observing them, I note their contrast. Cortland is tall and dark, though his hair is graying just like mine.
Vale has long, honey-colored hair, like our mother’s, with the signature blue eyes of all the Sylvers.
While I like to keep things just the seven of us and our newly expanded family members, reinforcing my protective nature, Vale convinced me to allow some additions to this year’s festivities. People who we need to remember helped us, once upon a time.
Like Mary Haven, Cortland’s mom.
“Don’t know that I even understand what is happening lately,” I whisper, meaning the attraction between Cort and Vale.
He fucking helped me change her diapers.
Clay chuckles beside me and claps my shoulder. “Love, man.”
At that exact moment, my sister kisses my former best friend.
Forcing myself to look beyond Vale and Cort, I stare at the house behind them.
The two-story Cape Cod with dormer windows and a wraparound porch is in its best form.
It took years to restore the white clapboards and replace the worn roof.
Years before I had the means or money to do internal fixes, like a better furnace and an updated kitchen.
But beyond the line of vehicles that make the driveway look like a used car lot, the house stands tall and glistening, almost prideful.
Like it might be smiling at me. Pleased with me for opening my yard to people who haven’t been here in more than two decades.
“Guess I’d better get this over with,” I grumble to Clay, about greeting our additional guests as another car pulls up.
Outside of Cortland and his mother, I hadn’t expected Cort’s spitfire younger sister, Trinity, or his laidback brother, Clinton, along with his little girl, but at this point, the more the wearier.
As I approach the edge of the driveway, Cort instantly lifts his head, greeting me over Vale, who leans into him, with a short, sharp, “Stone.”
I tip up my chin, still finding it difficult to say his name after all this time.
My heart is no stranger to wounds, but some cuts are deeper than others.
Cort’s betrayal has dulled, but still aches on occasion.
I’ve asked Vale to give me time to wrap my head around their relationship.
I don’t want to ostracize my sister for her love match, even if I don’t particularly like it.
She’s a grown woman. Her heart. Her choice.
“Stone Sylver, it’s been too long.” Mary Haven’s voice cuts off the staring contest between Cort and me and yanks me back, like a yo-yo, to being a kid.
To a time when I hung out at the Havens’ home more than my own.
Her voice gets me every time I see her around town, asking how I’m doing, asking if I need anything, like I’m still a twelve-year-old boy, living with a father who shut down after our mother’s death and left me to raise a baby along with a few toddlers.
Mary must be somewhere in her late sixties by now, but she looks as young as ever with a short, white bob in loose curls. She lost her husband about ten years ago.
I welcome her embrace, overwhelmed by a hug I remember almost more than my mother’s. Mary was like a second mom because Cort and I had been inseparable as children. From cradle to college, he was a brother from another mother, and as important to me as Clay and the rest of my siblings.
Eventually, I pulled back from the rest of the Havens because of Cort. For my own sanity, I had to let them all go.
And now wasn’t the time to work through the emotions brought about by our slowly developing reunion.
“Thank you for having us,” Mary addresses me when she ends our embrace, but keeps her hands on my shoulders, eyeing me like the mother she is. Like she knows I’m struggling with this new development.
Cortland and Vale. My former best friend and my sister.
“Of course,” I offer her the strongest smile I can muster, and then greet Trinity and Clinton, while watching Clinton’s little girl, Ruby James, run toward my niece, June. The two girls hug like long-lost friends when they are only five.
“Now, where is Trudy?” Mary questions, looking around my shoulders. “I heard she and I are team moms. One for each.”
This is the first I’ve heard we will have even more guests, and I mentally calculate if we have enough burgers and brats for everyone. Then again, I left Vale in charge of food shopping for today’s meal, so I smile at the mention of Trudy Wallace.
Trudy had been our mother’s best friend since high school.
She’s a pillar in this community. Once a foster parent to her nieces and nephews, and anyone else who needed a place to stay, she would have adopted all of us Sylvers if it hadn’t been for our father’s intervention.
And even once he passed away, she suggested taking in the younger set so I could follow my dream.
Instead, I chose the road already traveled and stayed. Trudy had enough responsibilities.
Cort chuckles at the mention of Trudy. “We’re a little old for team moms.”
“Says the man hiding behind his,” I mutter, knowing Vale’s invitation to include Mary Haven was intended to soften Cort’s attendance.
My comment wasn’t meant to be heard by everyone, but somehow, it was. An eerie silence falls behind me when only moments ago the baseball field was full of chatter and the sound of a ball hitting a bat for batting practice.
“Don’t be a dickhead, dickhead,” Cort says. His tone is light, teasing even, cautious. Like he’s offering me an olive branch through a joke. Through a comment we might have said to one another when we were still inseparable teens.
“I’m not a dickhead, dickhead.” My face is tight for a second. Jaw clenched. Back teeth snap together, but I can’t seem to fight a smile.
We might be too old to tussle in the yard like we once did, but I feel a little like a middle schooler as we toss insults at one another.
“Okay now,” Mary says, swinging her gaze from her son to me and back. “That’s enough talk about dickheads.”
Spoken like a true mother.
“Mom,” Trinity barks before laughing. Cort’s younger sister falls somewhere between Knox and Ford’s age. The short blonde is a force as the only sister in the Haven clan.
“I brought my famous lemonade with me.” Mary winks at me. “One for the kiddos and one for adults who aren’t dickheads.”
I choke on a laugh while my mouth waters. There is just something special about Mary’s lemonade. She makes it from scratch with the right combination of real lemons, sugar, and ice, and a pinch of something I can never discern.
“I call Mary,” I holler, slipping my arm around her shoulders, claiming her as my team’s mom.
Our family teams are led by Clay and me, which feels about right as he often played good cop to my bad.
Ironic that I’m now the town sheriff, but once upon a time, we needed a family disciplinarian, and that role fell on me, while Clay was the softer, more philosophical side of our pair.
We took on the roles we thought a mother and a father might offer our younger siblings.
I would never have survived raising the younger set without Clay.
As I’m escorting Mary to the actual ball field, another car pulls into the driveway. Assuming it’s Trudy Wallace, I pause and turn back toward the drive, while Mary continues onward.
The back door of a sedan flings open, and a young boy rushes out like he’s been sprung free from a cage.
Simon Gilbert is a dark-haired nine-year-old Trudy has claimed to be her grandson, and he’s particularly attached to our brother Judd in a sort of big brother relationship.
With a mitt and a ball in his hand, he’s running toward the field when Trudy exits the passenger side of the front seat and says, “I’m not raising no Tasmanian devil here. ”
Her kind but strong voice has the young boy doing a one-eighty, racing back to the vehicle to close the car door.