Chapter 27
except you, sunshine
Rowan
Since being discharged from service, there’s been little time for socializing. Stopping by my local VFW has been the last thing on my mind. Even while I served, my squad mates and I were more likely to visit one of the bars in town instead of a post for Veterans of Foreign Wars.
The building is barely more than a cinderblock cube. Not many VFWs are. Yet on a Sunday afternoon like today, the small gravel lot is packed.
I turn off the engine and take a breath.
Hannah’s hand lands on my forearm. “Hey, I promise I wasn’t trying to spring this on you. I just wanted you to meet some of the people who loved Norm.”
My throat feels two sizes too small for words, but I take her hand and kiss the top of it. I find her eyes. A thoughtful look passes over the smooth curves of her face. The slight smile forming starts out sweet before it stretches into something playful.
“That kiss doesn’t count, soldier.”
She climbs out of the truck, my laugh cut off by the door slamming shut behind her.
Inside, Hannah moves through the space like she owns it.
She hauls me from table to table, introducing me as Norm’s grandson.
I’m quickly overwhelmed by the genuine condolences from a building full of strangers.
Handshakes are exchanged and countless comments are made about Pops and my resemblance.
Some, I suspect those he was closest to, even say he talked about me.
That he was proud of me. I talked to my grandfather often enough on the phone to hear the sentiment straight from the source, but the weight in my chest at finding out he shared it with others is… unexpected.
But Hannah didn’t bring me here to meet the dozen people at the bar.
After we pass through the main dining area, we cross into a recreational room. Wooden tables line the perimeter around a collection of pool, foosball, and Ping-Pong tables. She stops for more quick passing introductions, clearly on a mission to get somewhere else.
At the back, sits a table with three older men, two chess boards set between them.
Hannah twines our fingers together, already moving that direction. “Come on.”
When we reach the head of the table, she drops my hand and plants two petulant fists on her hips, pinning each guy with a glare. “I have a bone to pick with you.” Three sets of eyes bulge in unison. “How come none of you told me Norm passed?”
For a few seconds, nobody says anything as the trio of men cast accusing glances around the table.
“Cecil, you said you were gonna call her!” says a man wearing an old John Elway jersey. He looks a couple decades younger and about six inches shorter than the rest of them.
A dark brown-skinned man across the table, who I guess is Cecil, gapes.
“Me?!” The onyx freckles along his forehead and around his eyes crinkle in offense.
“I was supposed to call Frank at the morgue to get details.” He hikes a thumb at the Santa Claus doppelg?nger beside him—if Santa was tattooed, wore Grateful Dead T-shirts, and ate steak and veggies instead of cookies. “This guy was supposed to text her!”
“Me?!” Santa Claus exclaims, retrieving his phone from his pocket.
“Goddammit, Artie,” Cecil squawks.
Artie slash Santa lifts his phone two inches in front of his face, squints at the screen. “Well, shit. Where are my glasses?”
I dart a look to Hannah. She stifles a laugh while Artie pats down his entire body.
Elway Jersey Guy groans, reaches over the table, and yanks the specs from the top of Artie’s head. “You’re going senile, old man.”
He takes the glasses with zero acknowledgment. Only levels a threatening gaze at Elway. “Careful, Tiny Tom. Boys who don’t respect their elders buy the next round.”
Artie Claus proceeds to weave a tapestry of profanity about “senile my ass,” and “damn Gen Xers” under his breath as he positions his bifocals on the bridge of his nose.
“Now, let’s see here,” he starts, tapping away on his screen. “Which one is for texting?”
Cecil pulls his own lenses from his collar and slides them on. He shifts to look over Artie’s shoulder. “It’s that there green square with the comic bubble.”
A few more taps, all of us waiting with bated breath, and then Artie barks a smug laugh, turning the phone around to show the class. “Look! I did text you.”
We all lean in. Tom face palms. Hannah snorts. I cover my mouth to keep from laughing.
Cecil presses in the closest. “You didn’t send it, you moron.”
Artie’s face scrunches. “Bullshit! It’s right there?” He flips the phone and reads the text aloud. “‘Hi, Hannah. It’s Arthur from the VFW. Norm died.’”
Tom grimaces. “Nice, Artie.”
Sounds exactly like a text Pops would send so it’s no skin off my back.
Artie slams the phone on the table with a grunt. “I never said I was Shakespeare! You asked me to text her and I did.”
“But you didn’t.” Cecil’s in hysterics now.
“I typed it, didn’t I?”
Hannah leans against me, her knees nearly buckled from cackling so hard.
Cecil swipes Artie’s phone and shows him the screen. “You didn’t hit the arrow to send it.”
Deep grooves form between Artie’s brows. Second after second after second ticks by. “Well, goddammit, why doesn’t it say ‘send’? What the hell does just an arrow mean?”
“It means ‘send’!” Tom, Cecil, and Hannah say in unison.
Artie’s nostrils flare. He meets everyone’s gaze one at a time. “I hate all you fuckers.” His eyes flash back to Hannah, softening. “Except you, sunshine.”
My breath catches on the nickname. Pops gave it to her after their first chess game.
Warm. Blazing. Bright. The sun—center of its solar system. Without it, life wouldn’t be possible. Planets would float aimlessly through the cosmos without its gravitational pull to lock them into orbit.
That’s Hannah.
Heaviness settles in my throat again, but I force it down as she introduces me to my grandfather’s friends.
He had friends.
“Boys, this is Rowan. Norm’s grandson.”
Unlike the bunch of strangers I met on the way in, these guys are on their feet in an instant.
Tom and I exchange a handshake and then he pulls me in for a hug.
Cecil does the same, slapping me on the back.
And finally, Artie, with a bear hug strong enough to break the dam of tears behind my eyelids if I let it go too long. I pull away before that can happen.
Artie squeezes my shoulder. “I’m sorry for your loss, son.”
Cecil nudges the chess board into place while I pull out the empty chair across from him, gesturing for Hannah to sit.
“You play?” Cecil asks as I drag another chair over and set myself at the end of the table.
“Not as well as Pops, but I hold my own.”
Tom chuckles. “Nobody plays as well as Norm did. Sunshine here was the only one who ever beat him.”
Hannah smirks but doesn’t look up from where she’s setting her pieces on the board.
I poke her in the ribs. “So you finally beat him, huh?”
“Told you I would.”
My hand finds her knee under the table. Her eyes lift as she folds her fingers around mine. I’m not sure what to say, so I mouth the words I know she doesn’t want to hear. I say them anyway. “Thank you.”
She doesn’t reply. Our gazes hold for a few more seconds and she squeezes my hand, then dips her head and focuses back on the game.
Artie beats Tom but loses to Cecil.
I lose to Tom and Cecil in the first twenty-minutes of play, but come close to beating Artie until I make an amateur move and lose my Queen.
Hannah wins every match.
Lydia pops in a little while later wearing a long flowing dress that swallows her whole. She’s too busy making the rounds and sparring with the guys to notice the concern in her daughter’s eyes. Hannah tucks it away, pasting on a weak smile when her mom swoops in for a hug.
I round up another chair, the six of us crowded around a tiny table as the chess matches continue.
Lydia and I don’t talk much, but there’s a softness in her gaze every time she looks at me. A gentle, lingering stare before a quick dash to Hannah and then back to me. I simply dip my chin in acknowledgment to everything unspoken. Thank you and take care of her met with you’re welcome and I will.
The games go on for hours, parsed with long stretches of light-hearted conversation, laughter, trips to the bar, and stories about Pops.
About the first time Hannah dragged him here practically kicking and screaming. How she did it again a few weeks later. Until he started showing up even on the weeks she couldn’t make it.
Stories of how the four guys found friendship in each other. They’re all widowers, know a thing or two about chess, think John Wayne hung the moon, hate their smartphones, enjoy a good highball of whiskey, and love their grandkids.
The story about the time Artie, Tom, and Cecil delivered pre-cut firewood to the lake house after Pops mentioned the axe work was hurting his shoulder. How Pops thanked them by treating them all to an early bird special at Denny’s.
And, Hannah?
She’s the glue that brought the four of them together. The sun that holds them in her orbit with compassion, kindness, and a bright smile.
They love her, that much is obvious.
If we had more time, I think I could love her too.