Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Grant
We pull up to the farmhouse and I am trying not to be irritated.
This has become my state of being more than I’d like to admit, but I waited for ten minutes outside Sam’s place, rang her doorbell, and even attempted to text the number on the rental application May gave me, but no luck.
So Lily, Poppy, and I are rolling into Friday family dinner exactly on time instead of ten minutes early, which for my little minions means we’re already late.
“Do you think Gram saved the table for me?” Lil asks, anxiety in her words.
The beauty of a Friday night dinner is that I never have to accept a social invite because I have standing Friday night plans.
The sincere drawback is that the girls are absolute toast by the end of the week, and usually, so am I. We drag in for my family’s TLC, and then I haul us home and dump everyone, including myself, into bed, some weeks all of us on the verge of tears.
It can be brutal to have one more thing to plan for, then manage, then do, but it usually reminds me this is what we didn’t have in North Carolina. This is part of why we moved home.
This is what I owe them. This is what I almost didn’t give them.
So we’re here, no matter what.
“Why was the lady not there? Will Gram and Gramps be mad?”
Poppy’s voice is on the edge of crying, and I say a fleeting prayer for patience because all of this could’ve been avoided if she’d done what she said she’d do.
It’s a pet peeve of mine, but is it so hard to simply be where you know you’re supposed to be? Do what you say you’ll do? Follow-through is a skill some people don’t possess, I guess.
To be fair, I was a right weirdo when we ran into each other in town and my empty stomach staged a coup on my ability to think, use words, and interact with her appropriately.
But also… we ended the encounter on Wednesday evening pretty clearly planning to ride together tonight. I apologized and cleared the air.
Or so I thought.
“No, they’ll be fine. We can’t help it if she wasn’t there, and we tried, didn’t we?”
I turn from the front seat now that I’m in park to see them both with tears welling. Damn. I rush to unbuckle, but Ma’s already there, pulling open Lily’s door.
“Oh, no! What are we crying for?” Ma’s voice is just as dismayed as my heart is.
“We’re late.”
“We couldn’t find the lady.” Tears spill over, and Poppy gloms onto Ma’s leg while Lily sniffles back her own deluge.
“We tried, though. Daddy said at least we tried.”
My mom turns wild eyes on me as though I’ve done something to wrong these babies. And I get it. I don’t handle their tears all that well, either.
“What lady? Do you mean your new tenant?”
I nod. “I may not have been calm and happy that she wasn’t there. I confirmed the time with her Wednesday.” In passing. Trying not to stare at the way her leggings highlighted the curves of her long legs and perfect—
“She’s already here! May brought her.” Ma drops down to gather both girls in her arms. “Everything’s alright, and we have a job to do, don’t we?”
Lily sniffles again. “We do?”
Damn, but those puppy dog eyes could kill a man.
“Of course we do, sillies! We have to set the table!”
She shoots me a look I don’t even attempt to figure out and follow them inside.
The week has been full of dead ends and frustrations at work, the girls are exhausted after starting a new dance class twice a week, and I am wrung out.
I’ve got nothing left and I probably should’ve declined for tonight—honestly would’ve, had I not been on the hook to give a certain someone a ride.
Well, and the promise I made to myself since I realized how brutally I failed the girls from the very beginning.
I’d balked, fearful and cowardly when presented with those two tiny humans I’d become instantly and solely responsible for at the worst moment of their lives and easily one of mine.
A hundred doubts and more than a handful of How the hell can I get out of this?
swirled around me. I kept my heart locked away as long as I could out of sheer terror and stubbornness, only to get wrapped up in them in a matter of days anyway.
They wrested me onto their team, forced me to see them and love them, and there was no looking back.
But it was days of doing the necessities with obligation and forced tenderness. Days of doing everything with a frozen heart.
Just the memory of it scrapes against my throat and makes me want to gag.
And that failure is one of many reasons I’ll keep showing up here on Fridays. To everything May invites me to. To anything my other siblings or my folks need.
There is no way to scrub that shame from my record, but I’ll work every day to make sure I don’t harm them or anyone else with my weakness. It’s a must after years away living in my own world and not showing up for them, so it’s high time.
This thought swirling in my gut, I am far from prepared to walk into my parents’ farmhouse and see Sam laughing full-out at something my idiot youngest brother is saying.
His eyes are downright sparkling with his signature mischief and I’m pretty sure he wore his T-shirt a size too small just to make his biceps look more obnoxiously big.
No doubt he’s wearing Wranglers to show off his other assets like the pretty boy he is.
I manage to hold in my disgust at his display and find my way to the kitchen.
“Well, aren’t you in a charming mood.” My dad is standing at the stove nestled into the kitchen island, stirring a large stockpot like it’s a magic potion.
“How can you tell what mood I’m in? I’ve been in the house for less than a minute.”
His arm’s still toiling away with his trusty wooden spoon as he says, “I have eyes, my son, and I’ve been your father for a few minutes.”
There is no good response to this. If I say I’m not in a mood, I’ll look defensive, and if I change the subject, I’ll be avoiding it. There’s no winning with this, and frankly, I am in a shit mood. So there.
“How about you wash up and start loading up the table?” He has the audacity to wink at me like I’ll think it’s cute.
A laugh huffs out of me because he’s always been like this.
Somehow, he’s this cheery, sunshine of a man who fought in two wars and had an exacting father himself.
Yet, here he is, manning the stockpot like a boss even though his own dad wouldn’t have been caught dead in the kitchen, and he’s winking.
My brother Finn, the idiot, is his exact replica.
“Grant.” My other brother walks in a few minutes late, tugging off a knit cap that is surprisingly casual for a person whose default is professional dress even after leaving the military and arriving back in our small town.
“Declan.”
I swear amusement flashes in his eyes, and something about this day is making me feel like I’m the butt of everyone’s joke. Clearly, it’s time to put this week to bed.
A roar of laughter rises from the living room right as I walk in with the large salad bowl and a pitcher of ice water.
“So I say, ‘How do you know it was me?’ Because I’m innocent, right?” Finn’s in full storyteller mode, holding the crowd on the couch by the collars.
“And what did he say?” Sam is into it, apparently.
A pang of something unfamiliar sideswipes me and I grit my teeth to keep from looking at her. Why should anyone be that pretty, anyway? What’s the point?
Finn snorts. Declan rolls his eyes as he settles a casserole dish on a trivet next to where I left the salad. We share a glance and both mouth the line we know all too well right as Finn says it.
“He said, ‘If I ever catch you with whipped cream again, you’re dead.’”
The shared moment with my quietest brother eases the nasty thing winding tighter by the second.
A chorus of chuckles sounds and those who’ve heard the story a half-dozen times already gamely praise the delivery this time while Sam, the only person who hasn’t heard the tall tale, appears to be giggling behind a palm she has pressed over her mouth.
She shouldn’t cover her smile or laugh. It’s too pretty. The glimpse I caught before told me as much, and I didn’t need to see it now to know it’d be killer. Just looking at her stone-faced and guarded answering her door a few nights ago told me enough.
Her eyes flicker up and meet mine. My heart kicks and I blink, breaking the spell, and focus back on my task of pouring water for everyone.
“Daddy, she’s here. Did you see the lady?” Poppy is tugging on my arm and pointing, full out with hand waving and index finger shoved in the direction of the living room where everyone is slowly disbanding from story time and moving toward the table.
“I did, Pops. Let’s not point, though, right?” I cup my palm over her vicious little pointer finger and give her a look.
She makes a face and tucks the weapon away.
We’ve had a few talks about how pointing can seem rude, especially when done in public or to someone we don’t know.
This may or may not have come on the heels of her pointing out that the waitress at Jerry’s had “huge breasts!” in the wake of a short anatomy chat we’d had.
Taylor was perfectly kind about it, but I apologized, explained we’d recently been talking about bodies and learning the correct names for things after I’d heard some of her little friends calling body parts wild names.
One unfortunate part of law enforcement is dealing with abuse situations, and one small but effective tool in battling sexual abuse is letting kids know the correct names for body parts.
Did I anticipate my little genius putting those lessons to work right away?
No. But what in this parenting life had I expected?
Literally nothing. Not even being one.
Instead of letting the slice of shame and regret open me up and start a slow bleed as usually happens whenever I remember the early days of parenting, I focus on my doofy brother.
“You gonna sit, big man, or you got somewhere else to be?” This comes from Finn, who has weaseled his way into sitting next to Sam, who’s across from me, and grinning like he knows he’s got something over on me.
I sit without comment.
“Thank you all for clearing your schedules once again to be here, and a special welcome to Sam.” My mom’s smile is wide and warm. “We are so glad to have you here, honey, and I hope you’ll join us every Friday you’d like to. You’re always welcome.”
Sam’s cheeks brighten with a pretty blush. “Thank you.”
I internally scowl at myself, and wonder when I’ve ever thought of a blush as pretty.
It’s simple. I’m thrown by the fact that we’d planned to ride together and she ditched me without a word. I don’t like plans changing so willy-nilly and I want to address it.
At least I have enough self-awareness to realize that yet again, I’m hungry, tired, and off-kilter, so interrogating her about her whereabouts earlier tonight should not happen right now.
My dad blesses the food after inviting us to hold hands around the table. It’s antiquated and probably gives Declan a mild heart attack, but everyone complies as we’ve always done.
I do not think about how Finn is holding Sam’s hand. It doesn’t bother me. Of course it doesn’t.
Something jabs me in the ribs.
“Might want to lay off the scowling.” Eirinn’s voice is full of amusement.
She might be the next oldest and an absolutely fearsome woman in her own right, but I cut her a glare. “Hush, you.”
She shakes her head. “Hush yourself, you brute. Be nice.”
Her husband chuckles next to her, clearly having heard the whole exchange. But her words hit. I’m being an ass and for no good reason.
Work’s hard? What’s new? I’m irritable about changes happening in my life? Again, what’s new?
I’m feeling underwater and burnt out? Say it with me now…
“Are we waiting for someone else?” Sam’s curiosity halts all other conversation, even my girls’ and Eirinn’s at the kids’ table next to us.
Mom instantly gets that look she gets whenever Mac comes up. Da grabs her hand and pats it gently.
“Yes, Sam. We leave that seat open for our other son, Cormac, for whenever he makes it home.”
That fast, a fresh wave of worry pummels me in the ribs.