Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Happy Fourth of July, son.” Dad claps my shoulder as he pulls me in for a side hug.
My father has always been my hero, even if it was a hard lesson to learn that even heroes have flaws.
This holiday is a favorite of mine, regardless of some memories tied to the holiday that aren’t always happy ones.
Despite my best efforts, I’m always reminded of the summer when I was twenty-one.
It should have been an epic party in my world.
Wells and I had started Lux the year before, and we already knew we were really onto something.
But that morning, my entire foundation shifted.
It’s so tempting to ignore my alarm, but I know that I need to get this run in early—and to justify the beer and food I intend on consuming later today.
It may be a holiday, but I don’t believe in taking days off when I have goals.
Before I reach the bottom of the stairs, I hear an odd noise for it being six in the morning.
I follow it and I find my mother crying in the hearth room.
“Mama? What’s wrong?” Mama is sitting in her favorite chair with one of her legs tucked under the other, quickly wiping away tears that seem to appear as soon as she wiped another one away.
I’ve seen my mother cry before; she often says she has a big and tender heart, and it’s true.
Caroline Callahan does not believe in hiding emotions, but these tears are not happy tears.
Her face is constructed in pain … and grief.
“Hey, what’s going on?” Alarmed, I rush over to kneel next to her chair.
She raises one hand and softly touches my cheek. “Oh, my sweet boy, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to see me like this.”
“Mama, you’re scaring me. What’s going on? What happened? Are you okay?” I can’t solve a problem if I can’t see it, and the only thing I am seeing right now is my sweet mother distraught and … is she heartbroken? Who hurt my mother?
She slowly shakes her head and pulls her hand back to make a fist to hold against her mouth. I wrap my arms around her and pull her into me. Her body shudders with sobs she is holding back, and I’m starting to get really freaked out.
“Mama, hold on, it’s okay. Let me go wake Dad, and we’ll figure out whatever is going on.” I try to soothe her as I slowly rub the familiar circular patterns on her back like she always does when she tries to calm us down, but she jerks away from my hold and looks at me alarmed.
“No, Jack. I don’t want to see him. I can’t talk to him right now.”
“Okay, Mama, okay, I’ve got you, it’s okay.” I pull her back into a hug and my mind races, trying to figure out what the hell Dad could’ve done to hurt Mama this deeply?
Later that morning, it would come out that the previous evening, Mama’s friend had called to let her know she needed to come down to O’Dell’s.
When she arrived, she walked out on the patio to find our father with another woman on his lap—and quite cozy.
She didn’t make a scene, simply walked over to him and insisted it was time to go home, but when they got home, they had it out behind the chicken coop so as not to wake any of us.
When the dam broke, it all came crashing down.
The man I respected and looked up to, as though he could do no wrong, had been stepping out on our mother for years.
I’m still not sure if he had an actual issue with drinking, or if that was the crutch that he used to blame his behavior, but after the implosion of their marriage, Dad stopped drinking.
He started individual counseling and couple counseling, as well as a few family counseling sessions that were really a highlight of my summer to hear how my father made multiple mistakes over the years and betrayed our mother and our entire family.
In addition to reconciling my impression of who I thought my father was for my entire life, I had to watch my mother and younger siblings navigate their own feelings about the entire situation.
Despite the fact that he and Mama did the work to fight for their marriage and even had a decade of genuinely happy years together before the cancer stole her from us, my relationship with my father took some time to heal.
I didn’t feel like I could reconcile our relationship and how he let us all down until I knew that Mama and my siblings were all okay—because if they weren’t okay, there was no way he and I were going to be okay.
Grace isn’t always my natural language, especially when someone hurts one of the few people I care about in this world, so when it was my own dad causing the pain? It messed things up for a while.
Liam and I were the last ones to get back to a good place in our relationships with him, but I think everyone understood.
Thankfully, we both figured our shit out in time to enjoy four or five years as a healthy—and honest—family unit.
Mama deserved a lot longer than that, but sometimes life is incredibly unfair, especially to inherently sweet and good people.
“Happy Fourth of July, Dad.” I pat his back in response before I turn my attention back to the grill.
Each year—with the exception of what became known as The Red Fourth amongst The Cavalry—our family hosts a get together at the house with too much food, usually loud music, friends, family, and fireworks.
The holiday starts with the annual parade on Main Street and then our friends know to come over to the house any time after noon.
On The Red Fourth, we cancelled the festivities and faked a stomach bug for our entire family.
We had our own firework show, with a lot of yelling, especially from my brothers and I at our father, and a lot of crying from Mama and my sisters.
We still lived in a small town though, and news of Murphy Callahan being collected from O’Dell’s by his wife when he had another woman on his lap spread faster than local gossips could even process.
“That was a great parade this morning, don’t you think?” Dad asks as he takes a drink from his non-alcoholic beer. I nod before taking a drink of my own beer.
“Yeah, Thom’s Hardware really went all out for the float this year.”
“Thom told me his son started working on that the day after Christmas, which seems a little intense to me, but you know…” Dad grins. “They love to screw around, but I think they nailed it this year.”
I roll my eyes but the corner of my mouth tips up in a small smile. “Tell that one to the granddaughters, they’ll eat it up.”
“That’s a great idea, bud. Thanks for being my test subject.
” We cheers our drinks and I rotate the hot dogs and peek on the steaks.
With the amount of money I have, I could literally be anywhere in the world doing anything I could possibly dream of—but I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else than on the back deck of my childhood home, watching my nieces have an epic water fight, taking my turn manning the grill.
I might not change anything about the location, but I would definitely make a significant addition to the guest list.
I hear someone clear their throat and turn to see my sister Savannah looking slightly nervous—and then someone follows her out onto the covered deck.
Savannah’s had a hell of a year, but I have to hope that putting the asshole ex-husband behind her means that she has a better happily ever after in front of her.
I reach out to shake the hand of the man who followed her out here.
We all knew he was coming when Dad invited them at the parade, but it’s still a moment for them.
Theo Smith-Harrington is an attorney at the firm that represented Savannah in her—very—recent divorce, but they’ve only recently started dating.
I think their first date was only yesterday, but Theo has been attending our weekly poker nights since March.
He’s familiar with our family, but this is the first time he’s been around us while with Savannah.
I notice a little girl with dark brown pigtails following Theo, which must be his daughter Gigi, but she quickly scampers off to join my nieces in their water fight.
“Good to see you, Theo.” We shake hands as Savannah disappears before returning with a beer for Theo.
“Are you good? I need to go help with a few things in the kitchen.” Savannah’s hand rests on Theo’s arm, and I don’t miss the way he looks at her. Yeah, I was right when I suspected these two might become something months ago—the real reason I invited Theo to join our poker night.
“Yeah, Sav, I’m good. I’ll help Jack man the grill, or if you need help with anything else, just let me know,” Theo reassures my sister, and he’s already leaps and bounds ahead of her ex—because he is actually here.
Savannah nods and goes back inside. Mama always loved this party, even though she buzzed around the entire time.
And since she passed, Savannah picked up that role without missing a beat.
She was always Mama’s shadow, helping even before she took over the reins fully.
High-pitched screams that threaten my eardrums get closer as the girls run from my brothers Finn and Ryan that just surrounded them with water guns, which are connected to tanks they both strapped to their backs.
Some things never change in our family—I’m the one that bought those water guns two years ago, and I’ll avenge my nieces later when Finn and Ryan least expect it.
The loud boom echoes across the night sky as the spectators ooo and ah while the red, white, and blue sparks paint the sky. I offered to have a professional come out and do the fireworks show, but my brothers acted like I tried to burn down their Christmas tree.