“I could say the same for you, honey.”
We both laughed at that. He was smarter than he thought he was. When he felt comfortable, he was as observant and witty as anyone I’d ever met.
“See?” Yarvis said, smiling through a bite of croissant. “I told you it’d get easier.”
Luke
“Can you catch it, Mittens?” I held a neon-pink Buda Municipal Fire Department Frisbee to Mittens’s nose.
“Try to make him catch it!” JJ screamed with delight.
“That’s what Uncle Luke’s doing, honey,” Hailey said.
“Mittens is a girly dog, JJ,” Jake said, squatting next to his son. “Not a ‘him.’？”
“Burgers will be ready in ten,” my dad called from the grill.
“Salad will be ready . . . like, right now,” Cassie echoed, examining the bowl of romaine into which she had just poured Caesar dressing.
We had gathered in my dad’s backyard for a barbecue. Jake and Hailey said it was my dad’s idea, though I had a feeling it had been Jake and Hailey’s idea.
It was sunny out, the sky was ice blue, and Mittens seemed excited about the Frisbee, wagging her tail so hard it sent her backside back and forth. I whipped the disk toward the edge of the fence until it looked like it was going to sail clean over, before Mittens leaped and snatched it out of the air.
Everyone erupted in cheers.
Pain snaked from my shin to my hip, but now that I’d started to build muscle, I just winced instead of collapsing. “Good girl!” I rubbed her velvety ears.
I hadn’t seen this yard sober for three years. Mittens was trotting near the bushes where I used to hide from Jake after I drew dicks in his comic books, waiting to pelt him with pebbles when he came out the back door. I’d pee in those bushes when I came home from a party cross-faded, hoping to avoid using the toilet so I could make as little noise as possible. There were probably still cigarette butts in the soil from when I would sneak over from Johnno’s place to steal pieces of white bread or bologna or whatever else I could grab.
The last time I was here, Dad had walked in while I was microwaving a frozen burrito. He had told me to repay what Johnno and I had stolen from the garage, or he’d call the cops. It was only one or two hundred bucks. Cloud head had laughed. Dad had reached for the cordless and dialed. I’d dropped the burrito and started to run.
That’s right, he’d said. Get out. You coward.
Johnno had already started down the block. When Dad saw that I was running to get in the Bronco, he ran after me, cordless phone in hand. Luke!
You’ve failed me. You’ve failed your mother. You’ve failed Jake.
Dad had thrown the phone, hard, breaking the skin at the back of my head. I still have a scar.
That was about a year before Jake and Hailey’s wedding. It was the last time I’d heard him say my name.
Today, Cassie had rung the bell, as if I hadn’t spent the majority of my life opening that navy-painted door with a karate kick, slipping off my muddy shoes, flopping on the nearest piece of furniture.
I hadn’t realized my hands were shaking until Cassie, noticing, put her hand over the one that held my cane. I looked around for my brother, for someone watching us. No one was. She squeezed.
The door opened. My dad had aged, softened in a way. I hadn’t noticed when I’d seen him that day at the hospital. God, when had he become an old man?
I’d held out my free hand.
“Son,” he’d said, and took it.
I was trying not to make it a big deal. But I guess you could say the natural state of my face was grin.
While Cassie and Dad served up plates, Jake and Hailey and I watched JJ chase Mittens around the yard, launching his tiny body onto her back, trying to ride her.
“Careful, don’t hurt the doggy!” Hailey called.
“Saw you and Dad talking about where you served,” Jake said.
I smiled at him. “Yeah.”
“Yeah,” he replied, slapping me on the back.
Hailey glanced over at us. She held up her hands, sarcastic. “Whoa, hey, you two. Don’t make a scene.”
Over burgers, we talked about the dismal Rangers season, business at the garage, Cassie’s upcoming show. Mittens begged everyone for food.
“See?” Dad said after Jake and I had teased him about how his burgers were more like little balls of meat. “Mittens doesn’t care what shape it’s in. She knows it tastes good.”
After JJ sang us the alphabet song, Cassie told an abridged version of our city hall wedding. She did an imitation of the guy who married us, counting on her fingers in the exaggerated accent. “It was like he was listing cuts of meat, or something! We got a juicy Psalm 23, a fresh Corinthians, a fatty cut of Ephesians . . .”