Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 69452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
I scrunched up my nose at her. “Yes, ma’am.”
And when we got home a couple of hours later, I did indeed cancel Christmas dinner at our house with my family.
Instead, we spent it eating a lasagna that Stetson had cooked and dropped off himself, and enjoyed it as a family of four.
Chapter
Seven
I like them real thick and sprucy.
—T-shirt
DIXIE
“Pops,” Pru asked as she crossed her ankles on top of the coffee table, “didn’t you tell me that all your important dates happened around Christmas?”
I nodded.
“You’re not planning to die on Christmas, are you?”
I chuckled. “I’ll make it until y’all at least open your presents tomorrow afternoon.”
I hoped.
That would suck for them to come over here expecting one last Christmas with me to find me dead.
“Don’t give up until I can bring my kids over here one last time to see you. They love you with all of their heathen hearts,” Phoebe ordered. “They get it from their father.”
Bayou tugged his wife closer, then whispered something in her ear.
The move was so reminiscent of the very move I’d done with Mary that a wave of grief hit me.
I wanted that back.
I missed my wife.
In all the years that she’d been gone, I’d never been tempted to look for another.
I couldn’t.
How could I even consider someone else when Mary was the one person in the world that I wanted, and couldn’t have? Anyone else would be a pale comparison to her.
The only thing that kept me going these last few years was seeing Bayou and Hoax start their families.
I enjoyed watching these two sisters completely wreck the boys’ lives.
Not in a bad way.
In a way that I knew that they needed.
The only bad thing was they lived pretty far away from me, so I didn’t get to see them growing their families as often as I liked.
Sure, I had other grandchildren that I loved dearly. And even great-grandchildren.
But Hoax and Bayou were special.
They were my little sidekicks when they were growing up.
And they reminded me so much of Mary that I just wanted to be around them.
My children were spread all across the country now. I never got to see them as much as I’d wanted.
But these two made it a point to spend time with me, giving an old man a little light in his life as he waited to meet his wife on the other side.
“One last one before we head home,” Bayou said, standing up. “What’s this one about?”
I looked at the baby covered in powder, and laughed.
“That’s your uncle.” I chuckled.
Chapter
Eight
Drink up, grinches.
—Coffee Cup
DIXIE
Past
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
“Oh, boy,” I said as I looked into the room that John and Mark had been playing in.
My wife was out with her girlfriends, and she’d left me alone with the boys.
“What is it?” Stetson asked as he squeezed between the door and the wall. “Oh, shit.”
I watched as John threw the bottle of baby powder into the air, and it spun in an arc, showering his bed—one of the only remaining places that didn’t have white powder on it—with it.
“Your wife is going to kill you,” Silas called out from the end of the hallway, not needing to come any closer because of the plume of powder now creeping down the length of the hallway.
He walked out of the hallway, then came back moments later with the damn Polaroid.
Him and my wife, obsessed with that damn thing.
“Why?” I grumbled.
“Because your kids and your wife need these documents of proof that you survived the hell your children put you through,” he countered.
I snorted.
My kids were rotten.
But Mary spoiled them rotten, so there was no wonder.
Then again, I did as well.
As did my club brothers and their wives.
Since we were the only ones besides Stetson—who only had one so far—that had children, they treated them like club community kids. On any given day, I had at least two brothers at the house hanging out with my kids.
Silas was one of the ones that was here more than most, but I got the feeling that he was trying to find his way in life, and he was trying to do that while having something pure and kind to see and remind him of what he could have one day.
My head dropped to my chest as I thought about cleaning this up.
“I need a new vacuum,” I grumbled. “Mine broke last week. Mary was using it and it started smoking. I kept promising her I’d go get one but…”
That cost money.
And we had two kids and one more on the way.
The washer had broken last week.
The water heater was on the fritz.
Oh, and we had medical bills to pay soon.
I didn’t have the fuckin’ money to buy a damn vacuum.
“I got you.” Silas clapped me on the back. “My parents just bought me one, and I have my old one.”