“I understand now.” I try to communicate twenty years of friendship in the tremulous smile I send her way. But suddenly a noxious smell permeates the room. “What is that stench?” I demand.
Kara puts her daughter in my arms, spins me around, and flings her office doors open. “That, Aunt Maris, is the smell of first baby poo. It’s time for you to get some good photos of Daddy’s face as I go make him change it.”
“Thank God. I thought you were going to make me do it.”
Kara’s smile turns pure evil. “No, I’m saving a blowout for you. How dare you call Jennings and not talk to me first? Talk about being on my shit list.” Then Kara storms through the house calling, “Jennings! I need your help! Fast!”
I begin to giggle. “Shit list. Kara literally has a shit list. God, I love it.” Within seconds, Rainey and Meadow join me. And there we stand laughing until Kara literally drags Jennings back. But none of us are howling as loud as the baby, whose soiled diaper is making her irritable.
And then Jennings tops all of us when he gets a look at the tar-like substance stuck to his daughter’s tush. “What the hell is this crap?” he roars.
“That, darling, is your daughter.” Kara merely slaps another wipe in his hand.
And I lift my camera for another photo. Jed, I know damn well you’re watching. I love you.
Deana peeing on her father mere seconds later is my answer. Especially when Jennings begins to shake and then leans over to pluck a kiss from Kara. “Seriously? You know it’s our brothers who encouraged her to do that.”
“Of course they did. I’ll thank them later.” Kara winks at me.
And before Jennings realizes I got the whole thing on camera, I duck out of the nursery and out the back door. Nick breaks away from the conversation he was having with Kody and Kevin to come over. “What’s wrong, Sunshine?”
I hold up my hand. “Excuse me, may I have everyone’s attention?” The backyard becomes remarkably quiet except for the younger hellions. “I have on camera Deana baptizing her father when he went to change her diaper.”
Nick tries to snatch my phone from my hands. “No way.”
I slap his hands. “Just wait for the family.”
His face softens. “I can do that.”
Kody, without thinking, hands his beer to Kevin before racing over. Kevin gives it a glance and starts to lift it to his lips before Meadow saunters by and smacks the back of his head. He scowls and hands her the drink.
Brad, who had been standing at the grill with an arm around Rainey, holds the spatula to her. She whacks him on the butt with it before saying, “Go!” He jogs over, already pulling his phone out.
When they get there, I unlock my phone.
And we relive the perfection of Jennings’s first moment of torture with a little girl, knowing this is the first of many.
By the time Jennings and Kara reappear in the backyard, the guys have smeared ketchup and mustard on their faces for Jennings to wipe off. “It’s good practice.” “Come on, buddy. It can’t be worse than shit.” “My kids are full grown.”
Jennings opens his mouth to respond to all of them at once, but Kara just lays her hand over his mouth. “They’re your family.”
And that appears to be the answer of the day.
Family. We’re family.
The professional photographer has come and gone, taking pictures of couples, families, and the entire group. The kids are in the media room watching a cartoon under Kevin’s supervision. And the eight of us are relaxing around the fire pit reminiscing about who we were then and now.
And those who aren’t here.
“Does anyone have a desire to go back and see the Lumberjack Show? We told the kids we’d take them next summer when we went back to Juneau,” Kody asks. Meadow’s curled up on his lap.
“You’re coming back?” Brad demands. Rainey, who had been relaxed back against his shoulder, pops up.
Meadow grins. “Of course. Probably before that, but we can’t fit in a trip to Ketchikan as well as seeing you all.”
Brad punches Kody in the arm. “What the hell was that for?” Kody demands.
“We’re supposed to talk about these things, dick. Especially because we were figuring out how to visit you all in Montana.”
Nick leans up and whispers, “Do they forget you live there?”
I shake my head. “No, but I’ve always lived there. And besides, with Jed gone…” Nick squeezes me to show he understands.
He raises his voice slightly. “Does this mean you guys are going to blow me and Maris off when you come up? Because if you are, don’t ever expect to get good fight tickets ever again.”
The silence that falls isn’t uncomfortable. It’s the guys readjusting their expectations. While the women already have, I can practically feel them trying to calmly accept the new status quo between Nick and me. After a few minutes with nothing said, I burst out with, “Are you all going to be this bad with your daughters? I’m almost thirty-nine years old. Plus, it’s Nick.”
It’s Jennings who speaks for them all. “We’re trying to think of what Jed would say, Maris.”
The trees around us rustle, and I feel the cross slide against my skin. Without understanding how I know for sure what my brother would say since he already did, I whisper, “He’d say, ‘All I want is for you to find a love that makes you happy.’”
“And does Nick do that?”
Nick’s arms squeeze me tight. He’s not perfect; then again, neither am I. So, I answer Jennings honestly. “The day I fell in love with Nick, he brought back things I didn’t know I was missing.” Like life. And life is complicated, messy, and full of doubt. It’s also filled with miracles, inspiring, and filled with dreams. Together we’ll learn how to deal with the ups and downs.
“Yes,” I murmur. My eyes convey so much more to Nick.
“Well then—” Jennings doesn’t get to finish his thought because Kara elbows him in the stomach.
Instead Kara sums it up beautifully. “Be happy, my friend. Just be your version of happy.”
Be happy.
Yes. With the man curled behind me, I can certainly do that.
Nicholas
June - Seven Months Later
Brad stands before us, wearing a plaid shirt that, damn me, is a freaking replica of the one he wore when we were Lumberjacks down in Ketchikan. Hell, his whole outfit looks like something we used to wear. And I promised my fiancée he’d take this responsibility seriously. I just hope she forgives me sometime before the end of our honeymoon to New Mexico.
It isn’t until he starts speaking that I begin to understand how much thought he put into his role being our wedding commissioner. “We all know who should be standing right here today. Likely, he’d be wearing an outfit much more outrageous than this, but my wife refused to let me wear flamingo shorts to a wedding. Even though I had what I knew was a compelling reason.”
Tears burn the back of my eyes. I tip my head down just in time to catch Maris dabbing at hers. Turning her fully in my arms, I laugh right into Brad’s face. “Jed wouldn’t have listened.”