Skip looked back at Sam and his tone was lower, more level, when he shared, “We didn’t expect it, Becky and me. We didn’t expect what happened after Joe was gone to happen. Truth be told, it wasn’t like I never thought it. Never thought I wished I had a girl like Joey’s. So pretty. So sweet. Funny. Able to take a ribbing and give as good as she got. Tough as nails and soft as silk.”
He dug into his envelope and pulled out one last picture, putting it beside the others and tossing the envelope aside.
It was a shot of slightly older Becky with her arms around a slightly older Skip’s middle, her front pressed to his side, his arm around her shoulders, her head on his chest. Her smile was happy.
His was guarded.
“We fell in love,” he said quietly.
“Skip,” Sam said low.
“Didn’t mean to. Didn’t even want to. She didn’t either. It just happened, few years after we lost Joe. We’d lost touch. We found each other again. It wasn’t about Joe. It was about us.”
He paused.
I held my breath.
He continued.
“I made it about Joe.”
Oh God.
“Man—” Sam started.
“This life, this shitty mess that is life, it’s a struggle, Sam,” Skip told him. “It’s pain and it’s loss and it’s heartbreak. It’s disease and it’s death and it’s fighting to carry on. It’s hard, Sam, hard. Every day is a battle. Every . . . damned . . . day. Only way to make it through is to latch on to any good you can find. Latch on and do it tight. Sink your nails in and don’t . . . let . . . go.”
Sam stared at Skip.
Skip stared at Sam.
I stared between the both of them, no longer wondering why Skip was so grouchy all the time.
At least that mystery was solved.
I just wished he was hilariously cantankerous because that was him.
I would never wish this.
Not on anybody.
Especially not Skip.
“I let her go, Sam,” Skip whispered, and I had to start deep breathing so I wouldn’t cry. “It was the stupidest damn thing I’ve done in my life, and I’ve been pretty damned stupid, son. And I’ve regretted it every day. And the biggest regret I have is that I broke her heart. I broke her, Sam. Joe did that and it destroyed him before the cancer took him, and he didn’t have any control over it. But when I did it, I did have control, and I did it anyway. And I knew there wasn’t another woman for me. I knew it. I still let her go and I paid the price, and that price was steep, believe me. Because I was right. There was never another woman for me. Thirty-five years, she was the one then, she’s the one now, she’ll be the one the day I die, and I let her go.”
“You need to find her, Skippy,” I said softly, and he turned his head toward me.
“She died of a stroke three years ago, Kia.”
I put my hand over my mouth and looked to Sam.
Skip looked to Sam too.
“Hap and Luci came to the shack and they were happy. I’ve seen that before from our girl but never from our boy. He’s blind in love. Lost to it. And the only thing that’s making that less than all it should be for them is me asking if you knew and Hap tellin’ me you weren’t best pleased.”
He leaned into his fist on the counter, eyes locked on Sam.
I slid my hand down to my throat and held my breath again.
“They know the pain of life. The loss. The heartbreak, son,” he said quietly. “Let them have their happy.” He pushed off his fist but knocked his knuckles into the counter. “I’m leaving those for you. You think on things. But I want them back. It’s all I have left . . . of either of them. You think on that too. Because when life boils down to paper and memories, you’ll want all you can get of that last.”
And with that, he turned on his foot and strode right out.
I watched him go then turned to my husband.
“Honey,” I whispered.
Sam looked to me. “Tell my wife I love her.”
Slowly, I closed my eyes.
Gordo’s last words.
“Baby,” Sam called.
I opened my eyes.
“I want more for him.”
“I . . . sorry?” I asked.
“Hap,” he answered. “He deserves more than to be second best to a dead man.”
“He deserves to have what he wants.”
“He deserves more.”
“How can you have more than Luci?”
“She loved him like you love me.”
“And then he died.”
Sam shut his mouth.
I kept going.
“They’ve been together a week and Hap came to you to tell you so you wouldn’t think they were hiding things. He knows what you were to Gordo. What Gordo is to you. What Gordo was to Luci. Can you honestly know that man longer than I’ve known that man and not know he would not be on our deck, explaining he and Luci were falling in love, if he did not believe he was getting what he needed and intent on giving her the same?”
“You don’t know.”
“I know your thinking is colored by your brother’s girlfriend settling for something she didn’t want after she lost Ben. She is not Luci. Luci’s older, wiser, knows what she wants, knows how precious life is, love is, and she’s very much in love with Hap.”
“It’s been a week.”
“And I fell in love with you over breakfast the first time we met. Do you not believe that?”
Sam shut his mouth again.
“When did you fall in love with me, honey?” I whispered.
He didn’t whisper, or hesitate, when he answered, “Over breakfast.”
God, I loved my husband.
I smiled at him.
He took in my smile then looked down at the pictures.
“I hate that for Skip,” he murmured.
Yes.
I loved my husband.
“Me too,” I agreed.
I watched his wide chest expand then he let out a breath and looked at me.
“I’ll go talk to Hap tomorrow.”
Oh yeah.
I really, really loved my husband.
“Need you right here, Kia,” he stated.
It was my turn not to hesitate.
I rounded the bar and went to him.
The second I got close, he folded me in his arms.
So I did the same with him.
“I struggle,” he said into the top of my hair.
I tipped my head back. “With what?”
“With you, especially pregnant. I wanna wrap you up in cotton wool. Get itchy, you goin’ out in a car by yourself. Get jumpy, I’m at work, expect you to text you’re home, and you’re late tellin’ me you got home.”
I didn’t know he felt that.
I didn’t like he felt that.
At the same time, I did because it shared how much he felt for me.
It was time to start communicating more effusively with my husband.
I gave him a squeeze. “Nothing is going to happen to me, baby.”
“You had a hit out on you when I met you.”
Well, that was quite the drama.
I pressed closer. “It’s all good now.”
“I lost Ben. I lost Gordo. I watched my mother lose her son. I watched Luci lose Gordo.” His hold on me tightened. “I’m holding on to happy.”
I was so down with that.
“Hold on all you want, Sam, I’m not going anywhere.”
He bent his head and kissed me.
He lifted away, thought better of it, and bent in again.
It got heated.