Page 103 of Came the Closest

Shading my eyes, I smile up at my father. “Nope.”

Dad gingerly lowers down next to me and rests his cane against the wooden frame of the swing. His skin is starting to regain its color, and his body is filling out again. I wonder if he’ll grow back the mustache Mom said she didn’t like but secretly loved.

Daddy likes to say he walked out of the bathroom with a mustache one night, and nine months later a healthy baby Justin was born.

“I thought about this moment a lot,” I say quietly, hands clasped in my lap. “Having you back. Seeing you here. At the lake house.”

He lowers his chin to his chest and exhales slowly. “I’m sorry, Annie. If I’d been driving slower, or if I’d have seen the ice—” He shakes his head. “You have to know that I didn’t do it on purpose. I don’t remember the accident well, but I didn’t. I know that much. And I also know I can’t change it, but I wish I could.”

Tears fill my eyes. “I missed you, Daddy.”

He wraps an arm around my shoulders, tucking me safely into his side. “I’ve never missed anything more in my life than this right here, darlin’. I can’t translate what it was like into words; knowing I was still alive but not being alive, but I do know that I missed you. More than I’ll ever be able to say.”

I look up at him quizzically. “Why do I feel like there’s a but in there?”

He chuckles and squeezes my shoulder. “Not a but. Just a decision made. I’m going to need you to keep an open mind about it.”

My stomach knots. “A decision about what?”

“We’re selling the ranch, Annie.” The words are a blow, but he holds up a hand when I open my mouth. “It’s not because we need money, so don’t you go worrying. It’s just time for things to change, time for a fresh start. Ty’s kids live out of state, Beau is running his clinic, Justin has his law office, and—”

“I have absolutely no career,” I say hollowly. I shift out of his arms to sit up fully. “Dad, I will help at the ranch. You—”

“No.” He gives me a gently chiding look and tucks me into his embrace again. “I know you would—any of you kids would. But look around, Annie. You might not have a career in Chicago anymore, but you have this.” He gestures to our surroundings; to the children laughing, the brothers pretending to be lumberjacks as they haul firewood around the house, the serenity lining my mother’s face. “This right here is worth more than any promotion you could’ve chased or the prestige of any job. You can make a difference in the world without life being grand, Annie. It’s made out to be that the normal days are insignificant, but without them, there would be very little left to live for.

“Some of my fondest memories, sweetheart, are far from grand,” he continues, tapping his thumb against my shoulder. “I remember your mother and I’s wedding day, but our marriage outshines it spectacularly. I remember what it was like to hold you and your brothers for the first time, but I also remember getting up with you in the middle of the night. Don’t downplay the importance of moments the world wouldn’t recognize, Annie. Those are often the best moments of your life.”

We sit in stillness when he finishes. I curl into his side and his feet set the swing gently into motion. Colton looks over at us and smiles, and Dad’s words begin to make sense when Colton calls Milo over to blow a kiss at me.

It’s a three-second moment that I will remember for the rest of my life. I’ll remember folding towels with Colton on the living room sofa after Milo and Indi are in bed, thunder rumbling the earth and both of us trying not to laugh because we fold them differently. I’ll remember jumping in the lake on a random Wednesday in July with Indi just because it’s unbearably hot. I’ll remember flipping through the same 168 pages of Sailing: The Basics while tucked under Milo’s nautical comforter, and I will always remember being held by my father after nearly losing him.

“Promise me something, Annie,” Dad says.

I look up at him.

“Never, and I mean never, take something or someone you love for granted.” His steady eyes fill with tears, but fierceness clings to his words. “You’ll have moments where it’s hard to see the other side of a rough time, where the world feels a little less happy and a lot more sad. But remember that it won’t be like that forever. When the storm passes, the sunshine will feel more brilliant than your mind could’ve conjured in its wildest dreams.”

“But in the meantime,” I say, borrowing his words from years ago, “learn to dance in the rain?”

“In the meantime,” he repeats, nostalgia lacing his voice, “learn to dance in the rain.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Fathers and Sons

Colton

I feel like that eight-year-old boy again, sitting on the front porch step with a baseball card in my hand, waiting for Dad to notice me. Watching happy families drive by, counting the brick pavers of the front walkway, and growing irrationally annoyed that my dad isn’t mowing the lawn like our neighbors are.

I’m not holding anything from my Dad Box today, and Dad just mowed the yard yesterday. I am sitting on the front porch step, though, and I hold something far more significant than a baseball card for a player who meant nothing to me.

The papers in my hands hold a lifetime’s promise. They’re stapled in the top left corner and chocolate milk stained in the bottom right one. It’s a promise to myself, yes, but mostly to the little boy who shares my middle name and has a penchant for sailboats.

I follow Dad’s vehicle with my eyes as it comes down the street. He sets his phone on the hood of the SUV and ducks into the backseat, emerging with his suit jacket and a stack of manila folders. I wonder if this is what he’s always done; as a child, I was usually up to the table for supper or already in bed when he got home.

He steps slow when he sees me. Gusty wind pushes his white dress shirt against his chest and twists the tendrils of hair above his forehead. I don’t say anything and neither does he. He climbs the stairs, disappears into the house, and emerges a moment later without the jacket or the folders.

He sits on the step beside me. I wordlessly pass him the papers. The breeze flaps at the corners, but he smooths his thumb over them, his attention never shifting from the bolded, all caps words across the top of the first page.

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