Page 93 of Welcome to Forever
Ben considered this, still watching him intently. “Even your dad?”
Micah glanced over. “Uh-huh. Even Grandpa.”
“Well, why don’t you like him very much? I hear you and Aunt Clara talking.”
Birds chirped in the background as Micah tried to find yet another hard answer. “I do like him. It’s just hard to be around him sometimes.”
Ben returned to watching his bobber. “I’ll always want to be around you, Dad. No matter how much you mess up.”
Well, damn. Leave it to a kid to say just the right thing to kick you in the balls and make you want to hug them at the same time.“Yeah? Thanks, bud.”
Ben nodded, that wide grin that Micah loved spreading through his cheeks.
“I can learn a lot by spending time with you. You know that?”
“We should do a lot more of it then. And maybe Principal Chandler can come with us next time. I like her a lot.”
“Me, too.” He hadn’t wanted to like her a lot, but he did. He’d moved past just liking her a long time ago.
“You should try really hard not to mess things up with her, Dad,” Ben added, glancing over again. “But even if you do, I think Principal Chandler is a lot like me. I think she’ll keep wanting to spend time with you no matter how much you mess up.”
“I’ll try, little man.” Micah pointed to the water. “I think you got a bite. Better reel it in.”
Ben hurried to wind the reel backward with his good arm. The motion was uncoordinated, but Micah prayed the entire time that the fish would hold on.Just hold on.They needed this moment, this fish. Then the line lifted out of the water and there was a ten-inch bass.
“I did it! I caught a big one!” Ben bounced, and Micah had to keep the chair from tipping over on the uneven terrain, while also reeling the line in faster before the fish flopped itself off.
“Yes, sir. It’ll make a fine dinner. Big enough to feed a squadron, I’d say.” Micah grabbed the fish’s mouth and reached for the hook.
“Can we show it to Grandpa?”
Micah’s gaze narrowed. “Show it to Grandpa?”
“You said he used to fish with you. Wouldn’t he be proud of me?”
Micah laid the fish in a cooler of the brackish creek water and watched it flop. “I’m sure he would be, son. I know I am.” He re-baited Ben’s line and cast it again, contemplating Ben’s question and his son’s desire for his grandpa to be proud of him. Micah had that desire, too. He’d always wanted to make his dad proud. Telling him he wasn’t reenlisting wouldn’t bode well on that front. But maybe his father, commanding officer of Camp Leon and all, would surprise him if he gave him half a chance. Or disown him. Micah wouldn’t be surprised by either outcome.
They caught two more good-sized fish, then packed things up. When they were back in the Jeep, he glanced at his son in the rearview mirror. He knew he’d regret even posing the question, but he asked anyway. “Do you want to stop by Grandpa’s and cook the fish?”
Ben nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, Dad. Let’s do that!”
It was the big house, Micah reasoned. Kids loved big houses. And his father had a fondness for model trains, which Ben went crazy over. He wasn’t a kid that could rampage a house. He didn’t have the motor skills for that, so his father had always been very good about letting Ben mess with the trains. That got him a lot of brownie points.
Micah turned the vehicle south toward the water, where his father lived alone. It seemed a sad existence. He doubted his father saw it that way, though. His father enjoyed the kind of order that only living alone could provide. His mom had been a saint to keep the house’s order when she was alive. No other woman could ever live up to that.
Micah parked and helped Ben back into his wheelchair, then got the cooler out of the back. The front door opened as they approached the front steps.
Micah stopped and stared at him. “Hey, Dad.”
His father smiled tightly. The older Peterson was a compact man with stern features. “I didn’t know you were stopping by,” he said in a low voice that rivaled John Wayne’s.
“We went fishing!” Ben announced excitedly, his smile fading as he looked at the steps and turned back to Micah. He couldn’t get up, not without help.
Micah had told his father to get a ramp a thousand times. Any other grandfather would’ve done so if they had a disabled grandchild that they expected to visit. “We thought we’d fry some fish tonight, if you’re up for company. Just like old times.”
His father’s smile relaxed a notch. “You’re getting sentimental on me.”
Micah’s throat constricted. “Nothing wrong with good memories.”
