Page 64 of Accidentally Falling
Arden makes me stand a little taller than I have in a long time and I like that. I want to be better for her and our daughter and the life I’d long ago stopped truly living.
I joined the Marine Corps right out of high school, and it had been some of the best years of my life. Hell, I probably would have reenlisted if my leg had healed the way it should’ve. My first deployment had been intense, and we’d been back stateside not much over six months before we deployed again.
I remember counting the days till I could go home during that second one, and I almost made it. Until the Humvee I wasriding hit a land mine and all hell broke loose. My left leg took the brunt of the impact, and things were never the same after that.
Surgeries and physical therapy helped, but it didn’t stop me from becoming a damn barometer in the process.
Sighing, I make my way around the bar, the place like an old friend.
Family.
But even that sentiment has mellowed in the weeks and months since I learned I’ll soon be a father. I don’t want every waking hour to be spent within these walls. I want to be home with Arden and Dez and, soon, ourdaughter.
My own father had built Boots on Bar and Grill into something of a destination in Blackstone Falls. He loved kitschy bar decor, and one time when Deacon and I were young, we went on a small road trip, all of us getting matching T-shirts at some roadside diner.
Our mom had just died, and it was a small pocket of happiness for all of us.
The T-shirts became a kind of memorial, and so he could remember it and see it every day, he pinned it to the ceiling right above the bar. Deacon and I listened to him tell the story hundreds of times to locals and tourists until it became a kind of lore.
And then one day, Miss Thelma, a firecracker of an old lady, came in with a shirt that said, “Ask me about my nuts.” My father stood mouth agape as she told him the story about how she’d recently visited a pecan farm out in Texas and figured it’d be a crime not to bring a shirt back.
Heh—nut farm.
Dad had tacked it right next to the one we’d gotten at the diner, and a new tradition was born.
It’s been years since we filled the ceiling, the rules changing to the entirety of the present bar patrons having to vote on whether your shirt and story are worth replacing one of the existing shirts.
The only exception is that no one touches Dad’s or Miss Thelma’s—mainly because she still scares the hell out of me when she ponies up to the bar every now and then.
The thought has my mouth pulling up into a smile, my hand sliding over the polished wood of the bar top.
I wish my brother loved this place the way I do, that we could keep the traditions alive— keep our father’s memory alive.
Together.
He would have loved being a grandfather.
But so many of Deacon’s memories are tainted by the loss of our mother, and instead of finding refuge in these walls, he’s reminded of a life that was so incredibly fragile.
He was also present the years I was in the military, his time here shifting from helping our father at the bar to taking care of me full-time while I recovered.
My hand grips the wood, my knuckles white as I fight to stay on my feet. We’d lost so much.
But we survived.
Made it better.
And kept the hell going.
So much has changed now, our lives are barely recognizable. I can’t even remember the last time I slept at the house or when we had my brother over for dinner. I’m going to be a father, and someday, even if it’s not this month or this year, I’ll marry Arden. And then what?
Am I leaving him behind?
The thought has my gut roiling, and I have to push it from my mind.
I won’t let it happen.
I won’t.
