Page 145 of Highball Rush
She smiled at me, laughing softly. “Of course I’m staying. I’m home.”
Scarlett sniffed loudly and suddenly burst into tears. I flinched backward, wincing. What in the hell was she doing?
“Oh, Scar, what’s wrong?” Cassidy asked.
“I’m just so happy for my brother,” she said through her sobs. “For all of us. Look at us, Cass. You’re married to Bowie and Jameson’s wedding isn’t far off. I still can’t marry Devlin till I’m thirty, but after that, he best be putting a ring on my finger. And my newest older brother is with an awesome girl, and someday they’ll be raising babies right here in Bootleg. Only they won’t fight all the time and Jonah won’t be drunk. And now Gibson is with Callie and I swear to god, Cass, it’s just too much.”
Cassidy wrapped her arms around Scarlett and patted her back. “There, there, Scarlett Rose.” She glanced at Callie. “Scarlett can hold her liquor like none other, but sometimes her feelings get a bit too big for her little body to contain.”
Bowie laughed and stood. “I’ll go get Devlin in case you need backup.”
She beamed at him. “Thanks, my sexy husband.”
“You’re quite welcome, my beautiful wife.”
“Y’all are so cute,” Scarlett wailed.
I shook my head at my sister, but I kinda knew how she felt.
Cash was tuckered out from half the town playing with him. He scooted over and put his head in Callie’s lap. Little guy looked like he was in dog heaven. Not that I blamed him. If my head had been in Callie’s lap, with her fingers running through my hair, I’d have looked that happy too.
I leaned over and whispered a few kisses across her cheek. “Hey, honey.”
She turned and met my lips with hers. “Hey.”
“Do you mind waiting here for a bit? There’s something I need to go do.”
“Of course not. But is everything all right?”
I kissed her again. “Yeah. Everything’s fine.”
“Okay,” she said with a smile. “We’ll be here waiting for you.”
“I know you will.”
* * *
The Bootleg SpringsCemetery was on the outskirts of town behind a rickety old fence that had once been white. Generations of Bootleg residents had been laid to rest here. Some had grand headstones marking their resting places. Others had simple grave markers made of concrete or stone.
I walked up the path that I hadn’t set foot on since we’d buried my dad. Before he’d died, I’d come out here once in a while to lay a flower on my mom’s grave. But since Dad’s casket had been added to the family plot, I hadn’t been back.
Today I didn’t have flowers for my mama. I had a more important reason for coming.
Shoving my hands in my pockets, I stopped and stared at the names on the grave markers. Jonah Daniel Bodine. Constance Faith Bodine. Small rectangles of concrete in the grass with names and dates. That was it. That was what was left.
“I know you thought I ruined your life,” I said aloud. “Having me changed everything for you, in ways you never wanted. And I gotta say, taking it out on me, on a kid, was a shitty way to handle it. I didn’t ask to be born, and I sure as shit didn’t ask for y’all as teenage parents.”
Taking a deep breath, I paused. “I can’t stand here and say you did the best you could, because you didn’t. But I’m done being angry about it. Maybe Scarlett’s had it right all this time. Maybe it’s better to keep the good stuff in here.” I tapped my chest. “And let the bad stuff go.
“I ain’t perfect, not by a long stretch. And there’s probably a fair bit I don’t know about y’all that made you who you are. There’s a lot of both of you in me, whether I like it or not. But I’m not going to get anywhere if I stay chained to the past.
“Y’all let one turning point in your life, having me, halt everything. Full stop. Y’all never got past it. That resentment you carried colored everything you did from there on out. But hell if I haven’t been doing the same damn thing. I let the yelling and the fighting and the anger stop me in my tracks. I’ve been living there, wallowing in it, my whole life. But no more. I ain’t standing here fixin’ to forgive you for you. I’m forgiving you for me.”
I paused again, rubbing my chin, my chest blooming with emotion. I sniffed it back and cleared my throat.
“Tucked in there, among all the bullshit you put us through, was some good stuff. I can admit that now. That’s what I’m going to take with me. As for the rest, I gotta let it go. Me wishing things had been different for all of us won’t change the past. All I can do is make a better life for myself and the people around me. For my family. I’m my own man and I get to choose who I am.
“Dad, thank you for saving Callie that night. Mom, thank you for helping him. Thank you for risking yourselves to protect an innocent girl. I wish it hadn’t led to more loss and pain. But I know if you were here now, you’d be proud of her.
