Phil motioned for his family to settle around the table. They’d added more chairs in the last five years.
He liked seeing that. Knowing his family was growing, was going to keep growing.
“It’s normal. So is the anger,” Nate said. “I felt it after my father died at my feet.”
“Nate had anger down pat,” Perci said. “At least where I was concerned.”
“I was angry at myself for letting you get beneath my skin—and not doing anything about it. I was afraid. I’m not too ashamed to admit that. I was afraid of something developing to the same deep level that I saw between my parents. I saw her face when my father died. I’ll never forget that moment.”
Levi reached out and touched his brother on the shoulder.
“The thing is, grief…makes us think things that just aren’t true,” Matt added, taking their daughter from Pip. “Part of healing is putting that behind us. Understanding. Moving on. What happened to your mother was no one’s fault but the woman who drove drunk and crossed the center line. That it was the three of you out there was just bad circumstances. It could have been anyone. Someone in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s it.”
Phil knew they were right, his family. “It doesn’t make it easy to let go of.”
“No,” Perci said. “It doesn’t. And it takes time. But we’ll all get there eventually. We get a little closer every day. I like Glenna a lot, by the way. I think she fits you. The you you are now, not the man you were five years ago. Although that man was a good man, too.”
“Me, too,” Phil said. This was not how he’d ever intended to tell his kids. “Listen, I don’t know what will happen between us. Her job may eventually become full-time. Rhea has already spoken with her about it. She might want to move closer to town. Robin is moving back, too. She and Glenna are extremely close. She might want to live in town near Robin and the kids. I just know that…the world looks a little brighter when I’m with her. I feel brighter. Younger. Alive again. I kind of lost that over the last few years.”
He had felt alive with that woman today. And he didn’t just mean the making love. No. It had been more than that.
Phil felt like he had found home again.
“So everything is just going to fall into place perfectly?” Phoenix asked. “Like mom never existed.”
“Now that’s just being stupid,” Pan said hotly. She and Phoenix always had tangled the most. “Let’s be realistic here. Look at us. Look at what, who, Mom left behind, Phoenix. Eight kids and seven grandkids already. People who will remember her and look like her forever. Do you think she would want Dad to go through life alone, just a caretaker for the rest of us? Hell, no. She’d want him out there finding someone to love. Just like she would have been beyond thrilled to have met Levi and his brothers. There is no way I would want Levi to spend the rest of his life alone, if something happens to me.”
The rest of the girls nodded in total agreement. Pip stood, moved right in front of her younger brother. Until he was looking at her. She spoke in her quiet voice that always resonated so much. “Now you’re being selfish. Consumed with how everything made you feel. You’ve wrapped your cloak of pain around you so tight you can’t see that it’s time to throw it off and actually live in the world again. We aren’t going to wallow in it with you, even though we definitely understand it. We all know what it was like back then. We’ll never forget it. I’d like to think it means we can appreciate what comes next so much more.”
Phil listened to his daughter’s words and knew she spoke the utter truth. “Your mother wouldn’t have wanted any of us to not have love.”
“Fine then. You’ve all figured it out. I’m going…back to town. I just…hope everything works out perfectly for all of you.”
Just like that, his son stormed out of the house again. Like he had so many times before.
Phil took a step after him. Stopped.
Phoenix was twenty-two years old. At that age, Phil had a baby on the way, a wife to support, and a ramshackle cabin on the corner of his dad’s property. They’d added four more kids before they had been able to move out of that two-bedroom place into this one. It hadn’t been much of a step up, considering the shape this place had been in then. It had just been bigger. With more problems to fix. But he had fixed them.
He had built it into something he could be proud of. Him and Becky both. The fruit of his labors surrounded him now.
It hadn’t been easy.
He’d been angry and terrified and worried more often than not. But he’d put on his big boy boots and stepped his rear out into the snow when it was snowing, out in the rain when it was raining, and out in the heat when it was scorching.
To do what had to be done.
Because he had a responsibility to the ones he loved.
A responsibility to himself to be the kind of man he wanted to be. The kind of man he was raising his sons to be.
Phoenix…it was time he figured a few things out on his own.
Apparently, Phoenix wasn’t ready for that just yet.
But Phil had faith that he would be. When it was time.
He turned back to his daughters.
It was time they all had a serious talk.
Then he would make dinner. Give Glenna some time to herself tonight. Let her find her balance after this.
Because come tomorrow, he had plans to make. Plans that involved her.
Phil looked at his daughters and their husbands, at the love they had between them.
He wanted that again. That intrinsic connection that was so strong between his girls and their husbands that it was almost visible.
And he wanted it with Glenna.
Phil considered himself a man of action—when he had a plan, he stuck to it. Now he had to figure out how to make what he wanted with Glenna happen.