Ford

“Fordie! We were wondering if you were coming or not.” My overly excitable cousin, Bristol, leaps at me, bouncing on her toes and flinging her arms around my neck. “I’m so glad you could make it. I didn’t see you last night, were you at the mixer?”

“I was. You were busy making rounds.” I give her a peck on the cheek. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you.” She places her hand on her heart, brows raised. “I saw your sister and Arlo. He is getting so big!”

I nod, pretending I don’t fucking hate small talk.

“Okay, come on,” she says, pulling me by the hand toward the dining room. “Everyone’s in here. And you haven’t met Devin yet. You’re going to love him.”

I follow her down a hallway filled with family portraits and down a couple of steps toward a sunken dining room with twelve foot ceilings, a view of the ocean, and a table that seats twenty-five. Only when we arrive, it isn’t the original Renoirs and Picassos that capture my attention, it’s the red-lipped beauty with the wild jade gaze seated at the far end.

She smiles when she sees me, a coy, hesitant, half-turned smile.

I look away.

Bristol introduces me to her fiancé, and I pretend to pay attention to the generic conversational bullshit coming out of his mouth. Nicolette watches me from where she sits, Arlo to her right. I went for a jog this morning, only meaning to do about three miles so I could clear my head enough to function today, but once I started, I couldn’t stop.

I kept going, running harder and faster, pushing myself until I had no choice but to stop and breathe. Really breathe.

The table is packed with family, some of which I hardly recognize. Others I haven’t seen since my father’s funeral ten years ago.

“Looks like there’s an open seat down there, Ford.” Bristol points to the spot across from Halston. “Have you met Mason’s girlfriend? She’s super sweet.”

Catherine and Mason flank her sides.

Jaw flexing, I take a sharp breath and make my way to the seat across from the woman who singlehandedly altered the entire trajectory of my career.

“Ford,” Catherine says, peering up at me through mascara-caked lashes. Her hand rests beneath her chin, and she still wears the diamond engagement ring my father purchased for her shortly after my mother died.

I suspect she’s only wearing it for show.

“Catherine.” I’m unable to hide the contempt in my tone, but I don’t fucking care. She should know by now that she disgusts me.

“Hi, Ford, I’m Halston,” she says, a glint in her emerald irises as she squares her shoulders. “Nice to meet you.”

Jaw slanted, I squint in her direction before relaxing enough to compose myself.

Fine. I’ll play along.

I’ll gladly pretend we’re strangers.

I hardly recognize her after all.

“Halston was just telling us she’s an avid reader,” Catherine says, grinning and twirling the diamond cross around her neck. “I told her I’ll have to show her your father’s old library. So many first editions.”

“Yes,” I say. “It’s a shame they’ve been just sitting there. Untouched. All these years.”

Catherine’s smile fades for a moment. “Those books meant so much to George. I can’t quite bring myself to part with them yet.”

They were supposed to be mine. My father had always promised them to me.

Must have slipped his mind to put that in the will before he died.

“I’m sure they’ll be worth a small fortune by the time you’re ready to sell them.” I sit back in my chair, eyes locked on Halston’s.

“Do you read, Ford?” Halston asks, lashes batting slow.

My chin juts forward as I contemplate my response.

“I’ll bet you’re a Kerouac kind of guy,” she says, propping her head on top of her hand, her full lips drawing upward.

“I had a Kerouac phase once,” I say. “Many years ago. Glad to say I finally came to my senses.”

Halston’s smile disappears. She sits a little straighter. “On the Road isn’t necessarily one of my favorite books, but it’s still an iconic classic in American literary history. It still has a place on my bookshelf, I’ll say that much. I revisit it from time to time, when I’m feeling … nostalgic.”

“Sounds like a perfectly good waste of time,” I snuff, glancing down the table.

“It’s not a waste of time at all. I enjoy it. I like thinking about Kerouac, his words and what they meant,” she says.

Our eyes hold.

“You know, some people say that Kerouac was just a regular guy, stuck between the life he was expected to live and the life he wanted to live,” Halston says. “An ordinary man placed in an extraordinary situation.”

From my periphery, I see Catherine and Mason exchanging looks.

“Okay, everyone, we’re going to head out to the beach.” Aunt Cecily stands at the head of the table. “Roger just got back with the Quahog clams. We’re going to dig our hole and get going! There’ll be games for the kids and drinks for the grown-ups!”

Chairs scoot, screeching against the wood floors, and everyone files out the sliding doors to the deck that leads to the sandy beach path. I stay back, letting everyone else go on ahead.

“Hey, you doing okay?” Nicolette taps my shoulder. I’d completely forgotten she was here.

Frowning, I say, “Of course I am.”

“Sorry you got stuck sitting with the evil queen.” She pouts.

“I survived.”

“I know you did. I’m proud of you for not causing a scene.” Nic pulls me by the arm toward the crashing waves. “God, they’re assholes. Did you see she still wears her engagement ring?”

I manage a curt chuckle. “I saw.”

“And how the hell did Mason land such a bombshell girlfriend?” she asks. “He’s so phony and awkward and a social idiot and she’s so refined and elegant. It’s got to be the money. That’s the only thing I can think of.”

“Does it matter?”

Nic laughs. “No. I suppose it doesn’t. I’m just being catty.”

By the time we make it to the shoreline, two of my uncles are digging a hole in the sand while the other one is prepping the rocks and seaweed. My aunt hands us each sweaty bottles of beer before chasing after two little kids who are running toward the lapping water.

“I wish Dad was here,” Nic says, uncapping her beer. “Seeing everyone … just makes me miss him. He’d be all about the clam bake right now. That was always his thing.”

Focused on the sea, I think about the man who made me who I am today, for better or worse.

“You need to forgive him.” My sister nudges me. “It’s been over ten years. What good is it doing for you to still be angry with him?”

“I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“He was our father. He was supposed to love us and take care of us.” My body tenses, the breeze blowing soft across my skin. “He just abandoned us. He wrote us off. Literally. He wrote us out of his will. Not even so much as a goddamned book to remember him by.”

“He was brainwashed by the evil queen. You know it. I know it. The people of the United States of America know it.”

Once again, my sister’s flippant disregard for a situation so tragic gets under my skin, though I suppose we each have our own ways of dealing with uncomfortable situations.

I build walls.

She makes jokes.

“Seriously though, you have to let it go.” Nicolette’s hand glides through the air. “Life is too damn short to spend it angry and pissed off, Ford.”

Arlo runs past, giggling and chasing after a few of the other kids. The last time I felt that free, that alive, I had just started my new job, and I was spending my nights chatting with a woman who put a genuine fucking smile on my face for the first time in years.

Glancing toward the rest of the group, I find Halston. The wind blows her dark hair, the strands undulating as she brushes them from her absinthe eyes, and she looks my way.

Half of me wants to swallow my pride, ask her how she’s been and if she’s thought about me as much as I’ve thought about her.

The other half of me wants to rut around in this anger, my fists still clenched and not yet ready to let it go. It takes a big person to forgive someone for destroying their career and shattering their heart. I always prided myself on doing the right thing, taking the high road, but that was then, when I was Kerouac.

And I haven’t been him in a long time.