I turn the doorknob slowly, trying to sneak back inside as quietly as I’d left. I stop when I get inside and smell coffee brewing. I squeeze my eyes closed and wince inwardly. “Morning, Jake,” Pop sings out from the kitchen.

I walk around the corner. “Morning, Pop.”

“Did you have a good night?”

I nod and pour myself a cup of coffee. Pop’s probably going to make me go clean a bathhouse or something.

Pop grins over the rim of his coffee cup. “How’s Katie?”

“She’s fine.”

He pats the table in front of him. “Come sit for a minute,” he says.

“Can I just get my toothbrush, instead?” I swear, I would rather clean a bathhouse than get a talking-to now from Pop.

He kicks a chair out with his foot and points to it. “Sit.”

I drop into it with a groan.

He lifts his newspaper and pulls a brown envelope from underneath it. “When your mother found out she was dying, she asked me for only one thing.”

Pop rarely talks about my mother. But I do know he loved her fiercely, and he loves me with just as much ferocity. He is tough, but he is fair, and he is the standard by which I make all the decisions in my life. I can be a father now because he’s been such a good example of one my whole life. I’ve watched, learned, and listened.

“What did she ask you for?”

Pop takes a sip of his coffee. “She said that when I knew you were settled and happy, that I need to make sure you stay that way.”

He slides the envelope toward me. I don’t touch it.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I finally think you’re settled and happy, you big dummy.” He pushes the envelope a little farther toward me.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Open it.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Chickenshit.”

I shove it back toward him. “You can’t make me.”

He stares at me. “You sure?” He drums his fingers on the table.

“Damn it, Pop.”

As I open the envelope and fan the enclosed paperwork around me, Pop starts to talk.

“Your mother’s only concern when she lay dying was that she wanted to be sure I took care of you. I always have, or at least I’ve tried.”

A big ball of emotion chokes me.

“She worried about you, Jake. She wanted you to have the life we had. She wanted you to have the happiness we had. She wanted the world for you.”

“And it was your job to get it for me?”

“Fuck no,” Pop bites out. “It was my job to teach you to get it for yourself.”

I can’t speak.

“Your mother was the gold standard. The day she put you in my arms for the first time was the happiest day of my life, Jake.”

“Thanks, Pop,” I choke out.

“I watched you with Laura, and I hoped one day you would come to love her like I loved your mother, but you never did. And she never loved you like your mother loved me. You two just kind of skated along. You were content, but you weren’t really happy. And every time I saw you together, I worried more and more that I was letting your mother down.”

I swallow, but I still can’t speak.

“Then she cheated on you with that big lug in my guest room, and it was the best thing that ever could have happened to you.”

“That big lug took a bullet for me,” I mutter.

Pop waves his hand in the air like he’s waving away smoke. “I don’t give a damn about any of that,” he says. “She did you a favor, because you ended up with Katie, and that girl loves you.”

“She loves you, too,” I say quietly.

“And I love her,” Pop says clearly. “And I love those kids like I would if they were made by you.”

“I know you do, Pop.” I look at the paperwork spread all around me. “What is all this?”

“This is your future, son,” he says. “Your mother inherited this place from her father, and then we ran it together. We raised you here, and we built something wonderful. And now it’s yours and Katie’s. If you want it, that is.”

“You’re giving us the complex?” I can barely breathe.

“Yes.”

“Starting when?”

“Now.”

I can barely ask the question. “What about you?”

He chuckles. “I’ll still be here, you dipshit.”

The clench around my heart eases a little.

“There’s enough money in the business account that you can keep the place running for a few hundred years, and I hope you’ll actively participate and help it grow. If you want to go back to New York, I’ll still be here. But I’d like for you two to run this place with me until I die.”

There’s that clench around my heart again. “You’re not sick, are you, Pop?”

“Oh, hell no. It’ll take more than a little bitty stroke to put me in the ground.” He laughs.

“Then why are you turning it over to us now?”

“I want to be with you and your family, Jake. You’ll have four kids and a wife, now, and you might need an old man like me around to teach them a thing or two. And I still need to beat that big one at blackjack.”

“Gabby,” I say.

He grunts. “Whatever.”

He leans to the left, looks out the window, and points to the adjacent property. “You could build your own house on the hill, if you want. Or you can stay here. There’s plenty of room. For everyone. Or if you want privacy, I’ll just take one of the cabins.”

“I want you with me, Pop,” I tell him around the lump in my throat. “I always want you with me.”

“You were your mother’s eyeball, Jake.” That might sound like a weird way of saying it, but I know it means I was the apple of her eye. I was her baby. I always knew that she and Pop loved God first, one another second, and me third. I never doubted my place in their lives. “She’d want you to grow old here, surrounded by people who love you.” He clears his throat. “Besides, who’s going to teach those kids to curse properly if I’m not around?”

I chuckle into my fist.

“Thank you, Pop,” I say simply.

“You’re welcome.”

“I’ll talk to Katie and see what she wants, okay?”

“Okey-dokey.”

“But no matter what, we’ll always be wherever you need us to be.”

He pats the back of my hand. “I just need you to be happy. That’s all I care about.”

“Thanks, Pop,” I say again.

He nods and jerks his head toward the hallway. “Now go take a nap. You can’t marry that girl looking like you been up fucking her all night.”

“Pop!”

“Don’t Pop me. A man doesn’t sneak into the house at zero-dark-thirty with a shit-eating grin on his face unless he’s been elbow-deep in some vagina all night. Now go take a nap so you won’t look like shit later. Go. Get.” He shoos me along.

I lean down to kiss his forehead. He closes his eyes and takes a deep, shuddering breath until I let him go and stand back up. “I love you, Pop,” I say.

“I love you too, Jake.”