CHAPTER 19
Kade let out a breath as he stood over Patrick’s headstone. He lowered down and traced the engraving as tears threatened the back of his eyes. It still didn’t seem real to him that Patrick was gone.
He rested back on his heels and he looked out over the rest of the cemetery. Patrick had good real estate up here. His plot was on a small hill nestled under a tree that provided ample shade for visitors and he was laid to rest beside his grandfather and mother. As he stared down at his name etched into the stone he wanted to scream that God got the wrong man. He should be the one six feet under, not Patrick.
Patrick was good. Truly good. He had a family and people that loved him. People that depended on him. Patrick never hurt anyone. Patrick should be the one visiting Kade here, not the other way around.
“Well, P Daddy,” Kade began using the nickname that had started out as P Diddy when they were teenagers but morphed to P Daddy after the twins were born. “Sorry, I haven’t come by to see you sooner. I’ve been trying to get my shit together and it’s not as easy as you made it look.” Kade’s voice cracked, and he paused until he had control over the emotions that were fighting their way to the surface.
He cleared his throat and pushed through. “I…um…didn’t take the news that you were gone well. I don’t know if ghosts are real, but if you happened to stop by your own funeral then you already know that.” Kade sighed, “I’m sorry about that. I should’ve been honoring your memory and instead I was being a belligerent asshole.
“The first few months after you…,” Kade couldn’t quite finish the thought, “I was blackout drunk. But then I got help. I went to rehab but all that time I left Ali and the boys alone.” Tears filled his lower lids. “I wanted to come back after rehab, but I had to know that I wasn’t going to put them through what our parents put us through. I had to know that I wasn’t going to be my dad.
“But I’m here now and the boys are good. Ricky looks just like you and he’s having a little bit of a hard time with that. He misses you. We all miss you.” Emotion rose in his chest, choking him as he thought about how unfair life was. “But, he’s going to be okay. I told him that at least you looked like Chris Hemsworth and not Chris Farley. And he asked, “Chris who?” I don’t mean to talk shit about your parenting skills, but how in the hell are the twins thirteen and still haven’t seen Tommy Boy?”
Tommy Boy had been Patrick and Kade’s favorite movie when they were in the fifth grade. That and The Godfather. They had diverse taste.
A sad smile lifted on his mouth. “But, seriously, Ricky’s a great kid. He’s smart and funny. He stays out of trouble. He likes to read, which is good. But don’t worry, I’m going to make sure that life doesn’t pass him by while his nose is in a book. Ethan’s taking them both four-wheeling on Friday. They haven’t been since…”
Kade wiped a tear that slid down his face and refocused. “And KJ is good. He’s gotten into some shit, but nothing that’s going on his permanent record. Ethan’s been keeping an extra close eye on him. He’s taking jiu-jitsu and he’s got some serious moves. He’s got some anger he’s dealing with but what teenager doesn’t.
“There’s a girl that comes by to see him a lot. A cute blonde named Presley. She’s named after Elvis. She’s really good at math and softball. And her favorite television show is Rick and Morty.
“Guess how I know all of that. KJ told me. For a girl he doesn’t like he sure knows a hell of a lot about her and talks a hell of a lot about her.” Kade shook his head as he smiled. “His room is a mess, just like yours was. I told him that he needed to keep it clean if he ever wanted to sneak a girl in there. And guess what? Twenty minutes later it was clean. Well, cleaner.”
Thinking about Ali’s face when he’d been carrying her upstairs to give her a bath and they’d passed by KJ’s room made him chuckle. She’d done a triple take and made him go back a few steps so she could see it again. She’d stared into the cleaner room for a good minute before she asked him what voodoo magic he’d used to get KJ to clean. He’d told her it was ‘guy stuff.’ She then slapped him on the chest. And he’d kissed the irritation right off her cute face.
A tight knot formed in Kade’s chest as he thought about Ali. He understood her concerns about the boys, but it had been two days since he’d touched her, other than helping her while she hobbled around. He hadn’t been able to kiss her, to hug her, to make sweet love to her and it was driving him crazy. But he had to respect her decision, even if he didn’t agree with it.
She’d made it clear that they were “just friends.” That they’d had one night of fun but nothing could happen between them. He’d wanted to argue with her, and he might’ve if he hadn’t seen the look on her face when KJ unexpectedly came by the house to grab something for school.
All of the color drained from her face and she started stuttering as she told KJ they were just eating breakfast. They were just eating breakfast but she’d tripped over her words like she was lying through her teeth. When he left she’d given Kade the third degree asking him if he thought KJ knew anything. The panic she felt over the boys finding out about them was palpable.
But that didn’t change how he felt about her or them. It just meant he was going to be benched for a while. He just hoped no one came and knocked it out of the park before he got back up to bat.
“And Ali. Ali is…” He started to say good, but he stopped himself. “She’s tough. You know that. But, I’m not going to bullshit you, this past year and a half have been hard on her. She’s holding it all together, making sure the boys are good, the business is running, but there’s dark circles under her eyes, and she’s lost some weight.
“She has an onion trick that Ricky says she uses every time KJ catches her crying in the kitchen. He gets upset, really mad if he thinks she’s upset. So she’s come up with all these excuses. If he hears her crying in her room, Ricky says that she tells him she’s watching Steel Magnolias or Me Without You or another tearjerker. If he hears her crying in the bathroom she says that she weighed herself or she has a pimple. And once he caught her crying sitting in the truck in the driveway, and she told him she saw roadkill on the way home.”
Every time he thought about her dealing with her grief alone and having to hide it, he second guessed whether he’d done the right thing staying away…but there was nothing he could do to change the past. All he could do was look forward.
Regrouping he continued, “KJ’s sensitive. Ricky’s observant. KJ’s been trying to protect her from the pain his way and Ricky tries to protect her from it by helping her. He does chores and works at the store in his free time trying to make her life easier. They’re such great kids, but they’re just kids.”
The regrouping didn’t work and Kade hung his head as damn tears sprung to his eyes again and he voiced his greatest shame. “I should’ve been here. You were counting on me. She was counting on me. The twins were counting on me. And I was so fucked up. I’m sorry, Patrick. I’m sorry I let you down. I’m sorry I let Ali and the boys down.”
Kade tried to breathe but his chest felt like it was being crushed by a boulder. He took a moment to collect himself. “There’s one more thing. I love her, man. Ali,” he clarified. “I love Ali. I have for a long time. Ever since Vegas. I know that I’m not the person you’d want her to end up with, and I think she agrees with you.”
He sniffed and his mind replayed the moment she told him they didn’t have a future. It was like a serrated knife twisting in his heart.
“But, if she changes her mind, I want you to know, I’m going to lock that down. If she gives me the green light I’m going to ask her to marry me. I want her to be my wife. I want the twins to have what we didn’t have growing up. I want them to have a home with two people that love them and each other.” Kade laughed when he thought of how much he and Ali had bickered all their lives. “I know what you’re thinking. That if that’s what I want I should see if they can live with the Myer’s.”
Jess’s mom and dad had been married for over forty years and still couldn’t keep their hands off one another. They’d had a child with serious health issues but somehow they weathered it. It might’ve even brought them closer together.
Kade scrubbed his hands over his face. “But, it’s different now than it used to be. We’re good together. We still call each other out on our shit, but that’s good. I love her, man. And I just needed you to hear it from me.”
The weight that he’d been carrying around for years finally lifted off of him and he sat for a few more minutes in that moment. He was about to leave when he remembered, “Oh and I’m not sure if you know this, but George is sick. He’s dying, I guess. And he’s doing it stone cold sober.”
Kade sat and talked to Patrick for another hour. He told him about the town and how everything was the same but different. He talked about his last fight and how badly he’d fucked up. He told him that he was meeting with Kennedy the next day to look at places to rent and what he was thinking he should get in a house. He wanted rooms for both twins so they could have their own space when they visited him.
He just talked about life. Life that Patrick was missing because he was gone. But for the first time since Kade had got the call that his best friend died, he didn’t feel like his best friend was so far away. He felt like part of him was still around. Still here. Kade knew it was just a feeling, but hell, so was loneliness, pain, and despair. He’d take feeling there was a part of Patrick that was still here, over those feelings, any day of the week.