Chapter 1
Summer’s gonna be a hot one, Bill thought to himself as he poured his morning coffee. He ignored the small splash on the countertop—same as every morning, he’d take care of it later. He was retired, but his hands still shook a little from years of driving dozers and diggers.
He glanced at the clock. His daughters would be here in a few hours. They had each called him about coming over for Father’s Day to spend time with him, and he’d told them all the same thing: come over for lunch. As usual, none of them were speaking to each other over something so petty he couldn't quite keep up with what it was this time. Come to think of it, he couldn't remember the last time he’d even seen the three of them in the same room.
He was getting up there. No man in his family had ever lived past seventy-two, and he was getting pretty darn close. He still had a few years, but he wanted to make sure he saw them all together as much as possible, just in case.
Bill reached for the dishes in the drying rack. He didn’t have much counter space in his small kitchen; it might be better to get these dishes put away and fold up the rack for now, he thought to himself. He grabbed the one lone plate that he always used and reached up to open the cabinet door. White and rimmed in blue flowers, his oldest, Rene, had bought him that dish set when he first moved in. Though he usually only used that same plate over and over.
Crazy how responsible she turned out—she was always the wild one. She took care of herself, so she was the one he saw the least; she didn’t need him the way the younger two did. Rebellious and independent, the only time she’d ever really needed him was when she was a teenager, whether it was picking her up from the ranger station or bailing her out from the back of a police car. She had calmed down a lot since then. She was a shift manager at a factory just outside of town now. It wasn’t her dream job, but she made good money, she was in charge, and he was proud of her. Her husband, on the other hand... in Bill’s opinion, she could have done better. Far better.
Bill thought the man was a pig and that Rene would be better off on her own. Luckily, she knew enough not to bring him up around her father, and definitely not to bring him over.
Bill reached for the case of pop sitting on the floor. As he lifted it toward the fridge, he caught a look at the photos stuck to the door. Little Jonny with his big ol’ glasses—his oldest grandson,
Laura’s boy. Laura was Bill’s second oldest, and she’d always been the nice one. She didn’t argue much growing up, wearing Rene’s hand-me-downs without complaint. When she did get something new, her mother would make her share it with her younger sister, Louise. When Louise gave it back ripped or stained—if she gave it back at all—Laura never made a fuss. She just patched it up and moved on.
He began emptying a grocery bag on the counter, taking out two bags of Middlesworth chips—regular and barbecue. He liked the regular himself, but he knew Louise’s boy, little Toddy, liked barbecue. Louise was his youngest daughter. She was also the most like her mother in Bill’sopinion; she liked to stir the pot when she got bored, and it seemed like she was always bored. She had to be the center of attention one way or another. Louise was on her second marriage now, though she’d traded up in Bill’s opinion. He didn’t have anything against her first husband, but the second just fit in better with the family. He tried a little harder.
They all looked similar for the most part—you could tell they were sisters. In truth, they all looked like him. His son, Billy, was the only one with dark eyes and dark hair, taking after Bill’s ex-wife. Rene and Louise were both blonde just like Bill, while Laura was the only redhead with freckles. The only other person in the family with red hair had been Bill’s older brother, Russ.
Sure, Bill had heard the rumors about his ex-wife even before Laura was born, but true or not, Bill never questioned whether Laura was his daughter. That was that.
Divorce followed this family like a plague, he thought to himself. He and his ex-wife, Marcia, had been divorced for about 5 years now. This was the first real house he’d had to himself since he left her with the trailer. This one, he and Laura’s husband had built together, and he was always proud of that. His own dad would’ve wanted it that way too—though he wouldn’t have been proud. If he had been, he never would have shown or admitted it. Nonetheless, he would've wanted Bill to build it himself. That knowledge was peace enough for Bill.
Father’s Day... his daughters coming to celebrate, well, him. He had never celebrated it with his own old man. What had there been to celebrate? His dad had hated being a father; he hated everything, and everything seemed to hate him back. Bill still remembered his last few days in the hospital—everyone standing around waiting for the old man to die so they could get on with the funeral arrangements and move on with their lives. His dad had been too weak to speak, but if he could have, he probably would have told them all to go to hell.
Bill wasn’t going to go out like that. Not in a hospital with everyone standing around staring at him. Nah, his easy chair was more like it, or maybe the couch. Bill never went to the doctors unless he absolutely had to. In his mind, they only ever gave you bad news or told you what you were doing wrong. He’d already stopped drinking and smoking for the grandkids; that was enough.
Bill never had to question whether he’d been a better dad than his own father. He never beat his kids—not unless they really needed it, and even when they deserved it, he often refrained. Sure, he’d yell, but Marcia took care of most of the discipline. He sometimes found it amusing, sometimes annoying. Maybe he should have taken a larger responsibility in raising them, or maybe he would've just made things worse. His kids argued and bickered with each other about something or other, but overall, he thought they’d turned out well enough. What did he know about being a father anyway? He certainly hadn’t been given a good example.
Now, being a grandfather—that was another story. He would do anything for those grandkids. They were always so excited to see him when he came home from work. Sometimes they were the only reason he’d wanted to come home when he and Marcia were still together. She was always in a nasty mood, and he could hear her chewing out the kids through the kitchen window from the driveway. He could feel the tension in the air the second he walked through the door.
But when little Jonny—so excited to see his Pappy—came running, nothing else mattered. Jonny was Laura’s boy, his first grandchild. Laura had him in high school. As much as Bill hadwished she’d waited, settled down, or at least gotten married first, he did not regret that little boy for a second.
Laura had Lynnie shortly after—a boy and a girl, about two years apart, each with a different dad. He had no idea what had gone through Laura’s head at the time, and he hadn’t asked. He knew she’d wanted to marry Jonny’s dad, but he wasn’t the type to settle down like that. Lynnie’s dad had wanted to marry Laura, but then one day Laura said she never wanted to see him again. Bill didn’t know what had happened between them, figuring if Laura needed his help, she would’ve asked for it.
All she asked was to come home for a while so she could get a job at the sewing factory and save up some money. He knew the trailer was small and cramped with him, Marcia, Rene, and their youngest son, Billy. Louise had gotten married and moved out soon after high school—Bill always suspected it was to prove she was doing things the “right way” where Laura had strayed. So yes, the trailer was small, but he was happy to have them there, even if their mother wasn’t.
Marcia would ask every day, "Are you moving out? What’s the plan? Have you found a place yet?" She had wanted Laura to find a man with money to take care of her and the kids, but Bill was just happy to have someone around who was glad to see him. He didn’t want her to rush into anything. She had rushed life enough already.
Bill unpacked the hoagies he'd picked up the evening before and started clearing old junk mail off the kitchen table, knowing the girls would be here soon. They could all finally be in one room together and have some lunch for his sake. Billy wasn’t coming. This was his first year as a father himself, and his wife was taking him out.
Bill was proud of him for avoiding all the family drama. Heck, Billy avoided most of the family, period. He had married someone his sisters didn’t like, and she clearly didn’t like them back. She didn’t want to put up with the drama, so they didn’t attend many family gatherings—not that there were a ton of those anyway.
Bill thought he heard a car pull up outside. Realizing he hadn’t unlocked the front door, he walked from the kitchen through the hallway and into the living room, the cold, heavy wood floor creaking lazily beneath his steps. He peered out the front window. No one was there.
He unlocked the latch and pulled the inside door open, lifting it slightly so the bottom seal wouldn’t stick—he didn’t want to deal with replacing that again. As he pulled the door back, something fell. It couldn’t have been a delivery; it was Sunday. There on the ledge between the two doors lay a blue envelope. The front simply had:
For Bill
scrawled in cursive.
Hmm, maybe Billy dropped off a card on his way down the mountain, Bill thought.He opened the envelope to reveal a Father’s Day card. The front was basic—plain light blue with HAPPY FATHER’S DAY in big, bold brown lettering.
He opened it up. Inside, in that same cursive handwriting, he read:
Happy Father’s Day, Dad.
Thanks for the good times we had together. Remember when we used to watch the airplanes?
