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“Where’s Ethan?” I frowned to myself still not seeing him.
He wasn’t with Coraline and Declan, who were busy dancing to music while their two kids danced around them. After Coraline’s recovery, she hadn’t been able to carry any children herself. So instead, they’d adopted a baby girl, Helen, and then, through a surrogate, they were able to have a boy, Darcy. Helen and Donatella had formed an alliance against all the boys in the family. Every water, snow, and dirt fight was their doing.
“There he is.” Mel pointed to Ethan, who had donned his favorite hat while he sat perched on a tree branch with a book. “It looks as if he’s trying to be mature again.”
Since he was the eldest boy, he tried to act as though he was above his siblings and cousins. He wanted to be treated like a grownup.
“You got this, or should I?” Mel asked.
“I got it.”
She nodded as she moved over to my mother who sat behind her easel trying to paint. It was the only thing that made her happy anymore, outside of the family of course. And she’d become really good at it. She’d even done a family portrait and managed to put my father it in, right where he should be.
“Ethan,” I call up the tree.
“Hi, Dad,” he said, not looking up from his book, which wasn’t really a book but an Italian dictionary.
“Are you trying to learn Italian?” This was new.
He shrugged and looked down at me. “I wanted to know what mommy was yelling at you.”
“She was not yelling—”
“She was. She was really mad, and mom only speaks Italian when you do something bad,” he stated.
These kids were going to kill me.
“Well, what have you gotten so far, smarty?”
He grinned as he lifted up his paper. “Are you fucking—”
“Okay, that’s enough,” I cut him off.
“Yeah, that’s all I have anyway. She talks too fast.”
“Well, can you join the family now?”
He looked around the park then shook his head. “They’re all babies and you told me I had to start being a man.”
“I meant that you had to stop ratting out your uncles and me when we have poker nights without your mom.” He needed to stop taking everything so literally.
“Dad, I don’t want mommy to yell at me in Italian. Rule sixteen: Never displease mother.”
Now he was using our rules against us.
“Yes, but rule: Fifty one says always tell your mother the truth unless it goes against the wellbeing of your father.”
His mouth dropped open, and he jumped out of the tree. I caught him, but he rushed out of my arms, making sure that no one saw.
“That is not a rule!” he said as he placed his hat back on his head.
“It is too.” Now.
“It is not.”
“Ethan, you can’t argue with the maker of the rules.”
“I want these rules in writing, like the bible or something.” He huffed as I laughed…he would get them the same way I did.
“Ethan, it’s family time, go have fun and act like a kid, that’s an order.”
He pouted but sighed. “Fine, but only because you told me I have to.”
“Of course.” He nodded and began walking off. Suddenly I remembered what I intended to ask him. “Ethan?”
“Yeah?” He stopped and looked back to me.
“Why doesn’t your brother talk in class?”
He grinned. “It’s a secret.”
“Ethan.”
He sighed. “He likes a girl and he made her cry before, so now he’s scared to say anything when she’s around. Don’t tell him I told you, okay? And don’t tell Mom!”
“Okay.” I couldn’t help but smile.
So Wyatt had a crush. I knew why he didn’t want their mother to know.
“Mr. Callahan,” Avery Barrow, my former cellmate from what seemed like a lifetime ago, walked up to me, escorted by Monte. He had grown into a highly revered political correspondent and reporter over the years.
“Avery, thank you for making it.”
“Of course, Mr. Callahan, I’m assuming it’s time for me to pay off my debt?” He smiled and I nodded before I turned away from the family.
“I’m going to need you to take care of something for me,” I said to him as Monte handed him a photo.
His mouth dropped open.
“Is there a problem?” I asked him.
He shook his head, but opened his mouth anyway, a small smile lingered on his lips. “I always thought the bad guys lost in the end. That world had to balance itself out.”
My eyebrow raised at him as I snickered. “You know why they invented superheroes? Why billions cling to fictional characters in movies and books?”
He shook his head.
“Because they know that here in real life, the villains run the world. Why else do the good die young?”
“I look forward to living a long life,” he replied, reminding just how much he’d changed.
“Make her look good, Avery,” I replied as I left him, and headed back to my wife.
She sat on a white blanket while Donatella ran back and forth every few seconds, and left a dandelion in her mother’s hand with every trip.
“What’s going on?” I asked, as I took off my shoes and sat down.
“She wants to make a crown of dandelions, but the wind keeps blowing them away,” Mel answered as Donatella came back with a single dandelion and placed it in her hands.
“Sweetheart, you know you can pull more than one at a time, right?” I asked.
“I know,” she said before she went back to get another one.
I look at Mel who just shrugged. Things were either done Donatella’s way or no way at all.
“So Avery—”
“He’s going to take care of it,” I told her.
“Aren’t you going to miss Chicago?” she whispered as she looked at the skyscrapers that stood in the distance of the park. She was already getting her ahead of herself…but then again we always got what we wanted.
“It’s only for eight years.”
I leaned in to kiss her when a dandelion was shoved into my face. I glanced at Donatella who grinned as I accepted it. Then without another word, she ran off again.
I tucked it behind Mel’s hair before I said, “Melody Callahan, future President of the United States of America, I love you.”
“Liam Callahan, future First Husband, I love you more.” She kissed me.
This is my life. Our life. And I wouldn’t have traded it for the goddamn world.
***
THE END
