I visit the new work site that we started a few weeks back. Usually, I live for this. I would walk around the site and feel the buzz of excitement coursing through my veins at the prospect of another project. Only this time it falls flat. I’m making money for our family company, and yes, the job is exciting enough, but it no longer holds the same wonder.
I spend a few hours in the makeshift office, going through the invoices that Emmy has been dealing with. She only works part-time for us now; the rest of her time is spent in her new endeavour of event planning. She’s organised, so she has the eye for it, but I am going to miss her organisational skills when her business takes off.
My phone starts ringing, my mum’s contact flashing on the screen. “Hi Mum, how are you?”
“I’ll be better when this bloody cold shifts, but that isn’t why I’m calling. I wanted to know if you would like to come for your tea tonight? I’m making cowboy stew, your favourite.” Shesounds so hopeful that I don’t have the heart to let her down, even though I’m not in the mood for company.
“Sure, Mum, do you want anything picked up for your cold?”
“No love, your dad has me stocked up on enough Lemsips to last me a lifetime. I’ll see you later, Cole, love you.”
“Love you too, Mum.” I end the call and start to pack up my things.
**********
Turns out that my mum's cowboy stew is exactly what I need. I picked up some freshly baked bread from the new bakery in town. Nothing can beat some of that bread lathered in butter and dunked in the stew. Maybe it would make my mum feel a little better, along with the bunch of flowers I have gotten for her. I order her up to bed early because she can barely keep her eyes open, and right now I’m elbow deep in suds, giving our plates a good clean. I’m entirely in my own world, so I don’t hear my dad come up behind me. I jump as he speaks.
“You seem deep in thought there, Cole. Want to talk about it?”
“I have no idea how even to start, Dad. I’m in way over my head.”
“Maybe you start like you do when you see your therapist; tell me about the one thing that’s on your mind.”
I answer without hesitation, “Lacey.”
He nods at me as if he knew all along. “Let me guess, you haven’t talked to her yet about where you're going or what you’re doing when you get there?”
I shake my head. “What am I supposed to say, Dad? ‘Hey Lacey, guess what? I’m seeing a therapist because I’m completely fucked in the head and want to be with you, but I can’t because I can’t have kids and give you everything you ever wanted’, You mean that?”
The fucker nods and laughs at me. “Wasn’t that hard, was it?”
That pulls a laugh from me, too. “In all seriousness, Dad, I don’t know how to start that conversation with her. I want to be right, I want to be cured of this…this fucking headache before I even try to talk to her.”
“Did I ever tell you about when your mum and I first met?” I shake my head and wait for him to continue. “She had big plans; she was going to go to university and after that travel the world for a year.” He smiles as he remembers, and love shines in his eyes. “I met her through a friend of mine. I had just started my own business as a labourer for hire. I’d drive around with my tools in the back of my van and ask if there was any spare work on the sites. Anyway, we met, and immediately I knew - I knew she was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. We had a summer together, and Cole, boy, was it the best summer of my life. Then September arrived, and she had to get ready to go off to university.”
Invested in the story now, I ask, “Did you go with her? Did you ask her to stay?”
“I did none of those things. Instead, I told her we had a beautiful summer, and that’s all it was. She went off to university, and I didn’t see her for another two years.”
“WHAT!” I don’t mean to shout, but jeez, talk about a twist in the story. “Sorry, Dad, but what the actual fuck?”
He laughs at my outburst. “Oh, believe me, I know how stupid I was. Your mum loves to remind me about this every few months.” He gets that wistful look in his eyes again. “I’m telling you this, Cole, because I have been where you are right now. I didn’t tell your mum how I felt because I didn’t feel worthy of her. I thought I had to make something of myself before I even tried, when all along your mum was waiting for me to get my head out of my backside.”
He grabs us two beers from the fridge. “I wasted two years of life without your mum, Cole. Two years that I'll never getback. Don’t let your fears today ruin your tomorrow. You need to either tell Lacey how you feel and make a go of it, or you set her free, because you can’t have her hanging on by a thread for the rest of her life. Sooner or later, someone will come along and they will see she is worth fighting for, and you, my friend, will lose her forever.” He clinks my bottle and takes his upstairs with him.
Well, shit. Now I'm picturing Lacey with Ted the Deadbeat Dad, and I do not like it, not one bit.I need to stop this non-date date.
**********
I wake up the next morning, determined to tell Lacey that going to this non-date lunch is a bad idea. I don’t trust this Ted, but I also know that Lacey is her own woman, and if I dare try to tell her what to do, she will have my balls carved up on a pretty platter. So I do the only thing left to do and seek some very unsound advice from my brothers.
Me
Lacey has a date with DBD
Arch
*fainting gif* Cole!!! Why did you let her do that?!
