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This is why it’s so hard to stay mad at him. This moment, right here, when I’m feeling so sad and alone, but then I look up, and suddenly… he’s here, without being invited or asked, on the one day I can appreciate it. Close enough to hug, close enough to lean on and feel like I can breathe again, like I’m no longer suffocating over the fact that I really don’t want to be here right now. It makes me not care at all that he’ll be gone in the blink of an eye and just want to grab onto my friend with both hands and enjoy every minute of him while he’s in town. Soak up all his comfort and support and hope that it can sustain me, once again, for another eleven months without him.
God, I’m pathetic.
“Good morning, ladies,” Ford greets everyone with a curt nod when he gets to us, while his eyes stay locked on mine.
My heart beats faster, and my hands get sweaty the longer he stares at me. I have no idea why I’m suddenly nervous around this man, when I should just continue being ticked off that he actually had the nerve to volunteer to be our babysitter and did such a good job the last few days I was almost tempted to pay him.
“The first time I make you scream my name, it’s not gonna be because you’re pissed at me.”
“I’m the only one who gets that job,ever.”
“I’m not fucking around anymore.”
Oh yeah, that’s why. I can only respond to his greeting with a choked wheeze when the words he said to me invade my brain. I hadfinallymanaged to stop thinking about them, wondering what the hell they all meant. At least my family still has the ability to speak.
“Eat shit.”
“Fuck off.
“Go away.”
“The ribs are almost finished! You can grab some before you turn right back around and go home.” Aunt Dawn smiles at Ford, always a pleasant hostess even when she’s mildly irritated.
“So, we’re grilling at the cemetery now?” Ford asks, not even phased by my rude family at this point.
Or the fact that we’ve set up what looks like a jolly good time celebration in the middle of a sea of headstones at the Harvest Grove Cemetery, complete with a pop-up canopy, dance music playing from a Bluetooth speaker, charcoal grill, coolers filled with alcohol, captain’s chairs, and multicolored balloons tied to the canopy, fluttering around in the cool, fall breeze at a place of mourning.
To top off this insanity, the Harvest Grove Cemetery is right in the middle of the movie tour route. There are currently at least thirty people standing on the other side of the black, wrought iron fence at the edge of the cemetery by the sidewalk fifty yards away, taking pictures on their cellphones of the crazy people partying with the dead.
My family grilling at the cemetery at nine in the morning isn’t the weirdest way we’ve spent our time here for the last eight years on October 5th. The first year, my mom invited the entire town, unveiling my dad’s headstone to reveal that his famous, top secret, never before shared apple cider moonshine recipe had been engraved on it. Because anytime he was asked for the recipe, my dad always said they could have it—“over my dead body.”
Last year, my aunt set up a popcorn machine and a movie projector, and we watched every movie she could find with the wordhellin the title, to represent where they assumed my dad and uncle were currently residing.
It’s all fun and games, a way to make us laugh instead of cry. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it doesn’t, and I have to fake it until I can get away from here. This is one of the years I wish I would have had the guts to stay in bed until October 5th is over.
“Matt and Brian loved to grill,” my mom answers Ford, smiling wistfully while she stands next to Aunt Dawn, who’s currently basting the ribs with her homemade sauce. “We figured teasing them with the smell of delicious BBQ that their lying, cheating, rotting corpses can’t taste was a good punishment this year.”
Ford just nods like this is the sanest explanation he’s ever heard, before moving over to the headstones our party is set up next to. Every headstone has a small pumpkin sitting on top of it, and a cluster of orange, yellow, and maroon mums planted in front of them, because ofcourseHarvest Grove also makes sure the cemetery is decorated properly for the month. Ford leans over and places the six-pack of pop in glass bottles he brought with him next to the mums in front of my dad’s and then moves over to my uncle’s, placing the bag of cashews he brought with him on top of the stone next to the pumpkin.
My throat gets tight and my eyes sting with tears, and not just because he always shows up here at the cemetery on the anniversary of my dad and uncle’s deaths without ever being asked to. The first year we met, I told him a story about when my dad and uncle were little boys, whenever they had any extra pocket money, they would always go up to the Harvest Grove Market and buy their favorites—a six-pack of grape Nehi pop in glass bottles and a bag of cashews—to split evenly between them. Every year on each other’s birthday, they would gift the other man the same treats, even though the only place you can find that particular pop in the glass bottles now is online. The two of them would enjoy the beverage and snack, just like they did when they were younger, in leu of slices of cake after presents had been opened.
My family takes great pleasure in sarcastically mourning my dad and uncle every year, while Ford does something sweet and thoughtful to remember them, because he knows I need a little bit of normal in the middle of all this craziness.
“Hey, babe. You okay?”
Ford’s whispered words in my ear as he takes a seat next to me is the only reason I’m glad I didn’t stay in bed this year. He studies my face with concern as he situates his big body next to mine in the grass to the left of my dad’s grave, kicking his legs out in front of him to cross his booted feet at the ankles and lean back on his hands. After spending the last two days on edge, with Ford standing guard over me with a scowl on his face, it feels nice to just be here with him right now like normal. Like friends.
I might be completely done with letting this man take over my life, but I will never stop being grateful I don’t have to spend this day all on my own, being the odd person out once again. I get that my dad did a bad thing, and we have a right to be angry about it. But it’s been eight years. He was still my dad, and he was a really, really good dad.
It sucks I feel like I’m not allowed to be sad today.
“Care to tell me why I woke up this morning to thirty boxes of brand new Converse shoes on my front porch?”
Being annoyed right now is much better than crying, even if the black pair with little candy corn all over them I’m currently wearing are the most adorable things I’ve ever seen. He still shouldn’t have replaced all my damn shoes. I’m not even going to think about the fact that after my initial anger subsided when I opened my door and saw all of those boxes, I spent the next hour giddily trying them all on, having entirely too much fun restocking my closet shoe rack, and incredibly grateful I wouldn’t have to dip into my emergency jail fund to replace all the pairs I never found.
“You really gonna try to be pissed about that?”
“Yes, yes I am.” I nod indignantly. “It’s not your job to fix all my problems.”
