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“Ah. That explains why everyone calls it Tipper’s.”
“Yeah, he’s determined to win the cardboard boat race this year, so he’s been experimenting with different designs.”
“A cardboard boat?” My brows shot up in surprise. “That far out in the lake?”
“Oh, he had to swim back in a time or two. See, that’s why he tows the little rowboat behind him.”
Only in the Beard. This was one of the reasons I’d moved here to raise my kids—so they could get to know people who weren’t afraid to fail. It was a lesson I hoped to instill in my youth hockey players, too.
If you never fail, you aren’t trying hard enough.
I had that saying taped to my locker for years. With the right mindset, all failures build us into stronger, more resilient people. I knew there was a lesson in my failed marriage somewhere, but it was hard to find it when my kids still cried for their mom sometimes.
“Dad, Spencer scared me!” Marley cried, running down the stairs.
“Spence, leave your sister alone,” I said absently.
“She’s the one who scared me with her ugly face,” he said.
“Hey.” I turned to lock eyes with him. “Don’t be mean to your sister.”
He scowled and headed for the basement. I looked back out at the lake, envisioning a future where I woke up to this view every morning.
Despite my fighting children, this place gave me a sense of peace. The lapping waves and scent of freshly cut wood were part of this place that was just mine, Spencer’s and Marley’s. There would never be memories of Andrea here.
We’d have birthday parties, Christmas mornings and sleepovers here. This would be a place where my kids were always safe, loved and wanted. I’d never let anyone else into their lives who would leave them. Fail them. Make them feel like they weren’t good enough.
“The stone came in for the fireplace,” Ray said. “Want to see it?”
“Yeah, I do.”
I followed him out to the large three-stall garage, where building materials were stored until they were needed. There was also a separate two-stall garage with a loft on the side of my property, which I planned to make into a workshop.
Andrea’s affair had forced me to change. I’d been a self-centered, chirp-serving hockey player who spent a few hours a week with my kids. Now, I was a retired full-time dad planning my future woodworking shop and helping build a youth hockey league.
I loved playing hockey bone-deep, but I was a better version of myself now.
“What do you think?” Ray asked, picking up a gray stone that was the size of a small dinner plate.
“I think I was right,” I said, grinning.
We’d worked with a female architect and a female interior designer to plan my home, and the designer had been adamant about putting shiplap on the two-story fireplace in the open great room, but I wanted stone.
Earthy, uneven stones would balance out the smooth hardwood floors, giving the great room a strong, rustic focal point. I didn’t want to build the farmhouse-style home the designer kept trying to get me into.
“Fuck shiplap,” Ray said, carefully setting the stone down.
“My man.” I fist-bumped him in agreement.
“The masons will be here Tuesday to get the fireplace done.”
I was looking forward to crackling fires on snowy winter evenings when the lake was frozen over. I’d ice-skated on the lake, and my kids would, too.
Maybe someday I’d have someone curled up beside me on those cold evenings. It wouldn’t happen for a while, though, if ever. My kids only had one parent left, and I didn’t want them to worry I’d leave them, too.
Hell, celibacy was nothing new to me. Andrea had stopped wanting sex with me a long time before she left me. At least now I knew there wasn’t even a hope it would change.
No one had it all, and that was something I’d just have to learn to live without.
