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I’m glad my dad chose Pop as his name. It was what I called my grandfather, who was a great man.
“Can I keep him?”
My dad looks over the railing at her holding the turtle by his shell. “No. He belongs in the lake with his family. You can visit him whenever you’d like.”
She sticks her bottom lip out and looks at him with her muddy face. “I’m gonna name him Hunty after my friend Hunter. Hunty the turtle!”
Dad laughs as he looks at her with softened eyes. Ainsley puts Hunty back in the bucket Dad brought out and grabs her bubble wand, making bubbles for her new reptilian friend.
“She’s beautiful, son. Enjoy every minute with her.”
“That’s the plan. I can’t believe I missed so much of her life already. These days of waiting are killing me. Jillian is barely talking to me. It’s for the better. I want her to keep her space.”
“Son, you have done many things in your life I’m proud of, and this is not one of them,” my father says as I sit on a rocking chair on his porch.
“Tell me how you really feel.”
He sits beside me. His bones creak as he does so, age catching up with him in a way I don’t think he prepared for. “Now, I can’t ever imagine what your life is like. I’ve never had to endure the kind of pain your mother and sister have. I won’t imagine to know how I’d behave in your shoes.”
“That’s right,” I say to him. “You have no idea what this feels like. I know your feelings about Jillian, but I can’t pull her further into this. It’s bad enough that Ainsley is. Her genealogy is something I have no control over. We’ll help her as best we can. But Jillian? That I have control over.”
“Can you?” he challenges with a laugh. “Boy, you’re a good son, but a stupid man. I don’t know what it’s like to be you, but I know what it’s like to be me. I had a great wife. A top-notch,broke the mold when she was madekinda wife. We didn’t know all this was going to plague us, but I’ll tell you what. I’d have loved her to the end, no matter what.”
“You’re one of a kind.”
“Would you be there for Jillian if she had this disease?”
“I’d be there to the bitter end.”
He gives a harrumph. “Maybe you’re not as stupid as I thought.”
“Okay, you’d love Mom to the end, no matter what, but would you have had children with her? Knowing what you know now, would you still have had Peyton, knowing the life she lives?”
“Probably not. But I have no regrets. Peyton had a beautiful life before this. I wouldn’t have given up her healthy years and knowing her, being her father, for anything. I wouldn’t have given up the chance of having Lauren as my wild-child daughter. Most importantly, I’d never trade a day of having you as my son, Luke. Of all things this crazy life has brought us, having you by my side has been an absolute honor. I love you. No matter what happens, no matter what you need from me, I’ll take my last breath, being by your side, because that’s love.”
He pats my back, and I shake with emotion. I wipe my eyes with my pointer finger and thumb.
“Damn you, old man. You like to make me cry, don’t you?”
He pats me again and laughs. “You were always a big softie. Just like to pretend you’re all hard sometimes.”
“I always thought I was like Mom. Free-spirited and always wanting to see the world. I guess I’m like you too.”
“How so?” He raises a bushy brow.
“Now that I know Ainsley, I can’t imagine life without her. No matter what happens, I’m happy she’s here.”
“Me too, Luke. She’s a miracle.” He sighs as we watch Ainsley running in the grass, chasing bubbles. Her brown hair dances in the autumn wind. “Do you want to be with Jillian?”
“More than anything.” My words don’t take more than a second to say.
“What would you have done if you’d never run into her that night of the fire?”
I sigh as my daughter looks over at me with a huge smile. “I’d never have known Ainsley existed. I’d never have known this life with Jillian existed.”
“You’d still be wandering around, waiting to die. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes of a flame, you came back. Looks like those two taught you how to live again.”
“You believe in fate, old man?”
