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Ben was welcomed since he was a kid. After his father tried to kill him when he was a teenager—and gave Mia the scar on her eyebrow—she and Zach saved his life and brought him home for good. He hadn’t left ever since.
Something similar happened to Haley. I wasn’t privy to all the details, but I knew she was running away from her past when she ended up in Holy Water. With Gabe only a few months old, and with no working experience in the area, they employed her at the company, and Mia invited both of them to live with her—where they still were.
When I first met the Bryants, Zach, Ben, and I were still risking our lives as SEALs. Whenever I came back from an assignment, if my mother wasn’t around for whatever reason, I’d always find shelter and warm hugs inside that place. The Bryants were nothing if not huggers.
We were gathered at the back porch, recovering from the lunch feast. The kids were playing around us, sometimes venturing into the chilling weather in their open back yard, enjoying the last few days of the year without snow.
But mostly they stayed on the veranda with us, since Teddy wasn’t as steady in his walking. The little guy tried his best to keep up with Fee and Gabe, who slowed down for his sake.
He ambled from one side to the other, giggling at whatever grown-up called him on his mighty way. Whenever he lost his balance, Hugo was the first one to bump his cheek, wagging his tail lazily until his new friend got up.
Mia laughed softly. “Duckie walks like a little penguin.”
“Right?” Ben agreed. “And he’s just as clumsy. He just marches, without a single care about the obstacles in the way.”
“Much like his father,” Izzie chimed in as she played affectionately with Ben’s hair. I couldn’t be happier that my friend had found such a wonderful woman. Even if that was a vivid reminder that I had also found one and was messing everything up.
Ben, Mia, and I were sitting on the floor, forming a large triangle within which the kids could run and play, while Rosie was on the couch and Izzie and Haley shared the cushioned swing behind Ben. Yet among all those people I loved, I felt lonely. Lissie was supposed to be there with us. She belonged by my side, just like I belonged by hers.
I was mulling over it when Jackson came from the kitchen, holding a tray with several bowls containing layered dessert—another Brazilian delicious treat.
I was stuffed to my limit, but I’d never say no to their cooking. We were all chatting and eating when Teddy fell on his diapered butt in the middle of the porch. Ben hurried to help him up, leaving his dish unattended. Being the good boy he was, Hugo wasted no time cleaning Ben’s dish.
“NO! You little shit, that’s mine.” Teddy erupted in his adorable baby laughter at his father’s outburst.
Infused by sugar and Teddy’s approval, Hugo zoomed through the porch and around the back yard, to the delight of the three kids, who cheered him on, making him run faster, which excited the infants, creating a loop of laughter, zoomies, cheers, and curses—the last one by Ben, who wasn’t all that mad.
Our grief was very much present, yet we were all trying our best not to let it infect our day. It was the very first time we were all together after his memorial. Well, not all of us.
We were swapping stories from our families, Ben and Mia trying to get the other in trouble, all of us enjoying that reprieve from the pain.
“That kid was such a pain,” Ben groaned, throwing his head back against Izzie’s legs.
“I know!” Mia exclaimed. “He thought he was God’s gift to humankind. If that was true, then God was buying from a side-of-the-road convenience store.”
“Who was that kid again?” Jackson asked.
“Remember Willy? The little prick who moved here for a while?” Mia snapped her fingers in recollection. “I think he was related somehow to Mrs. Robinson.”
“The little shit who bullied me,” Ben volunteered. Before becoming part of the Mia-Zach-Ben trio, he was made fun of for being malnourished, and more often than not for not having new clothes. Sometimes kids, just like their parents, were jerks.
Jackson nodded, having remembered the jerk. “Right. Hewasannoying.” He scrunched his nose, much like Mia did when she disliked something. “He’s Mrs. Robinson’s nephew, but not even she could stand him.” He pointed at Mia. “Didn’t you used to prank him?”
“Prank? How is this the first time I’m hearing this?”
Answering Rosie’s question, Ben burst out laughing and nodded at Mia. “I’d forgotten about that. You totally did.”
“What did you do?” Haley asked sweetly.
She shook her head in laughter. “I was friends with Mr. Ramirez, the janitor. We used to change the combination of the jerk’s locker. I also asked Mr. Ramirez to open the vending machine for me, so I put all of Willy's stuff inside. He had to buy all his belongings again.” We cackled along with her. “Some of them got stuck, and he never got them back.”
“Did he know it was you?”
She turned to me. “It took him a while, but I think he figured it out. But he soon moved away, so all was well. Oh, I also sold his fancy backpack.”
“Sold?”
She nodded at Haley. “Yeah. It was well-built, made of some kind of strong material, and it also had wheels. So, I sold it.”
