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Matt laughed. “I don’t need any details, Dad.” Rubbing his neck, which was amusingly tinged red, Matt glanced toward the window that gave a small view of the backyard.
Watching Matt squirm with discomfort, the way the boys did as young teens when Kevin would take Helen in close and make a show of kissing her noisily, provoked Kevin’s laugh. “Come on now, son. You’re a grown man with a wife of your own.”
Eyeing him with a smirk, Matt shook his head. “I don’t buy it anyway. You’ll be just over three weeks out from bypass surgery and have a houseful of Murphys for Christmas morning. You’re all talk. I was thinking about that though.” He shot a cautionary look at Kevin. “Your anniversary, not the honeymoon part. Let’s just leave that one between you and Mom so I don’t feel weird.”
“Thanks for clarifying.”
“What if Ty and I put up a wooden arbor near the mouth of the ridge trail? Lauren and Kenzie could make it special with evergreens and such. Mom so loves the outdoors.”
Kevin thought on that. “She does, but she doesn’t love to be cold.” It was December, after all, and they’d planned for the evening. “I think the sunroom is still the best choice. In front of the fireplace.”
Matt nodded an easy concession. “We’ll have our wives concoct a reason for her to clear out of here that morning then. Which, by the way, will be no small feat—especially since they can’t all be in on it. Lauren and Kenz will have to stay here to make sure everything looks good. Budging Mom out of the kitchen on a holiday will take a herculean effort.”
There was truth to that. “I could always fake another heart attack.”
“Don’t you dare.” Matt pinned him with a glare. “No one would be impressed by that sort of stunt.”
Nodding, Kevin went back to searching for matching pieces. Maybe there was something to this puzzling thing. It was a distraction from boredom. And a pathway into reflection. Not bad things at all.
“Connor says Jade loves the bench and arbor at the lookout over the lake.” Matt dipped into a fresh topic. “Said that little Miss Lily has decided someday she’ll get married there.”
A small grin poked on Kevin’s mouth as he thought on that small project. “Do you remember putting it up with me?”
Matt matched his happy, nostalgic look. “I do. My first project on the road with you.”
The first of many projects Kevin had done with his older boys—several of them for Harold Appleton at the Lake Shore Lodge. Kevin had loved that he could take his sons to jobs. That he could teach them carpentry skills, the unique dignity of work, and the love of God’s great outdoors, all at the same time. He’d loved working alongside his sons.
Some days he really, really missed that. Grown men now, they had families of their own. Jobs that kept them away. Lives that had branched out from beyond Kevin’s everyday view.
There had been a time when Kevin had sincerely hoped and planned that his boys would continue to work with him. Murphy and Sons. Then, when Kevin was out of it, Murphy Brothers. That hadn’t happened, and it wasn’t going to.
Help me let it go . . .
Kevin was proud of the men his sons had become, and he was grateful they could pursue their lives in a way that brought them joy. He put his mind toward that rather than the niggling disappointment of dreams come and gone.
After all, hehadgiven them a legacy. Matt had just said so—and it was a much richer, so much more important inheritance than any family business ever could have been.
The sound of footfalls against the stairs brought Kevin out of his head, and he turned to find Kate, Jacob’s wife, rounding the base of the steps, then striding toward him. When he connected with her blue eyes, she grinned.
“Daddy Murph.” Kate leaned over the back of the chair and wrapped a quick hug around his shoulders.
His heart lightened. There was no measure to the tender joy it brought Kevin to have Kate call himDaddy Murph. For all the strain that had been in his and Helen’s relationship with Jacob and Kate the first few years of their marriage, there was this beautiful, rare closeness between them now.
It was a unique bond—his and Kate’s. Once Kate had braved honesty with them about her past—her roots—Kevin had opened his own history to both Jacob and Kate with a depth that he really hadn’t shared with the other boys. His story and Kate’s story were so similar, and he understood with a distinctive intimacy why she’d worked the deception the way she’d done.
Jacob had asked Kevin once, after hearing the whole of Kevin’s young life, why he hadn’t told them all his story when they were young. Was he trying to shield them from the past? Was he still ashamed of it?
Some things are just hard, Jacob. Hard to live through. Hard to remember. Hard to talk about. There was so much humiliation in that life. To be honest, I just really don’t like to go back to it.
Kate had nodded with full understanding. Not long after that, she’d taken to calling KevinDaddy Murph—a name Lauren had tagged him with a few years before.It meant more than Kevin or Helen could put into words to have Kate soften to them, adopt them as her own.
Especially Kevin—because Kate didn’t have a dad. He’d known how deeply that affected a soul and was honored to become hers. It was a position he would never take for granted.
“You’re resting like you’re supposed to, right?” Kate propped her hands on her hips and put on her mom face.
A question on loop. “Here I sit. Did Helen send you?”
Kate grinned. “No. I snuck into the house, and Mama Helen didn’t catch me. Did you find the box?”
