I shifted my eyes toward Mrs. Ripton. She glanced up from her plate and nodded her head toward Kace. “Thank you, Kace.”
“Burgers are really good,” Ripp repeated sarcastically as his eyes darted around the table for something satisfactory to eat.
Ripp’s eating habits were similar to that of a teenage girl. He refused to eat hamburger, claiming it would make him fat. Although I wasn’t as big as Ripp, I was certainly in better physical condition, and I ate beef on a regular basis. Despite Shane’s and my attempts to convince him otherwise, he wouldn’t eat a hamburger if we tried to force him.
It was now apparent even his parents couldn’t convince him to.
“I say we go the next year and eat Sunday Burgers. I’d like to watch you wither away. You don’t fight anymore anyway,” his father said as he reached for another burger.
Ripp furrowed his brow and glared at his father. “I still fight. I fought last weekend.”
“Fightin’ in Rundberg doesn’t count, Mike. Bare knuckles fights are for kids and thugs. You need to grow up,” he said.
Katie choked on her food and began to laugh. I pursed my lips and shifted my eyes toward Ripp, fully knowing he would respond with some type of smart-assed remark.
“Grow up?” Ripp howled as he waved his arm toward his father. “I’ve got a house, a kid, and a wife. How much more can I grow up?”
“Shane bought you that house, you ain’t got a wife ‘cause you ain’t actually married, you’re still fightin’ bare knuckles matches in Rundberg for cash, and I’m holding your baby. I’d say you could stand to grow up plenty,” he responded.
“Gimme the baby,” Ripp demanded.
“Eat a burger,” his father said as he nodded his head toward the platter of hamburgers.
“I ain’t eatin’ a burger,” Ripp said. “Gimme the baby.”
Mr. Ripton shifted his eyes from Ripp toward me. “What do you weigh, Alec?”
“Hundred ninety-five, Sir,” I responded.
“You get on that machine at the gym? The one where they test your fat?” he asked.
“Body fat percentage? Yes, Sir, I do,” I responded.
He took a bite of his burger, shifted his eyes to Ripp, and glared at him as he chewed. After swallowing, he placed the remainder onto his plate and began to bounce the Jessie on his knee, but never moved his eyes away from Ripp.
With their eyes locked, he continued.
“So, Alec. What’s your fat? How much fat you got?” he asked.
“Eight point two percent this morning, Sir,” I responded.
“Huh,” he said, still staring at Ripp. “So, Mike. What do you weigh?”
“What’s your point?” Ripp asked.
Vee chuckled. “Answer your father.”
“Two-forty, give or take,” Ripp said.
“And the fat?” Mr. Ripton asked.
Ripp clenched his jaw and stared.
“Alec, you eat hamburgers?” his father asked as he shifted his eyes from Ripp to me.
“Yes, Sir,” I responded, fighting not to smile as I did.
“This is funny,” Katie whispered.
I nodded my head.
Ripp sighed, reached for the plate of burgers, and picked one up.
“None of your business,” he responded.
“I’m thinkin’ you could learn a lot from Alec,” Mr. Ripton said.
“Alec ain’t perfect, Pop,” Ripp snapped back.
“More so than you,” his father said as he reached for his burger.
“He’s got a different metabolism,” Ripp snarled.
“Sure does,” his father said as he finished his burger. “It’s called devotion.”
Ripp had already eaten half the burger. As he glared at his father, he dramatically opened his hands and dropped the remainder onto his plate. “You sayin’ I ain’t devoted?”
“I said all I got to say,” his father said.
“That’s about enough,” Mrs. Ripton said softly. “It’s Sunday, we should all get along.”
Katie grinned as she squeezed my knee. When we gathered on Sundays, I’d become accustomed to her having her hand on my leg for almost the entire meal, which was something that developed over time.
I glanced around the table as everyone quietly ate and realized I was amongst my family. Since moving to Texas, my old habits had faded away one by one, leaving a void within me. The void, entirely, had been filled with new events, new people, and new purpose.
There was no doubt in my mind I was exactly where I belonged.
After everyone finished their meal and began to tell stories of bare knuckles matches, changing diapers, and babies learning to eat solid food, I lowered my head and said a one-word prayer.
Courage.
I lifted my head, glanced at Mr. Ripton, and as he met my gaze, winked. In response, he furrowed his brow and glared back at me.
I stood from my seat.
“Since I’ve moved to this fine state of yours, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve grown considerably, and not in size, but in my ability to become human again. I look at each and every one of you as family, and I appreciate all you do for me,” I said.
“But something’s missing,” I said as I turned to face Katie. “Something I’m afraid I can’t go any longer without at least attempting to fix it.”
“There’s a huge hole in my soul, and I feel empty sometimes. So, tonight, I’m going to take a step toward repairing that one part of me that remains broken.”
I lowered myself to kneeling, reached into my pocket, and pulled out the ring.
“Katie, would you consider filling the void within me by agreeing to be my wife?” I asked.
Her mouth curled into a smile. She glanced toward her father. I did the same. He grinned and nodded his head. She gazed down at me with her beautiful blue eyes and responded.
“Yes,” she said excitedly.
As I slipped the ring onto her finger she reached for the back of my head with her free hand. I’d never been one for public displays of affection, but as she pulled me into her for a kiss, I didn’t resist at all.
I closed my eyes, kissed her, and allowed myself to become lost in the moment, but not so much that I wasn’t able to hear her father.
“Yeah,” her father said. “I’m thinkin’ you could learn a lot from Alec.”
Chapter Two Hundred Seventy-Eight
Summer 2015, Austin, Texas, USA
Regardless of my attempts to separate myself mentally or physically from my family, they were, and would always remain, my flesh and blood. No amount of effort, or lack of the same, would ever be able to break that bond.
I stared at the text message, reluctant to respond, but fully knowing I needed to.
It’s dad. Wherever you are, you need to come home. He’s bad.
As much as I despised some of the decisions my father had made, he was still my father. He was the man I once admired, and always looked up to. He was the one who taught me how to shoot a rifle, how to hunt, and how, at least initially, to defend myself. He made his values my values, and instilled a belief system within me that allowed me to become a hero in the eyes of many and a remarkable man in the eyes of at least one woman.
“Who was it?” she asked.
I glanced up from my phone and gazed blankly in her direction. The possibilities of what could have happened to him were running through my head, and it wasn’t so much that I didn’t want to face him, I really didn’t want to face the problem – or the unmistakable truth that he was getting older.
“Huh?” I murmured.
“Your phone. You didn’t answer. Who called?” she asked.
“My sister,” I said.
“Oh,” she said, narrowing her eyes slightly.
“I guess I knew you had a sister, but…”
“I need to call her back, she sent me a text message,” I said.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
I shrugged my shoulders. “Hard to say with her.”
&n
bsp; I pressed redial, and paced the floor as the phone rang. Four rings into the call, and one ring away from me hanging up, and she answered.
“Alec?” she asked. “Is that you?”
“Who else would it be?” I asked sarcastically. “So what happened?”
“He had another heart attack. His COPD is pretty bad and his heartbeat is irregular. They uhhm. They said if you want to see him alive, you better get here in in the next few hours,” she said.
“They don’t know shit,” I snapped back.
“Alec, he’s at the heart hospital. Galicia. A specialist has been assigned to him. He’s had a lot more heart attacks than you’re aware of, and he’s had all the bypasses they can give him. They were talking about an ablation, but they don’t think he’ll live through the procedure. It’s complicated. Come home,” she said softly.
After my second tour, she had given me her promise to keep her son. Raising him without a husband certainly wasn’t an easy task for her, but it wasn’t impossible, either. After giving up on herself and her ability to raise him without assistance, she had moved back in with my father. Before my tour ended, he talked her into giving the child up for adoption.
I’d never forgiven her for doing so, and I had my doubts as to whether or not I would ever be able to. Since I turned my back on her and my father, it wasn’t uncommon for her to stretch the truth regarding my father’s medical condition – all in an effort to get me to be closer to her – and to him.
“I am home, Alicia. I live in Texas now. I tell you what. I’ll drive up there, but if this is another one of your bullshit…”
“The doctor’s given him a few hours to live, Alec. I don’t know how long it will take you to get here, but if it takes too long, I’m afraid…”
“Be there in eight hours,” I said.
And I hung up the phone.
Chapter Two Hundred Seventy-Nine
Summer 2015, Wichita, KS, USA
I stood in the waiting room with my sister, the doctor, and Katie. Everything he was telling us was not at all what I had hoped for, expected, or was prepared to process. No child, regardless of the relationship they have with their parent, wants to hear that their death is not only certain, but imminent.
There are few certainties in life, death being one of them.
Knowing when the exact moment will be that we are going to draw out last breath is something everyone seems curious about, but no one really wants to know the answer to.
“So, if the ablation isn’t done, it’s your professional opinion that he won’t make through the night?” I asked.
“That is correct. His defibrillator receives a signal from the heart, if you will. That signal is processed, and recorded. If the signal is irregular or becomes irregular, the device shocks the heart, much like the paddles I’m sure you’ve seen in the movies that they rub on someone’s chest to shock them back to life. The shock is intended to correct the heartbeat.”
He paused and gazed down at the floor. As he shifted his eyes upward he continued. “Your father’s heart has a spot on it which is sending false or inaccurate signals to the device. We monitor the device remotely, and it had gone off over a two-dozen times in 24 hours. In short, your father has suffered half a dozen heart attacks in the last day.”
“And the ablation procedure corrects that?” I asked.
“It may,” he said. “In a sense, we burn the heart, causing it to scar, and remove that section of heart from sending false signals. The process is a timely one, and that is my concern.”
“The anesthesia?” I asked.
“Not the anesthesia itself, but the length of time he would be required to be under anesthesia. My guess is six hours or more,” he said.
“And the decision is mine to make?” I asked.
“You’re listed as the next of kin, and there is no wife, so yes,” he said.
I had watched his eyes the entire time he had been speaking, and although it came as no surprise, and it was my opinion that he believed every word he said. I stared down at the toes of my boots and held my gaze there for some time, wishing twenty-four hours had passed, so it would be tomorrow already.
I lifted my head, glanced at my sister, and my eyes were immediately drawn to my mother’s diamond bracelet she was wearing. A gift from my father on their 25th wedding anniversary, he had said buying her the traditional silver wouldn’t serve as any form of justice to commemorate the quality of woman she was. Diamonds worn around the wrist, according to him, would draw attention to the fact that he perceived her as valuable.
She wasn’t valuable.
She was priceless.
After my combat training and before I deployed the first time to Iraq, my mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Four short weeks later, under the care of the best staff money could buy, she passed peacefully while in her sleep. She was a saint of a woman, always placing others before herself, and never turning her back on someone in need.
Growing up, I admired my father; but I adored my mother.
She died without ever having an opportunity to meet her grandson.
I shifted my eyes from my sister’s wrist to the doctor. “Do the ablation procedure.”
I reached up, gripped Katie’s wrist, and lowered her hand from my shoulder to my side. As Alicia’s eyes followed the path of my hand, I nodded my head toward her wrist.
“We’ll get it started right away, I’ll keep you up to speed as the procedure makes progress the best I can, but don’t expect any progress reports for at least two hours,” he said.
I nodded my head.
“You know that should be kept in a safe deposit box or a safe,” I said as I tilted my head toward my mother’s bracelet.
“I think she’d want me to enjoy it,” she said.
“That was for someone who was priceless,” I said as I gripped Katie’s hand. “You heard the story. Priceless.”
“Alec, please. Don’t…”
I raised my hand between us to silence her.
“We’ll be over there,” I said as I tilted my head toward the corner of the waiting room.
“I’d appreciate it if…” I paused and shook my head, unwilling and almost incapable of continuing. Seeing her was much more difficult than I would have imagined.
“Are you okay?” Katie asked as I turned away.
“I’ll be fine,” I said, realizing I had acted inappropriately toward my sister in front of her. “I’m sorry. There’s just a lot of animosity between us.”
“I can see that,” she whispered.
We walked to the corner of the room and sat down on a small sofa. I dug through the magazines at the table beside the arm of the couch, hoping to find answers to questions I had yet to ask, but instead found nothing. I lifted my boot, and propped it onto my knee as I gazed toward the far end of the room. Alicia sat on the far sofa with her head in her hands.
“You told me you always give people a second chance. Did you give your sister one?” she asked.
I lifted my boot from my knee and let my foot drop to the floor. I turned to face her, mentally prepared to answer, but incapable of doing so without admitting I had excluded my sister from a fundamental rule I had applied to all walks of life.
With the exception of Alicia.
“No,” I responded.
“Well maybe you should,” she said.
I was the first to admit when I was wrong, but I was rarely wrong. It wasn’t that I believed I was without fault, or that I was arrogant or egotistical, because I wasn’t. But my actions always came as a result of deep thought, and contemplation of any and every possible scenario that may arise as a result of my decision.
I was left living a life with few mistakes.
My eyes fell to the square tiles on the floor and I counted the years since my sister and I had acted as loving siblings.
Twelve.
I had never considered myself a stubborn person, but as I shifted my focus to the other end of the room, I came to realize I had
yet to walk in my sister’s shoes.
My forgiveness wouldn’t act as an acceptance of her behavior, only an admittance on my part that I, too, wasn’t without fault.
I stood from my seat and humbly walked to where she was seated, thinking the entire time of what she must have gone through in her decision to allow her only child to be placed up for adoption. Her choice, although unfathomable to me, had to be extremely difficult for her.
“Come sit with us,” I said.
She glanced up, wiping her eyes as she did. She had obviously been crying long before I arrived, and looked ten years older than she probably would have on any other day.
Alone.
“Come on,” I said as I reached for her hand. “You can come cry with us.”
“I miss him so much,” she said as she cupped my hands in hers.
“Who?” I asked, and then immediately realized I knew the answer.
“Derek,” she said.
I gripped her hand firmly in mine. “So do I.”
“That’s a beautiful ring,” she said as we stepped in front of Katie.
Katie reached for the ring and rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger as she responded. “Thank you,”
“And I love the bracelet,” Alicia said.
“Yours too,” Katie said as Alicia sat down.
“Let me tell you a story about it,” Alicia said as she glanced at the bracelet. “My father said every day that my mother wore it, no one would question her value to him. He said the bracelet would prove to all who saw it that she was priceless. And she was.”
Katie shifted her eyes to meet mine.
I shrugged my shoulders and grinned.
In case Katie didn’t already know, she now realized that to me, she was priceless.
The talking and story-telling continued for some time, and I agreed to go get us a cup of acceptable coffee from the coffee bar by the cafeteria. As I walked from the room and turned down the hallway, I realized not only did I have a family in Texas, I had another in Kansas.
And the thought of having both let me feel just a little closer to becoming human.
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