Joy and Tiers (28 page)

I haven’t shared that part of the story with anyone except my commanding officer before. It’s still makes me weak in the knees. I fumble around for a place to sit down. Denny pulls a bale of hay down from the loft and pushes me down until I’m sitting. He takes off the backpack he’s wearing and fishes out a couple of cans of root beer. He kicks over a nearby stool and removes the tackle that’s sitting on the top. He sits down and nods for me to continue. I’m grateful he doesn’t say anything because if he would have, I might not have the courage to continue. 

I try to concentrate on gathering my thoughts and I continue in frustrated bursts of speech. “I’ll be honest with you. That’s the part of this equation I haven’t yet figured out. I don’t know how I can live my life without Heather in it, yet I don’t know how I can ask her to look at the kind of future she might be facing if she marries me. Either way, it isn’t fair to either of us. I can’t ask her to face the possibility of that black car pulling into our driveway with the uniforms coming out. You’ve met her family. They would destroy her.”

Denny leans forward and puts his hands on my shoulders causing me to look up at him. “Tyler, you need to listen to me here. Life isn’t fair to anyone, soldier or not. I’m not sure how much of my back story you know, but I lost my first love to a cancerous brain tumor that almost cost my daughter’s life too. My wife was accused of intentionally trying to kill my daughter. It was incredibly hard to stand by both and not be angry at the world. I can’t say that I was successful every single day, but dammit if I didn’t try. My wife did
not
deserve to die and Kiera did
not
deserve to be paralyzed because of brain cancer— still that’s what life did to them. So, you can’t wait for life to be fair before you find love because it just isn’t ever going to be. If you find love, you have to capture the moments and treasure them while you can. You can’t worry about what might be, because you can’t change the might-be’s. The only day you can live is today. Not yesterday, not tomorrow— just today.” 

I’m not a huge hugger by nature, years of being alert has pretty much trained that out of me. But, I feel compelled to hug this man. I think he just saved me from making a huge mistake. “Thank you sir, I’ll take your advice to heart.”

Denny pats me on the back as he disengages from my hug, “Now, I’ll tell you the same thing I told my son-in-law. Stop calling me sir. My name is Denny. If you call me sir, I’ll start looking around for my dad,” he teases.

“I’ll tell you the same thing my best friend told you, ‘I’ll try my best, but my training runs deep.’ I suppose we had better get back inside before all the food is gone.”

Denny smirks. “Get real. Between your girlfriend and mine? The possibility that they might actually run out of food is between slim and none.”

My eyes widen a little as I ask, “So, it’s like that, huh? What do Jeff and Kiera think of their parents dating?” 

“I don’t know. I’m not even sure Gwendolyn realizes I’m courting her yet. I’m trying to give her time to get over whatever garbage that ant-turd of an ex left behind. She is becoming stronger by the day. I consider it remarkably good news she still wants me to be around. So, I’ll stay, until she tells me to go. I consider her to be my second shot at happiness.”

“What about your advice to live today for today and seize as much love as possible?”

“Who says I’m not? It just looks a little different at my age. I’m happier than I’ve been in years. So, until I need to rock the boat, I won’t.”

When we reach the house, I realize what I thought was going to be an informal get-together of my best friends has turned into a bona fide Christmas party. It makes me miss my family even more. I wish I could take Heather to meet my parents. They would absolutely adore her.

The entire kitchen island is covered in food. Jeff’s mom made a thick beef stew and some crusty French bread. Kiera and Mindy made a couple of fancy salads and of course there was the smorgasbord of cookies created by my girlfriend. They are almost too pretty to eat—almost.

My mom would have been in seventh heaven during the dinner conversation. Everyone is chattering about kitchen cutlery and knife techniques. Mindy is turning out to be quite the culinary student and was eagerly displaying all of the work she had done on the complex salads. When we finished dinner, Mindy was shocked when her Papa suggested that she open her biggest present first, but we wanted to unveil Velvet while there was still plenty of daylight left.

Heather took one of her bandannas and blindfolded Mindy and carried her out to the barn. Jeff wasn’t quite as dramatic with Kiera but asked her to close her eyes. We didn’t tell Kiera about the improvements to the barn, but I built a wraparound ramp to the corral so that she could get into the barn and see over the fence to see Mindy ride in the corral. I’m not sure how much Jeff shared with Kiera so I don’t even know if she knows about the horse. This may be as big a surprise to her as it is to Mindy. I reach out and squeeze Heather’s hand as I open the barn.

We warned Becca and Mindy in advance that we are going to use sign language instead of our voices so we don’t wake up any sleeping elves. We’ve all gotten pretty efficient in sign language thanks to the tutelage of Tara and Aidan. Tara, a sign language interpreter, started a creative arts studio where she teaches dance and arts and crafts. I’ve gone there to help teach some woodworking courses and picked up some rudimentary sign language skills along the way. I’ve also helped her fiancé, Aidan, take some of the kids out rock climbing. Since Aidan is deaf, I’ve had the opportunity to pick up a much more colorful sign language vocabulary from him as he explained what signs the kids were using.

Heather removes Mindy’s blindfold and we all sign Merry Christmas and wave our hands in the deaf equivalence of applause. I realize as I catch Kiera filming the whole thing with an iPad that she’s on Face Time with Aidan and Tara live. So, the sign language is actually both keeping the horses calm and allowing Aidan to fully participate even though he’s backstage at a very noisy concert.

Despite her best efforts, Mindy can’t help but shriek, “Look Mom, it’s a horse just like I asked for.”

Kiera narrows her eyes at Jeff as she answers, “Imagine that! What a surprise … for everyone.” She has a smile on her face, but she’s glaring at Jeff with disappointment and resentment in her eyes.

Heather and I look at each other in dismay. This is not going well at all.

Heather tries to intercede, “I don’t think you understand Kiera. This is like a big group gift. Velvet was my pet horse when I was a little girl, but as you all know, before I met Ty, I was far too scared to ride her. She was kept at my grandma’s house until she passed away. Velvet was so impossibly lonely after my grandma was gone that I knew I had to find her the perfect owner. Fannie was really needing a new companion too, so Tyler offered to keep her here. Since he’s leasing to own the place, we wanted to make this a place where you could enjoy horseback riding alongside Mindy. So, Jeff decided to surprise you too. It was all done with the very best intentions. I promise.”

Mindy scrambles off of the stall railing where Heather had perched her for the big reveal and throws her arm around Kiera’s shoulder. “Please Mom, don’t be mad. I promise I’ll do all my homework and pay special attention to Uncle Ty’s lessons. Justice Gardner already taught me how to brush the horses, remember?”

“Oh sweetie, I’m not really all that mad.” Kiera reassures her. “I guess I should be used to your Dad’s big surprises by now. It’s just that it would’ve been fun to be in on this one.”

“It’s okay, Mom. One of these days, we’re gonna have a big secret from him that he’ll never be able to figure out and then he’ll know what it feels like, right?”

“I suppose that’s possible. But, it will have to be a mighty big surprise to compete with a surprise wedding and a horse. That’s going to take some planning.”

Mindy thinks about it for a minute before she answers, “Well, it’s a really good thing you guys decided to get married forever.”

“Tara and Donda, I can’t thank you enough for helping me paint this place. Can you believe it’s only a month before Valentine’s Day?”

“It is a bit wild. Are you ready to be an up-and-coming entrepreneur as they say?” Donda asks as she folds up a tarp.

“As Ty would say, ‘Does the military love camo?’ After the asinine court fight my parents put me through to try to keep me from getting this place, I’m more determined than ever to make it a success. I can’t believe they were arrogant enough to think they were going to win. It’s so awesome that your brother is a lawyer and practically the adopted godson of a former Supreme Court Justice in Oregon. It made finding someone to take my case so much easier.”

Tara shakes her head at me. “I don’t think that was the deciding factor in your case as much as the letters and drawings you and your grandmother exchanged back and forth over the years, discussing potential strategies if you were to ever open a store. The box of handwritten recipes that she had collected for you and named with commercial sounding titles and the blueprints she drew out for you when you were still a child were pretty much irrefutable proof that she had been planning to open a business for you for decades. This was not a decision she made last-minute under the influence of blood pressure medicine or whatever bogus medical diagnosis they made up. I talked to your grandma on a regular basis. She was sharp as a tack. She knew dance moves that she learned when she was twelve and she remembered what college courses I was taking in any given term.”

Donda pipes in, “You know what the funniest thing was? I thought it was hysterical they accused you of being selfish and greedy, but in the end those are exactly the terms that the judge used when describing them when he ordered them to pay all of the court costs and your attorney fees because they abused the judicial system with a frivolous lawsuit.”

“I don’t know if I told you this, but their attorney told them they didn’t have a case. So, they fired that attorney and tried to hire two more and when that didn’t work they just acted as their own. I guess my dad thought being a CPA and an attorney were pretty much interchangeable.”

“How has this affected your relationship with your family? Is anything salvageable?” Tara asks.

“I don’t really know yet,” I answer with a sigh. “As you know, there wasn’t much to salvage with my parents after I made the break and decided not to follow my dad into the family business. After I saw the way they treated me through Ty’s eyes, I knew I wasn’t ever going to accept that from them again. I think they knew I had reached the end of my rope with them and they could not bully me into believing less of myself. I just can’t believe it took me so long to summon the courage to find my voice. It makes me really angry at myself.”

Tara pulls me into a tight embrace. As she lets go she says, “Sometimes it takes your true soulmate to show you where you have to heal before you can truly find love.”

Donda gives Tara a double-take and shudders. “Girl, you give me goosebumps every time I’m around you.”

Tara shrugs nonchalantly as she remarks, “I’m not really making any profound statements here, and I’m just telling you what I’ve seen happen in my life and the lives of the people I love. I understand it even better now that it’s happening to me. It took Aidan loving me despite my frailties and flaws for me to see where I needed to get stronger to be able to accept the gift of love that he was giving me. It was like I couldn’t see all of me without the full light of his love. I would either focus only on my strength or only on my weaknesses and without addressing everything that was going on in my life, there wasn’t ever going to be balance.”

Donda studies Tara carefully. “I still can’t believe you found a guy who doesn’t care that you’ve been raped.”

I have a reputation for being blunt, but Donda usually has me beat by a mile. Yet, this is extreme, even for her. I can’t disguise my gasp of surprise.

Tara places her hand on Donda’s forearm as she looks into Donda’s eyes. “No, I think you’ve misunderstood what I said. Aidan cares very deeply that I was raped. In many ways, I think he still feels like he should have been there to prevent it even though he was dealing with his own crisis at the time. The thing I had to learn to accept is that I am still worthy of Aidan’s love. That’s part of the healing I was telling Heather about. Not everyone has as many wounds as I did, but everyone’s got something. The person who loves you can help you heal those wounds.”

Donda blinks away a tear and whispers, “What if I never find that person?”

Tara takes the tarp from her hands and sets it down on the floor. She clasps Donda’s hands between hers and pledges, “Then, we as your friends and family will do our best to be that light for you until you find your own. Don’t forget, you’ve been inducted into the Girlfriend Posse. We do not take our duties lightly. We watch each other’s backs. So, if you need us, we’re all a phone call away.”

I give Donda a crooked grin as I reply, “Just a word of warning, you don’t even always have to call Tara. Sometimes she just knows you’re in deep trouble. So, don’t be freaked out by that; it’s perfectly normal.”