“What movie are we watching?” He heads across our small living room toward the door. “I know it’s your big day, but I’d rather watchTerminatoroverThe Little Mermaid, if you feel me.”
“I don’t.” I turn away with a laugh when he groans and study the rings on my new necklace. Long life, health, love, wealth, peace, good friends, and happiness.I have my health, but I could do with a little of the wealth and friends, if anyone was offering.
“Hey, Grandpa.”
I lean against the counter and watch the bookends of my world embrace. George Blair is a widower now, quiet in his older years, though he’s not truly old by traditional standards. Word going around is that my father had somewhat of a Mac-inspired wild streak in his early years, but once he found my mom and settled down, he kept to himself and worked hard to provide for his family. It’s only if you look deep into his eyes can you see his wild side and the part of him that wishes he was still a twenty-one-year-old racing cars with his friends at Piper’s Lane.
“Hey, bud.” Handsome as always, tall and broad, my dad steps back and casts a searching glance in my direction. Our relationship suffered fourteen years ago, but once Mac had arrived and they met, we reconciled, because he was always my hero, and even with a broken heart, my daddy couldn’t walk away from me.
“Hi, Daddy.”
“Sweetheart.” Slapping a hand on Mac’s shoulder and knocking him forward as he passes, Dad walks across the living room with a kind of nostalgic eye for the couch that is as original to this room as I am. When you’re young, single, and broke, you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth and say no. You accept your daddy’s old couch and say thank you.
Stopping in front of me, he flashes a grin identical to my son’s and pulls me in for a hug that feels awfully the same. “You look beautiful, sweetheart. Happy birthday.” Pulling back, he reaches into his back pocket and takes out an envelope that instantly sets me on edge. “Your gift.”
“Daddy…”
“It’s not cash. It’s something else. Come on.” He grabs my hand and slaps the envelope down until I grunt. “Open it up. Then I want to see pictures when you go.”
“Go?” I can’t stop the smile that stretches across my face. “What did you do? Daddy… I dunno.”
“Just open it, Mom!” Mac moves by as fast as the wind and takes my envelope like maybe his Douglas genes are a little more prevalent than I’d like. He tears the envelope open with a smile and flashes a set of tickets. “Bon Jovi?” He scrunches his nose with distaste. “Isn’t he old?”
“Bon Jovi?” I squeak. Whipping back around to my dad, I jump on the balls of my feet and squeal a little more than a woman who just turned thirty should. “You got me tickets to see Bon Jovi?”
“Next month.” Dropping a kiss on my forehead, he walks to my fridge and snatches a diet soda – he doesn’twantthe diet, but in this house, he doesn’t get a choice. Walking away from us, he drops into the end recliner with a grunt and a soft smile, and when he refocuses on my staring eyes, he shrugs. “Yes, Jovi, next month. And I already talked to Franky about it. You have the whole weekend off, and I was thinking of taking Mac away for the weekend.”
“Oh.” And just like that, my happiness deflates. “You don’t have to do that, Daddy. Maybe just sit with him a couple hours while I’m gone.”
“Or, ya know, I’m not a baby anymore. I can just stay here alone for a couple hours,” Mac tries. “I won’t set the place on fire.”
“No.” I thrust my ticket-holding hand toward my son. “Forty-five, and thirty consecutive days of no trouble, then I’ll trust you, but until then, you don’t get shit from me.”
“Harsh.” Walking away, though with a smile, Mac carries a diet soda in one hand and digs the other into his jeans pocket. His grandpa’s twin in many ways, he flops onto the end of the long couch with a grunt and lifts his achy leg until his bare foot plonks on the table. “Go shower. Screech about the old singer, then come back. Dinner will be here when you’re done.”
“Fine. Order Chinese. My purse is on the table.” Tucking my beloved concert tickets back into the now torn envelope, I carefully set them on top of the fridge so I’ll know exactly where to find them a month from now. “If anyone touches these, you’re dead to me. I’m not playing.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Dad’s already making himself at home with my TV remote in hand. “We got it, sweetheart. You don’t have to micromanage everything in the world, you know? You’re allowed to relax on your own birthday.”
“Really?” I turn back and smile. “Can you talk to my naïve child about stranger danger while I’m gone? You be the serious, and I’ll wash my hair.”
“Stranger danger?”
“Uh-huh. He sat with a strange man today and let the dude get too damn close.”
“What?” Dad snaps a dangerous glare toward my son. “Who’s the dude, and what the fuck did he want?”
There he is.
You can take the delinquent out of the hood, but you can’t take the hood out of the delinquent, even when he’s sixty years old and retired from illegal car racing decades ago.