“Perhaps,” Flynn said with a grin. “But we haven’t quite decided where we might end up.”
The door burst open again; Bonnie appeared, one hand clutched at the throat of her coat, the other holding her hat firmly to her head. “I can’t stand it another moment. I can’t!” she said, marching into their midst. “After all we’ve been through, we’re supposed to endure this shit?” she exclaimed.
“Mom!” Rebecca cried.
“I’m sorry, Bonnie, it was my idea,” Aaron said at the door as he pulled Grandma in behind him, while the pastor pushed her from behind.
“Dad, I know you wanted a scenic spot,” Rebecca said. “But it’s freezing.”
“Well, good night, honey, your daddy knows it’s freezing! Look at his lips!” Grandma exclaimed as she maneuvered through the hall into the great room and the fire roaring at the hearth.
“I thought the weather was sort of appropriate,” Aaron said. “There was a time your mother said she’d come back to me when hell froze over.”
Bonnie laughed, put her arm through his. “I never said that, Aaron Lear. And I never agreed to renew our wedding vows in an ice-cold wind storm.”
“The good pastor here is going to perform the ceremony in our great room,” Aaron said. “Why don’t y’all go on in and find a place to sit?”
“Wait!” Rebecca cried as Grandpa headed in that direction to join Grandma. “At least let me set up something to work as an altar! Come on, Robbie, help me.”
“Me? What about Rachel?”
“I’m coming, too, Robin,” Rachel said with a roll of her eyes.
Behind them, Jake and Matt and Flynn looked at one another. “I don’t know about you guys,” Matt said, “but when Rebecca gets thrown a curve, it’s best to stay out of her way.”
“Maybe for you,” Jake said with a laugh, clapping Matt on the shoulder. “But if I’m not in there, Robbie’s likely to hurt someone.”
“What say we send the new guy?” Matt said, and he and Jake both looked at Flynn.
“Bloody hell,” Flynn said, and with his hands on his waist, he leaned to one side and peeked in at the flurry of activity within. “Might I inquire,” he asked stoically, “how long a bloke’s got to put in before he’s no longer considered the new guy?”
“Thirty years,” Jake said, and gave him a friendly shove as the three men walked into the great room to help get it ready for the ceremony reuniting Aaron and Bonnie Lear.
Bonnie put her arm around Aaron’s waist.
“I’m glad we’re all at Blue Cross,” he said, smiling down at her. “Just look at those beautiful girls we managed to make. Best thing we ever did.”
“That’s right,” Bonnie said. “And look at the men who love them. Good, solid men, who will protect and care for them all their days.”
Aaron smiled, squeezed Bonnie’s shoulders. “That’s all I ever really wanted, you know, for those girls to be happy. And once I had that, I thought I could just go ahead and die. But apparently, God wants me to stick around a little longer.” He looked down at her. “Whoever would have guessed after that surgery I’d still be around a couple of years later?”
Bonnie laughed, rose up on her tiptoes and kissed him “And for the foreseeable future. Cancer free, Aaron. It’s a miracle.” She slipped out from his arm. “I’m going to go lend a hand.”
“I’ll be right there,” Aaron said after her, and watched her walk into the great room.
Cancer free. Thank you, God.
Bonnie didn’t know it, but Aaron had made a deal with the guy upstairs. If He let Aaron stick around, Aaron promised to do things right. He was going to be a positive presence in his daughters’ lives, not an oppressive one. He was going to be a better husband to Bonnie, too, and had actually graduated Daniel the Jerk’s counseling sessions with praise.
He was going to be a better dad. It was too late for his girls, but he had all those grandkids. Even his baby Rachel had a bun in the oven (which, she had gleefully announced, meant that she’d have to take a sabbatical from her endowed chair in the Art and Architecture Department at Brown University). Yeah, he was going to be a better man, all right, and he was not going to squander a single moment of the days he had left, however many there were. He’d spend the rest of his life making up for the first sixty years of his life.
He heard the girls laugh at something, their laughter rising up like angels around him, and felt tears well in his eyes. Damn, he was getting sentimental these days. He blinked back those silly tears, and with a smile, he walked into the room filled with his loved ones.
He was, he recognized, one lucky sonovabitch.
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