“You wanna explain the recent love you and Mom been showin’?” Ty asked.
“Ty –” Irving Walker started.
“If you can call it love,” Ty cut him off to say. “Got a wife, a good one. She loves me, she’s got my back. Her people show, meet me for the first time, find out my recent history, they’re laughing and drinkin’ cocktails in my kitchen within ten minutes. My parents show, in five minutes Lex is so pissed, she’s throwin’ sass and then she’s on the phone with me ranting. Like I said, I got a wife, a good one who loves me which means I love her and can’t say I’m particularly thrilled about the fact that my parents piss her off and set her ranting. I try to shield her from that shit, not have it show up in my driveway.”
“You know your Ma,” Irv told him.
“Yeah, and I know you. Lex told me you weren’t smashed. A miracle.”
His verbal bullet hit true and he knew it when Irv spoke.
“Ty,” pause then, quietly, “son.”
Ty waited. That was all he got. It was more than he ever got before but it was not enough.
So he went on, “I’ll tell you, not because you deserve to know but because, you can pull your shit together to be a better fuckin’ grandfather than you were a father, then I’ll want my kid to have that because you’re the only shot my kid’ll have at a grandfather and you can take from that that Lexie and I are tryin’. But this love you and Mom are showin’ does not end with me handin’ cash over so she can blow it on smokes and you can drink it.”
Irv was quiet a moment and it was a long moment.
Then he said softly but with feeling that trembled in his voice, “Burned in me, what was done to you.”
It was Ty then that was quiet.
Irv kept talking. “Burned in me over five years.”
Ty still didn’t respond.
Irv finished it and he did it on a whisper. “I can be a better grandfather.”
Ty sucked in breath. Then he said, “All right, Dad. I’ll talk to Lexie, see if she’s comfortable with you bein’ in our house. I know one thing though, Mom doesn’t show. I’m protective of my wife, she’s protective of me and I do not want Mom rilin’ her up and she will just by showin’ her face. Lexie’s still pissed and unless Mom gets her head outta her ass, Lexie won’t get unpissed. She knows what was done to me and she’s sensitive to anything that might get at me. Keep Mom away.”
“It’ll be just me,” Irv assured him quickly.
“I’ll talk to Lexie, let you know.”
“You… you,” he said, still talking quickly then he paused then, “You done good with her son. She’s not hard to look at but that’s not what I mean. She… she…” another pause, then quietly, “It’s good you got one with sass. Back then… years ago… Reece… your Ma,” another pause then, “Way people were, the way they were knowin’ she was with me, her folks, anyone… shit they said, way they looked at her… at us…” Ty heard him blow out a sigh. “She couldn’t take it.”
Ty stood still and stunned.
Christ, thirty-six fucking years and his father was sharing.
What the fuck?
Irv continued, “She got pissed at me ‘cause there were too many a’ them to get pissed at. Even your Ma, way she is, doesn’t have enough vinegar to sustain bein’ pissed at the world so she focused. Shoulda let her go, let her be but felt I owed it to her since I knocked her up and fucked up her life.”
“You wear a full body coverall when you were datin’ her?” Ty asked.
“What?” Irv asked back.
“Dad, she made her choice, you didn’t make her make it. She couldn’t live with it, that’s on her. You didn’t owe her shit, not puttin’ up with her anger for-fuckin’-ever, not dealin’ with her shit by poisoning your body, not makin’ your sons put up with it.”
“It was gone by the time you could process it, son, but loved her once and she loved me. She got bitter and wears it on her face but back then… you hooked yourself a beauty, Ty, but back then your Mom was nothin’ to sneeze at and, I know you won’t believe it, not now, but she was funny, shit, boy, made me laugh so damned hard, thought I’d bust a gut anytime I was with her.”
Ty stared unseeing out of the door of the garage, hearing this information, shit he did not know, shit he could barely believe that was still, fuck him, shit that was good to hear and he replied, “Spent five years learnin’ a lot, most especially that every breath is worth something. So, I won’t piss this away and not tell you I don’t appreciate, no matter how late it is, you sharin’ with me. But I’ll point out, it’s still fuckin’ late. I rotted for five years –”
Irv interrupted him with, “I wrote you –”
Ty cut right back in. “Yeah, but didn’t see you in the courtroom, Dad. Didn’t see you before I went down, when that shit was swirlin’ around me, not once and before that, when I did, every time I did, you were shitfaced.”
“And that’s what I’m explaining.”