Gimme Everything You Got - Iva-Marie Palmer Page 0,106

the small chapel area to the reception, which was down the hall in the Sweetheart Ballroom, Dad waved me and Joe over to him and Polly. After I’d introduced Joe to my dad and it was only mildly awkward—my dad had noticed that their ties had similar patterns, and they talked about it for two full minutes—Dad turned to me.

“Thank you for being here,” he said, taking me aside for a hug as Polly crouched to squeeze two of my stooped great-aunts and Joe struck up a conversation with my uncle Rich. “And for being so nice to Polly. It really means a lot to her. And me. Your mom did a great job raising you and your sister.”

The invocation of my mom should have stung. It was the point when, in the standard parent-remarries part of a child-of-divorce story, I would have said, “Why didn’t you stay with her?” But I could see the difference in my dad now, with Polly, the same way I could see a difference in my mom. It wasn’t a crystal-clear one-eighty from his previous self, but he channeled something new, and more positive. As for me, it wasn’t so much I was above that standard response. It was that I could see how things could be sad and happy at the same time. If life was going to present surprises, wasn’t it best if you were both sad for what you lost and happy for what you gained?

“So did you,” I told my dad, remembering a Father’s Day when he’d taken me and my sister to a White Sox game. Almost every other dad there was with sons, leaving me to wonder what other fathers with daughters were doing that day. The team had been really bad that year, but my dad had told us about the players who would get better over the next few years. Candace’s dad only ever took her brothers to baseball games.

“Let’s get a beer,” Dad said, and headed toward the bar, where some of the guests were waiting to congratulate him and Polly. A bartender not much older than me slid two Old Style beers over the counter, and Dad folded a five and put it in a glass filled with tips.

“Congratulations, sir,” the bartender said, and my dad tipped his bottle in gratitude before handing me mine and clinking with me. Now I’d had a drink with each of my parents in the last week. It was strange, in a good way.

Polly had come into the room with her mother on her heels, and judging by Polly’s rigid walk, Mrs. Jeffries hadn’t let up on her nitpicking. Polly excused herself as she made her way to me and Dad and, with a grimace, said, “Apparently I’ve seated some cousins I barely recognize at a table that’s not good enough for them.”

My dad kissed her cheek and asked, “Do I need to handle something?”

Polly waved him off. “Whatever we do at this point, my mother is going to find fault, so just order me a gin and tonic.”

I took a sip of the cold beer in my hand and felt like I was floating as it hit my empty stomach. The laughter and conversation in the room rolled over me in a soft wave. I caught Joe’s eye and he gave me a cute grin, even though my uncle Rich’s meaty hand was clutching his shoulder.

Polly and my dad pointed out my seat at the head table and Joe’s at the date table right next to it, then went off to greet more of their guests. When I put the bottle down, the bartender slid a Coke across the bar with a wink. “Hope you like rum,” he said.

I took a sip, noticing how the rum’s warmth spread through my body differently from the burn of the whiskey I’d had with Mom.

I made my way toward Joe and tapped his shoulder. “Hey,” he said. “So, your uncle Rich is . . . nice.”

“You mean weird.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think I should say that.”

I gave him my glass. “Have some,” I said and watched him sip and taste the rum in it.

He peered at me. “I like it,” he said. Maybe it was the booze, but I was already feeling less formal around him.

Then, before I had time to talk myself out of it, I slipped my hand into his and said, “Let’s get another one.”

Joe gave me the kind of look he might have if we’d stepped