who he was before his mind got cloudy. Maybe to remind you why you’re here.” I swallowed. I’d read the speech a hundred times over and never felt emotional, but this was it. This was the real one.
I locked eyes with Katie.
Her eyes were glassy and her nose was pink. She had a tissue clutched in her right hand and I knew she wasn’t grieving for my father. She was grieving for me. She was feeling my pain.
I smiled at her.
“I don’t know if I’m going to do a good job of that or not today, but there are some things I want to leave you with,” I said to the chapel, but my eyes never left my girl. “My dad taught me the value of loyalty and hard work. He taught me that all the good things in life are the things that take time to cultivate. Relationships, family, business, passion, food. All the best things take time. And he also taught me that it was fleeting, and that it did not treat us all as equals. For some, time is cruel. For others, it’s kind. For us in this moment? Well, I don’t know about you, but I feel like time is slipping through my fingers. Minutes ago, I was lining up toy soldiers in the backyard and shooting them off the fence with a BB gun I was definitely too young to use until the neighbors called the cops on my dad.” I laughed at the memory, and others who’d heard the story laughed with me. “My old man waved his fist at the neighbors and in his booming voice bellowed, ‘mind your own damn business, Marjorie, you old crone!’”
The laughter in the chapel spilled over. Katie laughed and tears spilled free and I didn’t dare look away from her.
I nodded, at peace with the truth and what time had done for me. “There’s something else I want to say today. Something I wish I could have told my father but never had the time to, so I’m going to tell all of you. I’m in love with a girl. That girl right there.” I pointed at Katie.
Her cheeks turned bright pink as she looked around.
I smiled. “I know it’s weird for me to do it like this, Katie. I know. But it’s true. And part of me has to believe that my father is watching this shit show with his feet up on his recliner and a beer in his hand and I want him to know how crazy I am about you. He always used to tell me that when I met the right girl, I would know it. He warned me that she might drive me out of my mind and that she might turn my life upside down and ruin me from the inside out like our mother did him, but all you’ve done is made me better, Katie. I think my father could see that even in the few hours you knew him.”
Katie wiped her eyes with her tissue.
I turned my attention back to the room. “Don’t remember my dad as the man who lost his mind and slowly slipped away from us all. Remember him as the man who laughed louder than anyone else in the room. As the man who wasn’t afraid to tell you his opinion even if it was polarizing. As the man who would use up his last bit of gas money to come pick you up if you were stranded. And as the man who could give a pirate a run for his money where swearing was concerned.”
More laughter.
I looked to my brother. “We’ve still got him with us, Mikey. I see dad in you every day, and I know I inherited some of his quirks, too. We’re going to be all right, little brother. Like Dad used to say, good things take time, and we have plenty of that under our belts, don’t we?”
My brother nodded.
I left the podium with a chest full of love and hope and pride and sat down beside the woman I knew in my soul I was going to marry one day. She took my hand, leaned in close, and kissed me like we were the only people in the chapel.
My father would have told us to get a room.
Chapter 36
Katie
I scrolled through rental listing after rental listing late in the evening on Friday while I spoke with my brother on the phone.