they sure as hell stuck with it.
Once dressed, I walked into the kitchen. My younger brother, Mason, was already down there, along with our mama, who was visiting for the moment.
My mother was a tiny little thing, and it was hard to believe she’d managed to birth four massive sons. My brothers and I all took after our dad. That included Jack, who had a different mother than the rest of us but was still very much a Harvey.
“Good mornin’,” I said to my mom.
“Morning,” she said. “Breakfast is on the stove if you’d like some.”
“Nah, I’m not much for eating this early in the morning,” I reminded her. “But you already knew that.”
She sighed but still smiled. “Some things never change. I was hoping one day you’d realize the importance of breakfast, but nothing I can do about it now.”
Mason, otherwise known as Doc by the rest of us, was flipping through a newspaper.
“They still sell those things? I thought everyone read their news online these days.” I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down beside my mama, who had the rest of Mason’s newspaper and was reading it.
“I was just as surprised as you, man,” Mason commented. “I can’t recall the last time I held an actual paper in my hand.”
“Some of us prefer real newspapers.” Mom peered over the paper and smiled at me. Our mother didn’t have a smart phone or any type of technological gadgets. She said she was too old for all that junk.
“So you’ve been out this morning?” I asked Mason, taking a sip of my coffee.
“Yeah, ran and got the paper for Ma,” he said. “Along with some groceries.”
“One less thing I’ll have to do while I’m out today, I suppose.”
“You going out in this?” Mason asked, pointing toward the window.
I shrugged. “Thought I’d check downtown, see if Teddy needed any help with the sandbags or anything.”
Mom set the section of paper she was done with aside, directly in front of me. My eyes fell on the photo, and I recognized the woman in it instantly. She was wearing a white dress and standing poised next to a young man in a tux. The announcement read, “Olivia Marie Donner weds Justin Michael Fields.”
Liv. The bride at the bachelorette party.
I picked up the paper and read the announcement. Mom saw me looking at it and said, “See the date there.”
I glanced, noting it was over a month ago, and frowned. “I wonder why it’s just now in the paper.”
“I wondered that too,” she said, shaking her head. “Either the paper isn’t so good at timely news, or the family didn’t get the announcement to them on time.”
I nodded as my mind drifted to Emmy and the night we’d spent together. The next morning, she’d left me high and dry with just a note saying she’d had fun but had to get to the wedding. She’d instructed me to leave the key with Leah on my way out and that was it.
I’d played the field in my younger days, so I knew a one-night stand when I saw one. But I went into the evening hoping for something more with Emmy. I really liked her, and I thought we’d clicked. But she left the next day without so much as a goodbye.
I didn’t know her full name - just Emmy. That was it. And until that moment, I didn’t know anyone else’s full name either. I briefly contemplated reaching out to Liv and seeing if I could track Emmy down, but realized how creepy that might be. If Emmy had wanted to stay in touch with me, she would have left her number or something.
Besides, it said Liv and Justin were going on their European honeymoon for two months, which might be why the announcement was late. Obviously they came from money, since I couldn’t imagine most folks taking off for two months like that.
“Someone you know?” Mom asked. She raised a perfectly arched eyebrow and smiled at me over her coffee.
“Nah,” I said, folding the paper and putting it back down on the table. “Just surprised they still put wedding announcements in papers, that’s all.”
“They look like a nice couple, don’t you think?”
“Sure, they look happy and in love.”
“Reminds me of your dad and me, actually,” she said wistfully.
I knew the story of my parents’ marriage. It started out like a fairy tale, but unlike a true love story, it didn’t have a happy ending. Dad had always been married to