The house was full to the brimming and Jim had no idea who half the people inside were.
He knew he was supposed to know all the unfamiliar faces and voices offering their condolences.
What is one supposed to say?
“Thank you,” he guessed.
He had to get out of there.
Ice. They were out of ice. Were they? The hell with it, he decided. They needed more ice.
He didn’t see Pam, but she’d understand.
Quietly, he made his way toward the front door, grabbing his keys off the hall table and slipped out. As he walked quickly down the path toward his car, he spotted a flash of black amongst the thick orange leaves of the autumn oak in the front yard.
“Come on down from there, Cece Marie,” he called.
He stood by the trunk, waiting for her to make her way down through the branches. When she was low enough, he held out his arms and she reached down, letting him lift her out of the tree. She wrapped her arms and legs around him like she’d done when she was little, before she’d started asking to be dropped off a block away from her friends’ houses and peppering her speech with “O.M.G!”
Jim reveled in the moment, holding on tight and drawing her head on his shoulder, softly stroking her wavy hair. Right now, he needed time to stop moving so quickly, needed his babies to stop growing up so fast.
“Where are you going?” she asked, her voice muffled against his suit jacket.
“To get more ice,” he replied.
Cece tightened her arms around him, and he loved how intuitive she was, how like her mother she was.”
“We have ice,” she whispered, and he nodded but didn’t say anything. “Can I come, Daddy?”
He set her down on the ground and nodded. “Yeah, baby.”
They settled in the car, buckling safety belts, and Jim started to turn right out of the drive to head toward the store when Cece shook her head.
“Go the long way,” she said.
So he turned left instead.
“Tell me a story from the olden days,” Cece asked softly, and Jim laughed at her inclination to refer to his childhood thusly, because somehow he couldn’t quite conceive of the ‘80s as being “olden.”
“Okay,” he replied. “When I was a little younger than you are, your Uncle Tom had just gotten his drivers license and he got a speeding ticket because, well-”
“Because he’s Uncle Tom,” Cece filled in. Smart girl.
Jim nodded, laughing. “Right, because he’s Uncle Tom. Anyway, he got a speeding ticket and Papa had take him to Wilkes-Barre to court. So somehow, I end up having to go with them, I don’t remember why. You can imagine how much a nine-year-old liked sitting in traffic court.”
Cecelia wrinkled her nose.
“So anyway, the whole thing takes a couple of hours and as we’re driving home, your Papa is lecturing Uncle Tom about driving being a privilege, and how he has to be responsible and show he’s mature enough to drive a car, all that.”
She nodded. “Then what?”
He smiled. “I’m getting there, Cee. So Papa’s going on to Tom about being responsible, and he keeps looking in the rearview mirror and saying “You need to be listening to this too, James.”
“Papa’s the only one who ever calls you that,” Cece remarked, and Jim nodded, feeling wistful, not quite ready to face a world without his father in it.
“Anyway,” he went on, “as he’s going on and on about showing maturity and earning privileges, like driving, red lights start flashing behind us and we hear a siren.”
Cece burst out laughing. “Papa got a ticket?”
Jim nodded, smirking. “A speeding ticket. After spending the whole ride telling Tom about why speeding is bad and how responsible adults always pay attention.”
Cece laughed and laughed, throwing back her head, and it was good to hear laughter after days of hushed voices.
Without even realizing it, they’d come back to their street. He parked in front of the house.
“We didn’t get ice,” she remarked.
Jim nodded. “We have ice,” he reminded her, and she nodded back.
He was a lucky man.
Author's Chapter Notes:
The story in this chapter actually did happen to a friend of mine, many years ago, and I still laugh thinking about it.
Chapter End Notes:
Your thoughts are always so very appreciated.
