“Dad,” I put a hand to his arm but he shrugged it off and walked further into the house then started pacing.

“Who does that?” he shouted. “Her son is dead and what? What’s important to her? How obvious could it be that you’d made the right decision just at the wrong time? Tim was a good kid, he became a good man. He took care of you, the girls. How much proof did she need that she was wrong and you were right? How hard is it, when what lies in the balance is something you love, to admit you’re wrong? How much more proof does she need that life’s too damn short to be such a ridiculous, screaming bitch!”

“Pete,” Joe said coming close to me but Dad stopped pacing and glared at him.

“And you! Who are you?” Dad bellowed, throwing an arm in Joe’s direction.

I heard the sliding glass door open but couldn’t tear my eyes away from what was happening in front of me.

Keira burrowed into Joe’s side as she answered, “Granddad, he’s Joe.”

“I know he’s Joe, sweetie,” Dad yelled at Keira and at my father’s angry words aimed at her, Keira burrowed closer to Joe and when she did I watched with no small amount of concern as Joe’s face went so hard it looked carved from stone but Dad was on a tear and he kept talking. “My daughter has a new man in her life and all I know is that he’s Joe.” Dad looked at Joe and demanded to know. “Where do you come from? What do you do? How did you meet? Can you provide for my daughter? Can you take care of her? Protect her? Protect my grandchildren? The only ones I’ll ever have!” He was shouting when he was done and Kate, in from outside, edged around him and pressed into my side as he did it.

I put my arm around my daughter and opened my mouth to speak but Joe got there before me.

“I appreciate this is an intense time for you, Pete, but you do not come into this house and shout, not in front of the girls and definitely not at the girls. Not during an intense time, not… fucking… ever.” Joe still had Keira at his side, his arm was around her and he was holding her close but he was leaning threateningly toward my father. “You need to go somewhere and pull yourself together and you need to do it now or you’ll find yourself not in this house. Do you get me?”

Dad stared at Joe, tardily realizing that he should have paid closer attention and I opened my mouth to speak again but Vinnie was there.

“Pete?” he asked, his hand on my father’s back, “I’m Vinnie, Cal’s uncle. Let’s you and me take a walk.”

Dad looked at Vinnie in confusion as Vinnie pushed him toward the door, Dad resisted (but feebly) and Kate and I moved to the side to let them pass.

“Who’s Cal?” Dad asked, looking around, his face having lost its anger, he was now full on perplexed with a little hint of lost mixed in.

“I’ll explain on the walk,” Vinnie muttered, opened the front door and shoved my father through it before he could utter another sound then he shut the door and I watched him half-push, half-guide Dad down the walk.

I looked at Joe who still had Keira tucked close to his side. “Can we call Doc now?” I asked then in an effort to lighten the mood went on to joke. “I could use that Valium and, maybe, a shot of tequila.”

Joe’s eyes sliced to mine. I noted that he didn’t look amused, Kate giggled nervously and Joe’s eyes moved to her.

“Dane’s shit sorted?” he asked in an almost bark.

Kate didn’t even flinch before she replied quietly, “He burned her phone number.”

“He know he does that shit again I’ll break his neck?” Joe went on.

“Joe!” I snapped and this time Keira giggled, not nervously at all.

“I kinda alluded to that,” Kate answered on a grin.

Now it was me who was not amused.

“Joe, I’m not gonna say it again. Stop threatening to break Dane’s neck!” I snapped again.

Joe looked at me. “All right, buddy, there’s a next time he acts like an ass, I’ll threaten to rip his head off.”

“Joe!” I cried angrily.

Joe ignored me and looked back at Kate. “Where is he?”

“He left. I asked him to go home so we could have our family drama and he wouldn’t know we were all crazy, change his mind and want to break up with me,” Kate replied.

Joe’s arm curled Keira in an even closer sideways hug. “Thinkin’, girl, he already gets that.”

“Yeah, that cat’s outta the bag,” Keira agreed, her arm snaking around Joe’s middle to hold on and Kate laughed.

But I didn’t.

Bea, Gary, Theresa and Vinnie were there, as was my father who had left my mother, at long last, but this was still a shock. My father had also shouted at Joe and Keira. Before that emotional scene we’d had another emotional scene which necessitated a timeout where we all cuddled in bed with Joe which was, frankly, a weird thing to do no matter how natural it felt. My eldest daughter was taking relationship advice from my boyfriend who wasn’t all that great with relationships or at least it took him awhile to come around. And both my daughters were acting like my live-in boyfriend of one week had been around for the last year.

“I need to go to the liquor store,” I announced.

“Buddy –” Joe started to say, his lips curving into a grin.

“No, we have wine and we have beer but we don’t have tequila. I need tequila.”

“Vi, baby, it’s not even noon.” Joe said.

“I need tequila.”

“Relax.”

“I need tequila.”

“Honey, relax.”

“I need tequila!”

Joe’s hand whipped out, tagged me at the neck and I fell face forward into his chest. As I had my arm around Kate, she came with me so we ended in a four person huddle.

I pulled my face out of Joe’s chest and looked up at him.

“Tequila,” I muttered and I heard Keira and Kate giggle.

“Baby,” Joe muttered back and touched his mouth to mine before he finished, “relax.”

I was about to explain, again, that Joe telling me to relax didn’t mean I’d do it when I felt a presence and I turned my head to see, shockingly, Bea had come close.

“Vi, sweetie, I’ll make my sangria later. We can have it with dinner. How does that sound?” Bea asked.

Bea’s sangria was brilliant. Way better than her chocolate cream pie.

And Bea getting close to our huddle even though she still looked timid, she nevertheless was close, was the best.

“We’ll go to the grocery store when we get school supplies,” I said to Bea.

“Perfect,” Bea replied quietly then she smiled at me.

Then I watched as she smiled at Joe.

It was then I relaxed.

* * *

Storms in the Midwest, bad ones, had a way of announcing their arrival well before they arrived. You could feel them and you could see them as the air went still and took on what I could swear was a tinge of yellow. You could even smell them.

Considering the emotional start to the day, the emotional months that had preceded it and the fact that it looked and smelled like there was going to be a storm, a bad one, maybe even one that heralded a tornado (tornados being something that scared me shitless), it maybe wasn’t so surprising when I lost it on the sidewalk outside the store.

See, making matters worse, I’d had nothing but a corn dog and a Slurpee for lunch and I was starving. Further, I saw the lightning and heard the far away thunder. The time between lightning flashes and thunder rolls was dwindling, the storm was fast approaching and I was getting antsy because I didn’t want to be at a strip mall, a veritable magnet for tornado activity (in my storm fevered imagination). I wanted to be home.

What made matters even worse was Dad, Gary and Uncle Vinnie decided to come with us and Joe came along too, likely to play his self-appointed role of emotional bodyguard. I was very aware of the facts that Dad and Gary weren’t the best of friends; Bea was still stinging from had happened nearly two decades ago with Mom and Dad was a stark reminder of that; Dad wasn’t Joe’s favorite person at that moment; the girls were with a bunch of people they loved, their favorite thing in the world and in full on shopping mode, their second favorite thing in the world and something which nothing penetrated, even if they were only buying notebooks and pens; and I was a walking emotional zombie, barely holding it together. Therefore, Vinnie and Theresa were working triple time to keep our troop from descending into madness.

That said, Vinnie and Theresa, just being Vinnie and Theresa, weren’t the best choices for this job considering they were naturally pretty bonkers.

Even so, we were somehow making it through the day. We’d been to the grocery store to pick up ingredients for sangria, it was closing in on Sangria Time and I’d started to count down the minutes.

After the grocery store, the girls got their stuff and they’d scored huge what with Gary and Bea, Vinnie and Theresa, Dad, and lastly Joe vying to spoil them rotten so they had enough school supplies to last them until they were eighty. They also had new CDs by their favorite bands (Joe’s contribution though he flatly refused in a teasing way to buy Keira any boy band music to which Dad stepped in, thinking he was doing something good, and bought them which ticked Joe off for reasons only known to Joe and Keira had to play peacemaker). They also had new brushes, combs, shampoo, conditioner, moisturizer, makeup and enough hair accessories to service the entire freshman class (Theresa’s contribution on a smile and a vague “All girls need a little… you know,” when I tried to intervene).

Joe was loading their multitude of bags in the trunk of the Mustang while both girls were close, gabbing at Joe. Dad was trying to help at the same time looking like he was going to burst into tears. Vinnie was trying to distract Dad and failing which meant Dad was getting in Joe’s way. Gary, Theresa and Bea were down the sidewalk looking into the windows of the bakery, Theresa exclaiming loudly, “They have no cannoli!” to which Bea nervously giggled. And I was standing alone and slightly removed from the rest of them.