All familiar characters are Janet's. The others and the mistakes are mine.
The next two hours were somewhat-organized chaos. All hands were on deck except for ours and Olivia's as the competition began and then ran its course. My mother sandwiched herself between Julie and Mary Alice, not wanting to infringe on Frank's time with his granddaughters, though she refused to be too far away in case she or her experience were needed. Showing how spectacularly a mother of six can multitask, she kept her eyes and mind on Julie and my nieces even as her line became like her home ... a place every creature flocked to. Dinner will be covered for the next three days at the rate she and my father are going.
I also had to give my father-in-law a little credit. Even though this is one activity he genuinely enjoys doing, his time and attention were focused equally between Mary Alice, Angie, and Lisa whenever she became interested in seeing a fish again. He remained in teaching-mode rather than choosing to tune everyone out while doing something he loves somewhere he's never been.
"Do you think my Dad's actually having fun with the girls?" Steph quietly asked me, tucking a blanket more securely around Olivia's legs. "Or do you think he's being a guy and he just doesn't want Mama Manoso to show him up?"
Like what happened on Olivia's birthday, Steph didn't want our baby to miss out on being part of this story years down the line, so she got comfortable in a lounge chair and became Olive's nap-bed again.
"Depends if he's thinking for himself," I answered, "or has reverted back to how the Burg views the world."
She cringed. "I really don't want to believe he'd purposely choose his past nonexistence over what he's experienced with us this week. I know there's no way in hell I'd pick my old crappy apartment, life, and attitude, over you, Julie, Olive, and our dogs who apparently miss us."
In a supposedly adult way of pouting for being left in charge back at home, Lester had informed us that Gunny and Mo refuse to eat, play, or do their business, too far from a door in case we came back through one of them ... similar to how our daughter tricks my mother into being near the front door whenever Steph and I enjoy a date-night out. After my wife told Lester in graphic detail where he could fold up and shove his guilt trip, she confused our mutts by making Santos turn our call into a video chat.
"Olive, look who wants to say 'Hi' to you," she'd said to our baby when all we could see is dog nose filling the screen.
"Bubbies!" Our daughter had yelled, when she recognized Mo and Gunny.
"That's right," my wife told her, sitting Olive on her lap and letting her hold onto the cell. "Your puppies/buddies missed you. Can you give them a kiss and promise them that we'll be home soon?"
Steph's screen will need to be thoroughly cleaned after this, but Olivia did give each dog a kiss, even spared one for her Uncle Lester who doesn't deserve it.
"Weez goed hi-hi," Olive had assured the three boys before we'd disconnected.
Our baby had received a Mama-sized hug for saying that. "We will be 'Hi-hi-ing' all over our building in just a few days."
Olive had nodded before burning off another round of energy chasing after her sister and cousins before she fisted her way through a lunch of cheese and squash pasta and diced fruit. She fell asleep not long after, with a full belly and a full day already behind her.
"Good job, Mary Alice," we heard Frank tell our niece, drawing Steph and I back to the excitement of our present moment instead of speculating on the 'what ifs' that may happen once we return to Trenton. "You caught a beauty."
"I did! Didn't I?"
"Yes."
Frank worked the hook out of the Mackerel's mouth and I could see Mary Alice's mouth working as she watched the fish's body swing back and forth as it tried to get itself free.
"Ummm ... I know I really wanted to catch him, but now that I did ... can we release it after I get a picture of me holding him?"
Steph cut her eyes to me. It's showtime. It's clear that Mary Alice's request goes against everything in Frank - releasing an honestly-caught food source. Now he has to decide whether to go along with Mary Alice's wish, or stick to his guns and try to change her mind to match his. Not only is it an important test he has to pass, he needs to be able to see exactly what's at stake here.
"Alright," he said to his granddaughter. "But you'd better take a picture fast. It can't live too long out of water."
Angie quickly grabbed her sister's cell and snapped the pic. Frank then helped Mary Alice lean over the rail and release the fish back into the wild.
"I'm sorry, Grandpa," she told Frank, after an uncomfortable pause in activity.
"There's nothing to be sorry about, Mary Alice."
"I really wanted to learn how to do this, but I felt bad watching him struggle to breathe," she explained.
Steph wanted to say something to comfort her niece yet didn't want to wake Olivia up, but our eldest daughter stepped up to the plate.
"Did you have fun?" Julie asked Mary Alice. "On any fishing trip Grandpa and I took together, Grandma never asked how many fish I caught, she always asked me if I had fun."
"Enjoying the time the two of you had together is what's important to me, Julie," my mother replied. "We can always make dinner, but you will never get those special grandpa/granddaughter moments back once they're gone."
"I had a great day," my niece admitted.
"A lot of competitions are strictly catch and release, Mary Alice," Papa Manoso told her. "Being able to prove you can catch the biggest and the best is the point, not whether or not you eat what you reel in. You did a great job landing a good-sized Mackerel on your first try. You should be feeling very proud right now, not sorry at all."
"I am proud of myself, but if I don't fish for food ... what else can you and I do together, Grandpa?" She asked Frank.
I almost felt bad for him, the way he froze when he was directly questioned, but having children and then grandchildren means he should have an immediate answer ready to give any one of his girls who asked him that. It took enough beats for Steph to get antsy, but he salvaged the afternoon with an eventual response.
"I can take you and your sisters bowling with me, or I can teach you how to play cards and you girls can come with me to the lodge," Frank told Mary Alice and Angie.
"Oooor ... you can come over to our house for dinners or take the girls out for one," Valerie suggested, allowing Steph to calm down again.
My wife still believes she's responsible for fixing everything, which is my job.
"Just wave a pot roast under that mug, and he'll be there," Edna told Val. "Me too if you got dessert."
"I'll put both on my grocery list as soon as we're back home. Along with one of these," Valerie said, pausing in her pass-by to trail her fingers gently across Olivia's sleeping head.
I looked at Kloughn. "Run," I advised, eighty-percent sure Val isn't kidding about wanting something as perfect as my daughter tearing apart her house in a way only babies can.
"Run? Where?" Albert asked. "We're on a boat!"
Steph rolled her eyes and I swear I heard her thank God again that I'm her husband ... and it had nothing to do with my looks, body, or family. His early infatuation with my wife would've killed him in more ways than just the ones I would've subjected him to if he hadn't smartened up and found someone who was actually interested in his attention.
"You may need to keep an eye more on Albert than Lisa," Steph said to her sister. "The lack of smog in the air is making him more clueless than usual."
"Well don't clue him in. I could go for another girl. The ones I've made so far have been pretty great."
"You hear that girls," Steph said towards our nieces. "You being impressive humans has made your Mom want more of you. You may want to tone down your awesomeness a little."
Mary Alice grinned. "Never."
Steph gave her a thumbs-up. "Good answer, M.E. Never snuff out your flame for anyone." My wife looked over at her father. "Olive and Julie are going to need some beach time before we head back into Winter, is there any place and/or island you've hope to see one day, Dad? You could check something off your bucket list during this trip if there is."
If he looked surprised at Mary Alice asking him what they could do together outside of securing supper, he appeared completely shell-shocked in the face of Steph's question.
"You must have a few fantasy vacations tucked away somewhere on a mental list?" My wife said. "Everyone does, even I had an 'escape to' list at my poorest and brokenness times."
"Any every one of them was someplace warm," I added, having been granted access to all of her thoughts.
"Yup. I'm not stupid. I can get snow and cold in Trenton. And Point Pleasant's beaches are only pleasant three months out of twelve, so I pick warm-only places."
"Which you passed onto our daughter."
"Yep. You're welcome for that, since you prefer heat to cold yourself. So any thoughts, Dad?"
He was quiet for a few moments. "I guess I haven't thought much about where I'd go outside of where I drive the cab and the lodge."
Steph smiled as Olive began stretching while still mostly asleep. Her blanket went one way as her body went the other. Steph wrangled Olivia while I caught the material that had been covering her before it could hit the deck.
"You're in the right place then," my wife told my father-in-law. "Ranger can make anything happen. I can now say from experience that anywhere in the Caribbean is literally paradise. And I bet Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands are equally beautiful compared to what I've seen so far … and could also use the tourism. Just let us or Nemit know where you'd like to visit and we'll make it happen."
At his still-silent response. Steph lifted a blinking but coming awake Olivia to her shoulder and cuddled her closer as she contemplated how to bridge this new divide between herself and her father.
"Dad ... your opinion, your thoughts, and your wants matter here. Mom may have trained you to believe that you don't have a say in anything that goes on around you, but that isn't how we operate here. Everyone from our dogs up to our people get to put in their two cents. We asked you to come along so you can enjoy yourself too. Your input is just as important as ours is. Please don't think that you can't say what you feel or where you'd like to go. You're one of us and I wish you could believe that."
Again, he didn't say anything, but this time I can tell it's because he's thinking, not just uncomfortable.
"I had an old war buddy who spoke highly of the island of Saint Thomas. I've always wanted to see if it was as amazing as he claimed it was."
"Only one way to find out," I told him.
"You know, I don't remember you saying anything about the men you served with," Steph said to Frank.
Another pause, but he appeared to be on a roll when it came to sharing. "I've never mentioned Gioele. He shot himself when things got too bad," Frank said under his breath, his eyes closing on the memories that I know are threatening to take over again. When his lids went back up, he looked devastated. "I was the one who found his body."
"Oh, God," Steph said, standing up with Olivia and automatically reaching for him, like she's done for me more times than I want to count. "I'm so sorry. I never knew that."
"Because it's a hard truth to tell, Babe," I reminded her.
"I get that, but had I known, Dad, maybe we could've talked about it so you wouldn't be stuck carrying all that pain around alone. I don't have your experience, but I've seen enough now to understand what that must have done to you."
"I didn't want to talk about it," Frank told her, risking a smile for Olivia when she was awake enough to hit him with the full force of her big, beautiful brown eyes as she tucked her head under Steph's chin. "I still don't."
"You're going to have to talk about everything at some point, Dad," Valerie told him, also wanting to help any way she could. "Things get even harder to ignore once they've been exposed to air."
"But for right now, we can start with just touring Saint Thomas. That'll give you something to kick off your conversation when we get back home and you see Rangeman's 'adviser' again."
Knowing the older girls could be listening despite appearing completely absorbed in a social media moment, my wife didn't want to go into too much more detail than that.
"Thank you," Frank whispered, still reeling from his newest revelation.
"No thanks are needed, Dad," Stephanie assured him. "We're a family ... and ours leave no loved one behind."
