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It’s Father’s Day weekend, and Cal is freaking the fuck out.
“No. No, no. No no no no.”
“Dad,” Hannah hisses, her eyes wide and huge and warning, but those baby blues don’t work on him anymore, no sir.
“Nope. Not a chance.”
“Daddy—“
“Absolutely not.”
Father’s Day and Mother’s Day are important dates in the Weaver household. They are sacred. Sacrosanct. Nothing keeps them from their plans, not soccer games, not medical emergencies, not even LSAT prep. It is a Weaver-only event.
And Hannah has just walked through the door for their time-honored Father’s Day brunch with Jacob in tow, looking for all the world like the smug sonofabitch he always is.
“Cal—,” Emily interjects, but Cal steamrolls on, a hand still out as though to repel his daughter’s boyfriend with his protective-dad energy. His Dadergy. His Dad Force, if you will.
“You’re not invited. You were never invited.”
“Cal, yes he was!”
“Daddy!” Hannah snaps, “You’re being really rude.” Cal doesn’t care.
“I don’t care. It’s Father’s Day. I’m spending it with my family: my children and my wife. Some no-good scoundrel isn’t going to ruin that.”
“Jesus, Cal, tell me how you really feel,” Jacob laughs, sliding the sunglasses off his head—his stupidly perfect head with that stupidly perfect coif of hair—and over his eyes. Indoors. Like an asshole. “I can take a hint, Cal. I’ll get out of your hair.”
“Yeah, you do that. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”
“Okay, that’s it,” huffs Hannah, “I’m leaving, too.”
“No, no,” Jacob stops her gently, squeezing her hand before slipping his fingers out of hers. Cal tries not to fume. “It’s fine. You should stay.”
“Jacob—“
“I’m serious. I was only really giving you a ride anyway.” To the younger kids, he winks, waves goodbye, and says, “See ya suckers later. Steal some French toast off your dad’s plate for me.” To Emily, he gives a surprisingly boyish wave. “Bye, Mrs. Weaver.”
“See you, Jacob,” she says, and Cal is surprised by how sad her voice is.
Jacob straightens up, looking over at him, and Cal can see the mask come up, sees the way his barriers all slot into place, and he feels a twinge of guilt. Then Jacob throws up a peace sign and swaggers out the door, and the guilt dissipates pretty easily after that.
Hannah turns to glare at him when the door swings shut and Jacob is gone for good.
“That was really mean, Dad. Jacob was excited to spend time with you.”
“This is a family event, Nanna-Banana.”
“We’ve been dating for months—”
“Don’t remind me.”
“—You don’t think that makes him family?”
Cal shudders. “Honey, don’t ever insinuate that again. In no world is Jacob Palmer ever going to be family to me.”
Hannah stops short, her eyes growing suspiciously wet. Cal gets that lurch in his stomach that means he’s done something terribly wrong. Usually that only happens when he forgets an elementary school concert, or doesn’t notice Em’s new haircut—mistakes he’s only ever made once. Immediately, his instinct is to reach for her, to hug her, try to comfort his baby girl—but when he steps forward, arms raised to pull her in, she steps back.
“You’re being really mean, Dad,” she reiterates. Cal watches as she rifles through her handbag and pulls out a small, nicely wrapped gift box and tosses it onto the kitchen counter. “Here’s our gift for you by the way—a joint gift. You know, ‘cause we’re a couple. Happy freakin’ Father's Day.”
“Hannah—” he calls, but she’s already on her way out. When the front door slams behind her, the house is eerily quiet in the aftermath. Cal sighs.
“Jeez,” says Robbie, “It’s too early for all this drama.” That makes Cal snort.
“Yeah. Tell me about it, bud.”
*
Nanna calls him that evening while he’s helping Em in the kitchen with dinner. He’s got one hand dunking butterflied chicken in a beaten egg mixture, the other ready to dip it in seasoned panko bread crumbs, and there’s flour all down the front of his apron. Lacking other options, he has Emily put their daughter on speakerphone.
“Hey, honey.”
“Dad, I can’t find Jacob,” she says instantly.
“What?”
“I can’t find Jacob,” Hannah repeats, her voice taking on a desperate tinge, “He didn’t come home all day, and his phone is turned off—”
“Home?” Cal asks, a little bitter, but Hannah doesn’t take the bait.
“—To his apartment, Dad. I’m worried about him. Can you help me? Please?”
Cal sighs. She’s playing dirty. All the kids know he can’t refuse a request like that from one of them. “Of course, sweetheart. What can I do?”
“Can you try calling him? Maybe check on some places he frequents?”
“Are you sure that’s necessary?”
“He was really upset today, Dad. I’m worried about him.” Cal sighs.
“Okay, fine. I’ll try to find him. But he’s probably just at the bar we used to go to, and—”
“Thanks, Daddy. Love you.”
Cal sighs. “Love you, Nanna.”
When she hangs up, Cal groans and drops his chin to his chest, and Emily raises an eyebrow at him. He flicks his gaze towards her out of the corners of his eyes.
“What? What’s that look for?”
“You were kind of an asshole to him today, Cal.”
“Oh, not you too,” he groans. Emily swats at him with a hand towel as he goes to wash the dinner gunk off himself.
“He’s a good kid, Cal. A nice young man.”
“You don’t know him like I do.”
“He’s good to Hannah.”
“He’s a manwhore, Emmy.”
“He’s a sweetheart.”
“He’s a jerk.”
“I like him.”
“I’ve seen too much of him.” Cal’s eyes unfocus in a thousand-yard stare, remembering their time together in a gym sauna. He shudders. “Way too much of him.”
“All I’m saying is that you ought to give him a chance,” Emily insists, and there’s a hard edge to her voice, the same firm tone she’s passed on to their oldest daughter. Her lips are pursed in that way that means she’s disappointed in him, and Cal feels a little sick about it. “I’m sure you boys have had your issues, but he’s very good to our daughter, and that means something to me. It should mean something to you, too.”
“Emmy—”
“And he’s young, Cal. Wouldn’t you want his parents to give our little girl the same grace?”
“Yes, but Nanna’s a good kid!”
“Cal,” she sighs, “I don’t want to argue with you anymore. Just—Just go, okay?”
“I—Okay. Alright. Fine.” Damn. Leave it to Jacob fucking Palmer to shake up the Weaver family again, human hurricane disaster that he is.
*
Cal’s a stubborn man, and he hates admitting when he’s wrong, but this is one of those rare moments where he’s got to hand it to the universe: Jacob is genuinely nowhere to be found.
He tries calling the guy, but that gets him sent straight to voicemail. Cal reluctantly changes out of his comfy sweats back into his jeans and heads to the bar where they met, going so far as even asking the bartender if she’s seen him before admitting defeat. He checks the mall, drives past Jacob’s work even though it’s a Sunday and the building’s closed. He trundles slowly through his neighborhood, checks the nearby park where he knows the guy runs sometimes. Zip. Zilch. Nada. He’s disappeared off the face of the planet.
Cal groans, collapsing back into the driver’s seat and slamming the door shut when his search of the neighborhood park yields no results. The sun is starting to go down. Joggers pass by the windshield of the car, casting brief shadows over Cal’s face. Where the fuck is this asshole?
Something’s digging into Cal’s ass. Now that he’s finally had a moment to sit down and think, he realizes that it’s something in his back pocket, and that it’s been annoying him his entire search. He shifts, pulling it out.
“Fuck,” he breathes. It’s Hannah and Jacob’s gift to him—the little box with the silver bow. He must’ve slipped it into his pocket this morning and forgotten all about it while paying attention to Robbie and Molly.
Cal pulls the bow off and flicks the box open, anticipating something typical—a stupid tie, cufflinks with footballs on them, a gift card. When he sees what it is, however, he freezes.
It is a typical dad gift, but—Jesus. It’s the fanciest dad gift he’s ever received. Hannah and Jacob have gotten him a watch, one with lots of little moving doodads behind the shiny glass face, the whole thing a beautiful gleaming silver. It’s clearly very expensive. Jacob must’ve chosen it; the thing practically reeks of dollar signs, and it has his pretentious taste written all over it.
Cal gingerly lifts the watch out of the box. Flipping it over makes his heart do something complicated in his chest. The thing is engraved, for Christ’s sake. To Dad. With Love From Hannah and Jacob.
It glides like silk across his wrist and fits perfectly. Cal immediately loves the way it feels, the weight of it, the smooth metal cool against his skin. He’s been wearing the same watch since he was in his teens. This is—Wow. Wow.
To Dad. With Love. Fuuuuck. Fuck him all the way to hell. No way is he going to feel guilty over Jacob fucking Palmer.
“Goddamn it,” Cal mutters to himself. “Goddamn it all to hell.”
Cal flips the engine on and pulls out of the parking lot, unsure where to go. The low beams of sunset pouring in through the trees are turning everything golden and warm, and he squints against the windshield to be able to see the road. His brand new watch catches the light, and the glare hurts his eyes. Why does that asshole have to be so goddamn annoying? Why can’t he be a normal young man? Why couldn’t he have fallen in love with any other girl in the world?
Why did it have to be Hannah?
Cal has worked himself up to an upset, huffing mess by the time he pulls past Jacob’s quiet neighborhood park, driving aimlessly past the far exit he never usually takes. The road there rolls up a hill, and the houses fall gently away on either side to expose a small cemetery flanked by trees. Cal sighs and rubs at his face. He hates driving past dead people. It gives him the heebie-jeebies.
He’s genuinely considering making an illegal U-turn in the middle of the empty street just to get out of there when Cal notices a figure in the distance. It’s the silhouette of a man standing in the cemetery, his head ducked low, backlit by the setting sun. He only sees it for a moment, before the figure sinks down to sit among the headstones, but Cal knows who it is immediately.
Fuck. It’s Jacob. Fuuuuuck.
“What the hell is he doing?” Cal mutters to himself, before parking the car a little hapharzardly. He’s angry all of a sudden and he isn’t sure at whom. At himself, maybe, for getting into this stupid situation, for ending up in a place he knows is going to mortify him. At Jacob, possibly, for running off and sending Cal on a wild goose chase. At Hannah, a little, for picking this dingus of all people to be her boyfriend.
But if Cal’s being honest with himself—and boy isn’t that a loaded thought right now—he really isn’t angry at all.
Jacob’s sitting in the grass with his knees to his chest in front of a headstone when Cal walks up to him from the side, throwing a shadow over the young man when he gingerly steps forwards. The swiftly disappearing sunlight outlines his face so he looks a little like a mirage.
“Fancy seeing you here.”
Jacob glances up at him, then does a double-take. Cal notices that he’s not in his nice outfit from that morning anymore—he’s wearing an oversized sweatshirt Cal’s never seen before, with a worn logo and frayed sleeves. It’s the kind of thing he thought Jacob wouldn’t be caught dead in. The sight of him looking rumpled and soft makes him seem so much younger, and Cal tries not to let it get to him.
“Cal?” he asks, voice hoarse.
“In the flesh.” Awkwardly, he jerks his chin at the headstone Jacob’s sitting in front of. “Visiting a friend?”
“Of sorts.”
“Hannah’s worried sick about you. Asked me to hunt you down.”
“Oh.” Jacob drops his gaze, suddenly cowed. “Yeah. Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare her. My cell died. I’ve been out all day.”
“Here? All day?”
Jacob shrugs. “I guess.”
“You’re a weird young man.”
“I guess.”
His responses are dull, monotone. Part of Cal wants to neg him a little, get him to stop sounding so damn sad and start heckling back. The sight of the kid so small and gray sets his teeth on edge. Cal’s a second from running away screaming when he actually looks at the headstone Jacob’s been staring at with those sad, blank eyes, and his stomach sinks practically to his ass.
Richard Palmer. Father—Husband—Son.
Oh, fuck.
“Oh, fuck.”
“Hm?” Jacob makes a little noise in the back of his throat. Cal feels like the worst person alive.
“This is… This is your dad.”
“Yeah.”
“I…” Shit. Fuck. Cal’s fucked this up tremendously. “I didn’t know he was…” Jacob makes a noise that could’ve been a laugh if it wasn’t so sad.
“Yeah,” he says. “Cal, meet my dad. Dad, this is…” He trails off, then shrugs. There’s no gel in his hair, and a weird little cowlick is sticking up at the back of his head. Cal wonders if the sweatshirt belonged to Richard.
Cal’s not a perfect man. He’s slowly mending his marriage after fucking things up with Emily, but boy did he fuck things up with Emily. He’s skipped gymnastics meets for work and inadvertently caused his son’s first heartbreak. He’s headstrong and stubborn and stupid as all get out.
But he’s soft. He’s good at being soft. It took him a long time to realize that his softness was a skill, not a flaw.
He tries not to groan when he sinks down to sit next to Jacob, ignoring the twinge of pain it sends up his back. Jacob snorts out what sounds like a small laugh.
“Y’okay?” he asks.
“Shitty back. Been driving all night.”
“Serves you right, old man.”
They sit together in silence for a few moments then, just staring ahead at Jacob’s father’s grave. In the violet afterimage of sunset, Cal strains his eyes to read the numbers engraved on the stone. Does the math. The man died young. Jacob would have been only nine or ten.
Younger than Robbie. Just barely older than Molls. Jesus. Cal thinks suddenly of Hannah at that age; by then, Em had accepted that she was never going to vicariously live out her ballet dreams through their daughter, what with the kid’s two left feet, but Hannah could tumble and somersault like nobody’s business. She had no concept of grief then. The first grandparent she lost was only a few years ago.
Next to him, Jacob lets out a long, slow breath. Cal braces for him to say something, anything, but nothing ever comes. No witty retort, no snide remark, no off-color joke. Just quiet. The sky grows slowly darker.
“What was he like?” Cal asks, voice soft.
The silence stretches for so long that he thinks maybe Jacob didn’t hear him, or is pointedly ignoring him. When he does speak, his voice is low and hoarse.
“He was… a really good guy,” Jacob says to the headstone, before swallowing hard. “Maybe, uh, maybe too good. He was soft, y’know? Kind of a pushover. Like y—uh. A hard worker. Successful. Business.”
A breeze shivers through the trees lining the edges of the cemetery, which offer a budding green shield from the prying world. Cal watches fuchsia shadows deepen across the young man’s face as the light dims further.
“We were close, I think. Maybe not. I dunno. I always remember him being sick, since I was really little. I guess I didn’t really know him well outside of that—he was just hardworking and sick. And then he was really sick. And then he was gone.”
“That must’ve been hard on you and your mom,” Cal says, gentler than he’s ever spoken to Jacob.
“Yeah. I dunno. Yeah. I guess. My mom, uh. She’s very brilliant. Very fabulous. Very cold. I think my dad dying just made her more…” He trails off.
“Cold?” Cal offers softly.
“Yeah. Distant. I dunno. We sorta stopped talking to each other after that. Now we see each other maybe once a year.”
They’re silent again for a good, long while. Cal thinks about what Jacob’s revealed to him, mulls it over in his mind. It’s the most he’s ever talked about himself in one sitting—really talked about himself, not just blathering on about gym routines or college accolades. It’s hard to reconcile the image Cal has of him—the notorious womanizer, the barely reformed playboy, the shitty lowlife who’s corrupting his sweet, beautiful daughter—with this new version of Jacob he’s picturing.
Small and sad, grieving, scared. Seeking comfort that would never come. Lonely.
A dead dad and an absent mom. Christ Almighty. The kid never even had a chance, did he?
“I’m sorry you were on your own for so long,” Cal finally says, carefully, trying to not to spook him like Jacob’s some wounded animal. “I’m sorry you lost him so young.”
In the dim evening, he can see the kid’s throat working, the flutter of his lashes as he blinks hard. Something twists in Cal’s chest at the shake in Jacob’s shoulders, his sudden smallness.
“Yeah. Well.” He clears his throat, but says nothing more. Cal stares at the headstone again.
He thinks about the way Jacob showed up to the Weaver house this morning, in his nice button-up and expensive shoes. The bottle of something-or-other tucked under his arm, the fancy watch tied up with a bow. Cal had assumed nothing but full confidence from all his cocksure swagger, but he recalls seeing Jacob’s guards go up, the way he’d morphed from something earnest and open to the version of himself he displays at bars and conferences.
He’d looked young, Cal realizes. Genuine. Like he’d really wanted to celebrate Father’s Day, maybe for—Jesus Christ—maybe for the first time since his old man died.
That awful stomach-lurch is back, the Big Mistake feeling in Cal’s gut. Oh god. He’s such an asshole.
“Oh god. I’m such an asshole,” he confesses, “I shouldn’t have made you leave today. I’m sorry, Jacob.”
To his surprise, the young man bristles.
“What? What are you—Don’t. Don’t be like that.”
“What? I’m apologizing to you—”
“Jesus, don’t be such a schwanz. I don’t need an apology from you, Cal, are you serious?”
“I… I was inconsiderate, and I hurt your feelings—”
“My feelings!” Jacob crows, “Are you kidding me? What are we, twelve-year-old girls? Come on. Stop it.”
“Jacob.” Cal reaches out to squeeze his shoulder, ducks his head to force him to make eye contact. For all his put-upon anger, Jacob’s eyes are remarkably wet. Cal’s heart squeezes the way it does when his own kids cry. He doesn’t have the time to unpack that response right now. “Jacob, come on. Be genuine with me here. I’m trying to say I’m sorry.”
“And I’m telling you, I don’t need it,” he grits out.
“I was wrong,” Cal presses, “You’ve been nothing but good to my daughter. You’ve been a good friend to Robbie and Molly. You’ve been kind to Emily. You’ve been kind to me. Even when I don’t deserve it.” When Jacob doesn’t respond, Cal shifts his hand from the young man’s shoulder to the nape of his neck, squeezing there like he would do to his own son, or to a wayward puppy. “Jacob. You’re a good kid. I was wrong. You are part of my family.”
The sound that wrenches out of Jacob’s throat nearly breaks Cal’s heart. He curls in on himself, presses his face into his knees. He shudders hard, and Cal can feel it rattle through him like a sob. He’s so young. Jesus. He’s so young.
“You’re okay,” he murmurs to the kid, “You’re okay.”
“Don’t,” Jacob coughs into his knees.
“You’re okay. I got you. It’s okay.”
“Oh god,” Jacob cries, and he sounds so wrecked that Cal can’t tell if he’s complaining or weeping.
“I liked the watch,” Cal says weakly, and pretends he doesn’t notice when Jacob starts to sob.
*
Jacob and Hannah join them for dinner that night, and despite Cal’s best efforts, he finds it kind of nice.
The impromptu visit means things are a little more casual than they normally are when Jacob visits, and it helps a great deal that both he and Hannah look soft and sleepy and a little tousled in their respective dads’ pilfered clothes. Robbie’s regaling the table with some story about one of his little delinquent friends, and everyone’s laughing. The chicken parm is delicious.
Cal is trying not to cry.
It’s just—Fuck. You know? That’s his little girl. He was seventeen when Em got pregnant, barely eighteen when she was born. He was just a kid himself, and suddenly there was a squirming, wailing, screaming bundle of goo and mess and joy in his arms, and know she’s all grown up but still his baby and she’s in love. Fuck. She’s in love. And here’s this boy—Jesus Christ. Here’s this boy, and he’s a good boy, really, Cal has to admit, and he’s—he’s—
Fuck. Goddamn it. Cal kind of loves him. Fuck him all the way to hell, he loves that kid.
At the table, Jacob laughs so hard he snorts, and water shoots out of his nose, making him cough and splutter. Hanna and Molly screech at how disgusting it is, and Robbie laughs so hard he drops his fork. And Cal, god help him, finds it endearing.
It’s just that he’s a good kid. And it’s been a long, long time since he was someone’s little boy. And that does something stupid to Cal’s heart. His big, soft, stupid fucking heart.
Fuck. This sucks.
Later, Emily finds him blinking back tears at the kitchen sink, staring out into the dark backyard through the little window. The kids are laughing and playing video games in the living room, and because it’s technically still father’s day, they’ve let him play one of his old-man vinyls on the record player with minimal grumbling. Frank Sinatra’s crooning barely makes it over the sound of Molly and Hannah playfully arguing over their favorite video game character: regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention…
“So?” she says, hip-checking him gently.
“So what?” Cal murmurs. Em rolls her eyes.
“Do I want to know what happened today?”
“Uh…” Cal thinks about the watch on his wrist, the snotty handkerchief that’s probably shoved in his glove box right now. The way Jacob had complained that he was such an old man for even carrying a handkerchief, like someone’s grandpa.
“Probably not,” he finally says.
“You’re crying.”
“Am not!”
“You like him.”
“Sweetheart, don’t say that,” Cal begs, “You’re making it sound like a high school crush.”
“Am I wrong?”
From the other room, Jacob loudly complains that Molly’s cheating, which results in the little girl erupting into giggles. Music seeps in through the warm peals of laughter. I did it my way…
“No,” Cal sighs, pulling his wife in close to his side and pressing a kiss to her temple. Their children in the other room are happy and fed and whole. The watch on Cal’s wrist shines warm in the low kitchen light. “You’re never wrong.”