Sealed With A Slap

Chapter 3-1

Chapter 3

Sean heard Erin laugh from the other table but refused to look at her. When she wasn’t telling him how to raise his daughter, he had to admit she was pretty, but he wasn’t going there. He had his one great love. He wasn’t getting another one.

Not that he thought she could come anywhere close. Of course not. She just stirred something in him that no one since Angela had.

He sat back in his chair and draped his arm across the back of Emily’s seat. Things between them were tense, but he knew it would work out. It had been him and Em forever. He had no idea what it was like to be a teenage girl, but he would be there when she was ready to talk to him. About anything. Even the boy drawing all her attention from her other side.

“Who’s Andie’s new friend?” Leo asked. Leo was the youngest of the four siblings, two and a half years younger than Sean. Andie was older than him by two years with Dillon six and a half years older than Sean.

“Her name’s Erin. She’s a child psychologist,” Sean answered, taking a sip of his wine. He wanted to chug it and grab another, but he wouldn’t. He made sure he didn’t lose his faculties at all times.

“She’s pretty hot,” Leo said, shoving a bite of ravioli into his mouth. “Where did Andie meet her?”

“Turn The Page.”

“Why was Andie there?”

Sean shrugged and pushed back from the table. “How the hell would I know? Maybe you should ask her.”

Leo stared up at him with a shocked face. “What the hell just happened?”

Sean shook his head. “Nothing. I gotta check on a few things.”

They both knew it was bullshit, but Leo didn’t say anything as Sean stalked away. He needed to get away from everything and everyone. He didn’t know how to tell his siblings and cousins what was going through his mind. Every year it was hard on him to celebrate Emily’s birthday, but it seemed harder this year. Not only was Emily turning thirteen, she was going to her first school dance with a boy. And between the two events was the thirteenth anniversary of Angela’s death.

Sean was not handling any of it well.

He walked out through the vines toward the water. Angela wouldn’t even recognize the vineyard if she were still alive. Things had changed so much over the years. The vines were fuller, more mature. The big tree by the water had more branches and added a few feet to its height. The inn had expanded, too. Everything was new, different.

The biggest change was him, but there were days he still felt like that scared eighteen year old who married the girl who carried his child.

The day she told him she was pregnant was one of the hardest days of his life. He knew what he had to do. He loved her, but he wasn’t ready to get married so young. It didn’t matter, though. That was what he was raised to do. So he married her.

Then he lost her.

The first few years, he hated her. She didn’t love him enough to tell him what was really going on. She didn’t share the hardest decision of her life with him. That was what love was, sharing your life with someone. He loved her, but she didn’t love him back.

Then Emily started kindergarten. When he had to say goodbye to his daughter, he realized that Angela didn’t keep her cancer a secret because she didn’t love him. She did it because she loved Emily so much that she would rather die than say goodbye to her.

He nearly drank himself to death that week. Leo was the only one who knew just how bad things got for Sean. He stayed with him and took care of Emily while Sean threw himself the pity party of the century.

Then Leo kicked his a*s and told him he had to pull himself together or Emily would lose both her parents because of Angela’s decision.

Sean still hated her after that, but he understood better. He finally started talking about her again. And slowly he remembered how much he loved her. He knew she loved him, and he knew the decision she made was one of the bravest things anyone could ever do. People were applauded for stepping in front of a bullet for their children, or a car, or in some other way sacrificing themselves to save their children. Angela did the exact same thing. She was a f*****g hero.

That didn’t make it hurt any less.

His daughter still had to grow up without her mother. Sean still had to live out his life without his wife. She sacrificed herself, but she left them behind. And there would always be moments he wished she’d trusted him enough to tell him the truth. He needed answers he was never going to get, and that burned.

Sean pulled himself together and walked back to the inn. It had been a rough few weeks. The one year anniversary of Uncle Victor’s death was at the beginning of January, and the thirteenth anniversary of Angela’s at the end. He used to look forward to January, but he was starting to hate the month that caused his family so much pain.

Smack in the middle was Emily’s birthday. When she was pregnant, Angela talked about all the things she wanted for Emily when she was a teenager. Sean and Ang met when they were teenagers, and she hoped Emily would meet the love of her life around the same age. Now that that age was staring Sean in the face, and she was not only dating a boy but going to a dance with him, Sean prayed Angela was wrong.

He knew in the end, it didn’t matter what he wanted. Life played out the way it was meant to. All the prayers and wishes and dreams in the world wouldn’t change the way things were supposed to be. It didn’t stop him from trying, though.

But Emily was going to grow up one day, meet the man of her dreams, and leave him. Just like Angela did. And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stop it.