Southern Storm (Southern 3)

“You were playing tonsil hockey with Emily when you were fifteen.” She points at him. She just turned ten years old, and she has already had five “boyfriends.”

“Hey,” I say, walking to my wife and kissing her on the lips.

“Gross,” Ethan says, giving me a hug. “I’m surprised you guys still have …” He raises his eyebrows.

“All the time,” Chelsea says, looking at us. “You guys need to keep it down a touch.”

I look over at her with my mouth hanging open, but Savannah answers her. “If you don’t like to hear it, you should go to bed when I tell you to.”

“Don’t worry, squirt,” Ethan says, picking her up and tossing her over his shoulder. “I’ll get you some earphones.”

“I’m back!” I hear our eight-year-old son, Toby, shout from the front door. He came into this world as quiet as can be, and he’s even more quiet now, but don’t let that fool you. His happy place is being on the farm with Billy and Casey.

“Take off the muddy clothes in the mud room!” Savannah yells to him. “What time are we leaving?”

“As soon as we drop them off at Jacob’s house,” I say.

“I can take them,” Ethan says. “I promised Dad and Kallie I would drop in and spread my love.”

“Like you spread it with—” Chelsea says, and he blocks her mouth.

I wrap my arms around my wife and kiss her neck. “Do you want to head out?” I ask her as Toby comes into the house and goes to the fridge. “Wash your hands,” I say before his mother does and he groans. “Where is Keith?” I ask of our six-year-old son.

“He’s already at Kallie’s,” she says. “Charlotte came over to drop off pie,” Savannah says when Ethan pops his head into the kitchen.

“Grams brought pie?” He smiles and goes to the fridge. I feel a twinge of sadness when I think of my brother and my mother. They both moved away as soon as my father died. My mother couldn’t stand the town knowing her business. My brother, on the other hand, went to rehab for ninety days, came out a reformed man, and now sells insurance. His wife miscarried the night my father was shot, but they have two kids. We talk occasionally, but it ends there. I look around the kitchen now at my almost twenty-year-old stepson eating pie directly from the plate while his sister argues with him about germs. My wife’s yelling at both of them to knock it off. This is what content feels like, I think to myself, looking around and seeing all the family pictures hanging on the walls throughout the house.

The sound of thunder rips through the house. “A storm is rolling in,” Savannah says, looking outside.

“The storm already arrived,” I say, repeating the sentence we always say.

“And we are still standing,” the kids finish for me.

Two Years Later

“He’s going to be here any second,” I whisper shout to all of the family members waiting around in the living room to surprise Ethan.

Savannah dabs her eyes. “I can’t believe my baby is twenty-one.” I grab her around the shoulders and bring her to me, kissing her temple. “He’s a man.”

“He’s been a man for a long time,” Chelsea says, and I glare at her.

“He’s here,” Jacob says, standing beside me now with Kallie next to him.

The door opens, and I feel the air crackle around me as I watch him walk into the room. His face is streaked with tears, his chest heaving up and down, and a piece of white paper is crumpled in his hand. He speaks before anyone of us can react. “He’s not my father.”