Fireworks From My Half of the Dock

Fountains, mostly, and sparklers, and one or two of the little ones that whistle. Nothing fancy. He was a careful man with fire.

After Hailey and Jack were born, they were the kids he took. The last New Year’s Eve before he died, Jack was five and Hailey was eight, and Daddy held Jack’s gloved hand around a sparkler while Hailey wrote her own name in the air.

I have a video of it on my phone that I have watched more times than I could count.

This year she started planning in October. She sent the whole family pictures of the decorations she bought in Gaylord, gold and black, with a balloon arch for the door to the deck.

She sent me the food list on the twentieth. She said, “You’re my right hand, Missy, I can’t do it without you.” I believed her.

I bought every single thing on the list and I did not ask her for a dime, because that is what you do for your sister.

Hailey is eleven and is the kind of child who takes bad news by going very quiet.

Jack is eight and takes it by asking questions until there are no questions left. I told them both at once, at the kitchen table, over boxed macaroni.

“Aunt Rachel decided the party is just for grown-ups this year,” I said. “So it’s not going to be like last year. I’m sorry, guys. I know you were looking forward to it.”

Jack put down his fork. “Is Aunt Rachel mad at us?”

“No, buddy. She’s not mad at anybody. She just wants a grown-up party this time,” I said, and I did not know if it was true, and I think Hailey could tell I did not know.

“What about the fireworks?” Jack asked. “We already have the fireworks. Grandpa’s fireworks. We have to do them at the dock. That’s where we do them. That’s the rule.”

He was right. We had bought them in November, at the big fireworks store off I-75, sixty dollars’ worth, which I thought was a lot and which Daddy would have thought was half enough.

Hailey had not said anything yet. Finally she looked up from her plate and asked the question I had been asking myself all afternoon.

“Isn’t it half your house?”

The lake house was half mine. The dock was half mine. Daddy had said so twice, once on the dock when I was seven and once in a note stapled to his will.

I could have called Rachel back and argued. I could have called Uncle Rich and gotten him on my side, and he would have come, because Uncle Rich always comes.

I could have made the whole family pick a sister on New Year’s Eve, in Daddy’s house, two years after we buried him.

I was not going to do that. The house was half mine, and I was not going to fight my sister over a party at Daddy’s place.

I was going to use my half, and do it quietly, and let her have hers.

“It is half my house,” I told Hailey. “And half the dock is mine. So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to bring Aunt Rachel the food, like I said we would. Then we’re going to stay downstairs in the bunk room, out of the way of the party. And at eleven we’re going to go down to my half of the dock and do Grandpa’s fireworks.”

Jack whooped. Hailey did not whoop, but she smiled, which for Hailey is about the same thing.