Sean and Trig had met a few times before, so they fell into a comfortable conversation right away in the family room. I grabbed a few beers from the fridge and handed them each one before I headed upstairs to check in with pops. He was propped up in his bed with a breakfast tray on his lap and the remote in his hand when I walked in.

“Heyyyyyy, there he is,” he said, muting ESPN and clearing a little space on the side of the bed so I could sit by him. I gave him a half hug, and then propped my feet up on the bed and stretched out, putting my hands behind my neck.

“Hey, Pops. How’s the leg?” I said, sitting up and knocking a little on his cast.

“This cast crap is for the birds, Reed. It’s so damned itchy,” he said, whining as he tried to move his leg around to find a comfortable position. There clearly wasn’t one, because he just sighed heavily and then leaned back into his pillows, defeated. I chuckled a bit at my stubborn independent cuss of a father.

I lay there next to him for a few minutes, just staring up at his ceiling. I kept trying to start my conversation, but I could never seem to frame the right words in my mind, so I just stopped and waited, hoping he would pick up on my anxiety and fill in the blanks for me.

“Well, shit or get off the pot, would ya?” he finally kicked in. Subtle, Buck Johnson was not.

Sighing, I sat up again, pulled Grandma’s ring box from my pocket, and slid it on his lap tray, just shrugging a little at it, and curling the corner of my mouth up a little pathetically. Dad just stared at it for a few seconds, trying to figure out what it meant. Finally, he nodded a little and closed his eyes, shaking his head some. He reached up to grab the ring box, and flipped it open to look at it silently before closing it once again. Staring at the closed antique box for a few moments more, he finally looked up to make eye contact with me, and then held it out for me to take back.

“Pops, it’s not going to happen,” I said, my stomach sick with this reality. “Just…just give it to Jason or something, okay?”

I stood up and turned my back to him, not wanting him to see the pain in my eyes. Not wanting to show my weakness. But I was so weak. Nolan could bring me to my knees. In fact, she had. I snapped back when I heard my dad’s familiar raspy laugh kick in. I turned to see him turning the box over and over in his hand, the corner of his mouth raised in a smirk.

“Reed, life is hard. I know you know this…or think you know this…but let me remind you. Life. Is. Hard. It’s ugly sometimes, and it throws shit at you, just like a 300-pound lineman charging you full tilt just looking to flatten your ass,” he said, his eyes still focused on the small box in his hand.

“And sometimes,” he looked up at me now, right in the eyes. “Sometimes, that lineman knocks the shit out of you. And it hurts. It hurts like f**king hell, the breath punched from your lungs, and the will to stand gone from your muscles. But you don’t just sit there, roll your ass off the field and lick your wounds, right?”

I was staring at the box now, too, those damn visions of forever with Nolan flipping through my mind like an old-fashioned picture show. I saw our wedding, our kids…our life. God, I wanted it. But between those flashes of us in my head, I also saw her kissing Gavin, the look on his face when he left her room that night, the f**king swagger in his step, the kind that said he knew her intimately. Those thoughts made me flinch and look back down at my feet. Chewing my lip, I finally looked back up at Pops, and shook my head. “Dad, I will never love anyone like I love Nolan, and you know it. But…fuck. Dad, I can’t talk about it, but it’s just not going to happen. And that ring is killing me,” I said, choking a little on my words and forcing down my emotions.

My dad just grabbed my hand and put the box back in it, wrapping my fingers around it tightly, and then patting them shut with his other hand. I reached up with my other hand and dashed away the tiny tear that was threating to escape, sniffling a little to get a hold of myself. I was losing it. I looked Pops in the eyes, pleading with him to understand, to let me off the hook, but he just held on tighter.

“Life is hard, Reed. But we get up,” he said, sliding from the bed now to reach for his crutches and force himself to a stand. “I could give this ring to Jason, yeah, sure. But you and I both know that Jason—God love him—will never pick a girl worthy of wearing your grandmother’s ring…and you and I both know there’s only one girl who deserves it.”

My dad carried himself on his crutches out the door, and down the hall, leaving me there alone in his room to stare at this damn box again. I wished he’d never given it to me. But he was right; there was no way I could give it back. It was mine to work out, or live with, and carry.