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He knows he’s fucked up the minute he opens the door.
Tess is pissed- more pissed than he’s seen her in a good long while. He can see it in the way she cooks breakfast, the girls chattering and gathered at the kitchen table. No one truly notices his entrance- he’d gotten drunk at the Tipsy Bison with Tommy and spent the night on his couch, too drunk to stumble home- and he smells about as good as he feels.
“You stink, Daddy,” Maeve tells him primly, the only one to acknowledge his existence, and the other three nod in agreement. Tess doesn’t turn from the stove, but her back is stiff and shoulders squared, and he knows he’s in for it once the girls are off to school. He just can’t quite figure out what exactly he…did.
“Yeah, go take a shower,” Ruth wrinkles her nose. He offers a half-smile and nods, and trudges up the stairs towards the bathroom, dragging himself into the shower. He stands there under the spray, lukewarm at best, and tries to delay the inevitable.
By the time he returns to the bathroom, the gaggle of preteen girls is gone, off to school for the day, and Tess is cleaning the kitchen, agitation in her every moment. He watches her, leaning against the wall, and tries to figure out how to start a conversation.
“Do you know what yesterday was?” she asks, and Joel furrows his eyebrows. “I didn’t think so.”
She turns, hair snapping with the motion, and there’s fire in her eyes.
“You can go and get drunk with your god damn brother and forget our anniversary, sure, whatever, it’s fine,” Tess fires off, and Joel visibly winces. “I just ask for one night a year for a nice dinner and to get fucked until I can’t walk. One night a year, Joel. I don’t begrudge you the days you get drunk and forget your life, but the one night a year I ask you to remember me, you can’t be bothered?”
“Tessa…” he starts, and she shakes her head.
“I’m late for my shift,” she interrupts, and slams the cabinet door shut. “You can be in charge of the girls tonight. I’m think it’s my turn to get drunk and forget my responsibilities.”
She disappears out the door and Joel feels like she smacked him in the face- not that he hadn’t deserved it.
He spends the day cleaning the house- he even tackles the girls’ bathroom, which is a true nightmare- and makes apple cake for the girls to devour when they return home. Perhaps he’s going overboard, but he wants at least one woman in his life not to be completed pissed off at him.
He’s seasoning deer steaks when his daughters pour through the door after school; they’re talking over one another, and his hangover headache hasn’t quite abated.
“Did you apologize to Mama?” is the first thing out of Darcy’s mouth as she pops a grape into her mouth, arching an eyebrow, and Joel feels properly shamed by his eleven year old. “She was pretty mad this morning.”
“Yeah Daddy, what’d you even do?” Elsa asks, the youngest of the bunch, and Joel heaves a sigh.
“Forgot somethin’ important,” he replies, and a chorus of gasps goes off around him.
“How could you-”
“Daddy, that’s so bad-”
“You should bring her flowers,” Maeve declares confidently, in all her twelve year old wisdom. “Flowers always make me happy.”
Joel softens at that, and cups the back of his eldest’s head, kissing her forehead. Her nose wrinkles, and she pats his shoulder.
“Think ya might be onto somethin’ there, darlin’.”
_
He finds Tess at the Tipsy Bison, Nina and Josie by her side.
The two redheads look at him harshly but leave his wife alone as he moves to her side. He’s got a bunch of wildflowers gathered in his hand, picked in the field behind their house, and he’s sure he looks pathetic, but he can’t quite bring himself to care.
“Thought you were lookin’ after the girls,” she says without looking at him, bringing her tumbler of whiskey to her lips and swallowing without a wince.
“Ellie’s with ‘em. She’s about as mad at me as you are,” he says, sinking cautiously into the barstool beside her, flowers still clutched in his fist. Tess lifts an eyebrow, huffing out a laugh.
“Y’know, you coulda just told me you didn’t wanna celebrate,” she says, but there’s a layer of hurt to her voice that he hates that he’s put there. “I’m not as stupid as you think I am. I can take a hint, Joel.”
“Darlin’,” he starts, and she finally turns her head to glare at him, pausing at the sight of the flowers. “I just forgot. I don’t have a good excuse, or a reason- I just plain forgot. I’m an old man, you know.”
Tess continues to glare, but there’s less force behind it now.
“Maeve claims flowers fix everything,” he says, and Tess’s expression softens minutely. “And our kids are pretty damn smart, so I’m hopin’ she’s right.”
Tess’s nose crinkles, and she accepts the wildflowers from him, curling her fingers around the stems delicately. She brings them to her nose, sniffing, and finally her lips curl into a half-smile.
“Not as good as gettin’ fucked, you know,” she says, and Joel snorts. “But it’s a start, cowboy.”
Joel leans in, cupping her chin and bringing their mouths together in a soft, tender kiss; she tastes like whiskey and forgiveness, she sighs against his lips.
“Probably shouldn’t leave the girls alone too long- Ellie’ll have them turned against you before you know it,” she whispers, and Joel clutches his chest in mock-offense. “I may have complained to her a bit. I was…pissed off.”
Joel chuckles.
“I did forget our fourteenth wedding anniversary, darlin’. It’s allowed,” he replies, and Tess huffs out of a laugh. “C’mon. Dinner’s deer steaks and corn.”
“Mm…makin’ it up looks good on you, Tex.”