All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

I tensed, waiting for the inevitable explosion. As soon as Kellen stepped into the dining room, my mother said, “What are you thinking? He’s not old enough to drive!”

“Yeah, well, he’s not old enough for a lot of the shit he’s been through,” Kellen said.

“You cannot be serious. You cannot be serious,” Mom said, even though he obviously was. “And what if he gets pulled over? What then?”

“He won’t get pulled over. He’s a decent driver, and dollars to donuts he’s just gonna go up the road to the gas station and buy a pop or something.”

“We have some pop here,” Leslie said.

“He don’t need anything to drink. He needs to get some fresh air.”

“He is only fourteen!” Mom said.

Kellen clenched his jaw, and I could see that under all his jokes about my mother’s anger, he was carrying a grudge. I imagine six years in prison will do that.

“What do you want from the kid? What the hell do you want? You think this is easy for him? Coming back here after all these years and seeing his family and not knowing what to say or how to act. It’s fucking hard, okay? It’s hard for him.”

That shut Mom up for a few minutes. Kellen dropped back into his chair with a thud. He snapped his napkin across his lap and picked up his fork. We were all quiet while he chewed an enormous bite of pie.

“So is Donal living with you?” I said.

Wavy nodded.

“Since November,” Kellen said. It looked to me like it wasn’t easy for him, either.

“What happened? I mean with his uncle—your uncle? Sean?” The whole conversation was a minefield.

“He’s dead,” Wavy said. Kellen looked at her and she shrugged.

“He died of a heroin overdose, more than two years ago. Donal went into foster care after that and then ended up in juvie.”

“Juvie?” Leslie said. “Like jail?”

Kellen sighed and set his fork down. “Yeah. He had some trouble on a breaking and entering charge. Nothing serious. The kinda shit kids get into at that age. We hired a lawyer to get us through family court. Good guy, did okay by us. You know, I had to have my parole transferred down here, and then I can’t live with anybody under sixteen because of the sex offender thing. But the lawyer got us an exception for Donal, since he’s my brother-in-law.”

“Wow,” I said. It was like getting important news from a telegram: Sean dead, Donal in jail, Kellen and Wavy married. Stop.

“That’s great that he could come live with you,” Trisha said. She and Brice were both trying not to look stunned by their crash course in Wavy’s life.

“Yeah, it’s really great.” Leslie jumped in late, but she made up for the delay by nodding vigorously. “So how is he?”

“He’s doing better. But like I said, it’s hard for him.”

I waited for Mom to say something that would show she was happy, but she sat there looking like she’d been slapped. Despite all her efforts to keep them apart, Wavy and Kellen were together. I felt sorry for Wavy, because we were the only family she had. Kellen and Donal and us. She hadn’t come to rub my mother’s nose in it. She’d come to make up with Mom.

“So when did you get married?” I said.

“She didn’t tell you?” The heavy crease between Kellen’s eyes smoothed out and he smiled. “I thought you told her, sweetheart. Day after we got the bike, we rode down to Vegas and got married. Her roommate, Renee, and her boyfriend followed us down in the car, in case we had any troubles with the bike, but everything was dandy.”

“The postcard. I didn’t realize that was—congratulations!” I’d received a postcard of the Las Vegas strip, but all she’d written on the back was “Thank you,” signed with a W and a heart.

“Was that fun?” Leslie said.

“It was a whole lot of noise and people, and we were tired when we got there, but you know, we had a great ride, and we didn’t have to wait three days for a marriage license.”

“Impatient.” Wavy gave Kellen a sly look that made him grin.

“Hell, we was engaged for eight years. I’d say I was plenty patient.”

Wavy laughed. Mom scowled at her plate.

“We talked about eloping, but Leslie wanted to do the big ceremony,” Brice said.

“What was it like? You didn’t have an Elvis impersonator, did you?” Leslie said.

Mom stood up, like you would at a wedding reception to make a toast, and I thought she would finally say something to make Wavy feel welcome. All she did was put her salad and dessert plates on top of her dinner plate and gather up her silverware.

“You cooked it, Brenda. We can clear it off,” Kellen said.

She let him take the plates out of her hands. While he carried her dishes to the kitchen, the conversation was dead. Mom sat down, but without a plate to glare at, she finally looked at Wavy.

I wondered if she was doing the same thing I was doing, trying to figure out what was different about Wavy. There was something different. Not just that when Kellen came back to the table and ran his finger across his pie plate, Wavy opened her mouth and let him stick the whipped cream in. Something passed between them and he frowned.

“Oh, sweetheart, are you sure you wanna do this right now?” he said.

“Before Donal comes back.”

“Fair enough.”

Wavy took a deep breath and said, “Sean killed Val and Liam.”