Chapter Thirty-Eight

Colin arrived first, with two six-packs. Ryan side-eyed the beers. “Corona?”

His younger brother shrugged. “That’s not what you drink?”

Ryan shook his head, grabbed the beers, and shut the door. “Haven’t had a Corona since I was in college.”

Colin shrugged. “What do I know about beer?”

“Nothing. As you fucking should. I’m all out of that near beer shit. Want a soda?”

“Always,” Colin said, and they headed for the kitchen. Ryan handed him a can of Diet Coke, then opened a Corona and took a long swallow. It tasted like spring break.

“Guess you don’t hate it that much,” Colin said pointedly.

“Guess I needed a drink after my day.”

“So what’s the deal? Shan said Mom confessed to you?” Colin made a keep rolling motion with his hand. “What the hell?”

“Yup,” Ryan said, taking another drink then setting the bottle on the counter and telling him everything that went down in the visiting room.

Colin scoffed. “Made her do it. See? Even now, she holds onto the notion that she somehow isn’t to blame.”

Ryan shrugged. “Yeah, well. That’s not what this is really about. That’s not why I feel like I’m pretty much having the second-worst day of my life.”

Colin yanked him in for a hug. “Yeah, I know,” he said softly. “I know, man. You wanted to believe her. You wanted to hold on to a possibility. You wanted that hope that maybe she hadn’t done it.”

“Can you blame me? Wouldn’t you want that too?”

“Sure,” Colin said with a nod as he broke the hug, stopping to pet Ryan’s dog, who’d wandered into the kitchen. “Of course it would be really fucking fantastic if she didn’t do it, Ry. It would be like the greatest thing in the world if our mother didn’t have our father killed, right?”

Though there was a touch of sarcasm in Colin’s remark, there was also the bare truth. It would be the greatest thing.

“But you see, I came to peace long ago with the fact that she did,” Colin continued. “Maybe details are still coming to light. Maybe the detective is looking for accomplices. And maybe he’ll find them, and they can join Jerry fucking Stefano in the big house where they all belong. The fact is, our mother was into some fucked up shit, from associating with the likes of Stefano, to the ass she was cheating with. She was a messed-up, desperate woman who wanted money, and wanted out so badly she killed for it.”

Colin dropped the volume on his voice and draped an arm over Ryan’s shoulder. “This shit happens. Just look at the New York prison escapees and how that woman was going to have one of them kill her husband. It’s awful, and it feels shocking from a distance, but up close, when it happens to you, you can’t believe it. You wish it didn’t happen.” Colin tapped his chest with his free hand. “I wish that, too. But it did. This is our fucked up story. This isn’t the news. This isn’t the papers. This isn’t someone else’s tragedy. It happened to us, and deep down somewhere inside you”—Colin moved his hand to Ryan’s chest, tapping his breastbone, searching for his heart—“you know it’s true.”

Ryan swallowed hard. He scrubbed his hand over his jaw, trying to process the whole damn day, but making no sense of the way the floor beneath him was tilting and cracking. “What do you mean, I know it’s true?”

Colin squeezed his shoulder. “You think this confession changes your whole life. You think it changes everything you’ve believed about Mom. But it doesn’t. Deep down, you knew she was involved. Deep down you knew she was responsible. But you hoped, because you’re human. Because you wanted to believe in redemption, in basic goodness, in good overcoming evil. You held onto that tiny little kernel of hope,” Colin said, cupping his palms together as if he were holding a precious seed. “You held it and you wanted it to become something. You wanted to believe that maybe things were different. It’s okay to have hope. It’s okay to cling to it. We all wanted that, too. Desperately. The rest of us just let go of it sooner. Now, it’s your turn. Let it go,” he said, and opened his hands.

Ryan watched the cool, empty air in his kitchen, imagining a dandelion seed falling in the breeze, the wind blowing it away. Was Colin right? Had Ryan truly known in his gut, in his heart, all along? Had some part of him known she was responsible, but some other part clung to the idea that she might be innocent simply because hope felt good?

Was that why he held onto the pattern? Why he went to see her every month? Why he nursed the possibility of innocence like a gardener tending to the first buds of spring? Because hope was a precious thing, it was a gift, and when so many things had gone wrong, he’d needed an anchor?

Hope was his anchor.

Hope that the past could be rewritten.

But the past didn’t have to be redone. It was still playing out in the present, unfurling new wrinkles every day, and he’d have to roll with them, to dodge, dart, and avoid the punches.

His true anchor was right here with him. His brother. And his other brother Michael, joining them now, along with his sister, Shannon. They were his foundation. They were the ones who’d made it with him through the years.

Today had floored him. But tonight had taught him that he’d been clinging to something he was ready to say goodbye to. “Anyone want to go for a late-night swim?” he asked.

“Hell yeah,” Michael said.

* * *

A few hours later, Ryan and Michael were buzzed, Shannon was tipsy, and Colin was hyper on caffeine. They’d also lost track of who was winning the water volleyball match, but who cared? The clock was closing in on two in the morning, and they were having a blast in the turquoise water, lit up from the lights in the pool. They’d talked some, and they’d cried some, and they’d laughed some more. Through it all, they were together, just as the four of them had always been.

No matter what.

Michael slammed the volleyball out of the water, sending it careening across the dark grass. He swam to the shallow end, and they followed him.

“Let’s drink a toast,” Michael said when he reached the steps and grabbed his beer.

“You’ve been drinking all night,” Colin said, hopping out of the water to grab a towel and dry his hair.

“No need to stop now,” Ryan chimed in as he reached for his bottle, and rested his arm on the edge of the pool. “Besides, you brought us the beer. Your fault.”

Colin pushed a hand through his damp, black hair, then tossed his towel on a lounge chair. “I’m sure you had plenty in your fridge. I was just trying to be nice to my sad sack of a brother.”

“Hey. Watch it now. I’m still older,” Ryan said.

“Yeah, but you’re not brighter,” Colin said with a wink.

Ryan shot him a look that said maybe he was right. Colin had figured out the hard stuff well before Ryan had.

Michael raised his Corona. “Never let the non-drinker pick beer again, please. Can that just be a rule?”

Colin rolled his eyes and dipped his foot in the water to splash Michael.

Then Michael’s expression turned serious and he cleared his throat. “Listen. We’ve spent enough time talking about her. She had Ryan in her clutches for far too long. Tonight, he’s letting go of all that stuff, so let’s drink a toast to the man we all love and miss.” Michael’s eyes started to water. “To Dad. I still remember how he was when I was learning to drive. He bought me a donut the first time I nailed a three-point turn. Said he was proud of me for that small accomplishment. He was always saying that about the little things we did, and always ready to celebrate with a donut,” Michael said, with admiration in his tone.

The water lolled gently in the pool. Somewhere in the yard, crickets chirped. Shannon went next. “I remember when he taught me to play pool. He was patient and determined. He told me he wanted his only girl to be able to beat all his sons, and he coached me until I was able to.”

“And she does. She schools us all,” Ryan said, with a tip of the cap to his sister.

Colin raised his can. “In middle school, I went to a school dance, and when he picked me up he spotted a hickey on my neck. He was cracking up, and I tried to deny it by making up some ridiculous story that the girl had scratched me accidentally during a dance. He went along with it, even though he said, ‘Someday you might like it.’”

“And now you do, right?” Michael asked.

“Oh yeah. I love hickeys.”

“I remember when he went to work that night,” Ryan began, eyes misting over with the memory. “He told me he was taking some kids to prom, and that someday I’d be the guy taking the girl to prom, and that I should be nice to the driver, because girls like that, and because it was the right thing to do. And then he told me he loved me. That was the last thing he said to me. That he loved me.”

Shannon clasped her hand over her mouth, and a huge sob fell from her throat. She threw her arms around Ryan, and then grabbed her other brothers and pulled them into another group hug. “I remember love,” she whispered in a broken voice. “Most of all, I remember love.”

“Me, too,” Ryan said, and they all chimed in and echoed with another, “Me, too.”

* * *

Later, after they cleaned up and headed inside, Ryan nudged Colin with his elbow. “Hey, what was the deal with that woman at the benefit last night? Is there something going on with you two?”

Colin shrugged as they gathered bottles into a paper shopping bag for recycling. “She’s hot and she’s cold. Who knows with women?”

Hot and cold. Some women were like that. But some weren’t. Some were always hot. And he didn’t just mean physically. Some were always clear, always present, always giving. Some put their heart on the line every day, every night. Every second.

Sophie.

His Sophie.

His loving, giving, supportive, beautiful, amazing Sophie.

Who was leaving the country for more than a week come morning.

He’d told her twenty-four hours ago that he had to see her that night no matter what. That he couldn’t stay away from her. And instead, he’d done the opposite. He’d stayed away from her. He’d told her he was fucked up again, and hell, he felt that way.

But that wasn’t fair to her.

Especially when she was always fair. Always open. Always honest.

But him?

He was the hot and cold one. He was scalding and freezing. As he carried the bag of bottles to his recycling bin in the garage, he muttered a string of curse words. He’d been sending her mixed messages. Telling her he had to see her, then telling her he couldn’t handle seeing her. Saying he desperately needed her, then not taking the time to properly say goodbye before she left the country for a trip.

Fine, there was no rule that said they had to see each other every day.

But this wasn’t about managing a lover’s travel schedule. This was about how he talked to her, how he cared for her, how he tended to her needs. She was so even keeled, so reliable, so fucking wonderful, and he’d taken advantage of that. He hadn’t been attentive to the woman he loved. Understandable, some might say, given the way his day had gone.

But it wasn’t acceptable to him.

Sophie had given him something he thought he’d never have. He had never trusted in love. He’d always believed love could be gunned down. Then she came into his life, and turned everything he believed about himself upside down.

That was the real change in him.

Not his mother’s confession, but Sophie’s love.

Falling in love with Sophie Winston was the most magical, wonderful, intense experience of his life. When everything around him wobbled, Sophie was the constant.

He shut the top of the recycling bin and glanced at his truck. His buzz had worn off. He needed to see her. To tell her she rocked his world, then tell her again and again and again. The only problem was, it was four-thirty in the morning, and he was pretty damn sure her flight left in a few hours.

But so be it.

He’d simply have to drive over there now, and see her before she got on that plane. Kiss her hard before she left. As he walked back into his house, his mind latched onto something she’d told him by his pool the other weekend.

“The things I want from you don’t cost money.”

He turned to Colin, dropped a hand on his shoulder, and said, “Little brother, I need a big favor.”

He explained to Colin and his brother said yes. Then added, “Hell yes.”

Because that was what family did for each other.

He slid open his phone screen and dialed Sophie’s number. It went straight to voicemail. She might even be going through security right now. So he sent her a text.

Then he saw she’d already sent him one.