Andrew

On the second-to-last day of our staycation honeymoon, I walk into the kitchen to find Amanda standing in front of the brand-new stainless steel oven, holding the manual, her face screwed up in concentration. She has one hand in a silvery oven mitt, scratching her neck.

“How do I set this to broil?” she mutters to herself as I go to the coffee machine, grab an espresso cup from a small stack on the counter, and start to make myself coffee.

On second thought, I put the cup back and grab a beer. We’re having family over tonight, after all. Beer trumps coffee.

“Why do you need to broil?” I ask as I stare into the new fridge, which really does remind me of a spaceship-movie set as I open both doors and try to find an IPA. Weeding through a farmer’s-market-worth of vegetables and half a cow of meat, I finally locate the most important part of the meal.

Hops.

“I’m making dinner.” She’s distracted, reading the manual. New technology does that to the best of us.

That’s why I don’t bother with manuals.

Men are smart like that.

“I’m sure the catering staff can figure that out.” The first sip of beer is always the best.

“I’m making dinner,” she says again, the words not quite sinking in as I go through the second sip. Third sip. Ahhhh...

And then it hits me.

“You mean you are making dinner for all of us?”

“Yes.”

“All of us?”

Stretching out her fingers, she ticks off the list. “You, me, Terry, Declan, Shannon, and a nursing baby. That’s five people who have teeth and chew, unless you count Ellie’s first tooth coming in and how she noshes on Shannon’s nipple.”

“You had better not put nipple on the menu.” I eye the top of my beer bottle and frown.

“I’m not that fancy. I was thinking grilled filet, salad, and wine.”

“You’re practically Connie.” I cock one eyebrow. “Why not ask her to cater?”

“She doesn’t do private homes.”

“Bet she would for us.” I pull out my phone and start to call.

An oven mitt attached to my wife blocks me. “No. I want to cook.”

“You never cook.”

“I do!”

“Cheeto-marshmallow treats and espresso-based coffee don’t count.”

“You never let me cook.” She crosses her arms over her chest. Uh oh. When men do that, it’s a sign of dominance.

When women do it, it’s a sign of an impending fight.

“Excuse me?” The beer turns sour in my mouth.

“You insist on eating out all the time. How do you know whether I’m a good cook or not?”

She’s got me there.

A quick kiss on her forehead gets me some goodwill. “I am going to extract myself from this discussion and cede it all to you. Your kitchen, your home, your choice.”

“Good man.”

“Smart man.”

“My man.” Amanda pulls me in for a real kiss, the kind that blends her coffee-flavored mouth with my IPA until I want nothing but that taste forever.

I set down the beer bottle. “When are they coming over?”

“Five.”

I look at the clock. “We’ve got half an hour. How about we go upstairs? No work crews, no designers, no delivery people. It’s just us,” I murmur in her ear, my fingers sliding under her shirt, finding a breast that is woefully unattended.

“Your fingers are icicles!” she squeals as her nipple hardens under my touch.

“Warm me up, baby.” I look at the newly installed countertop. “How about we christen the kitchen? Haven’t had sex in here yet.”

“Yes, we have! Plenty of times!” I can tell by the flush on her face that she’s interested.

“Not in the newly remodeled one. That’s part of the honeymoon-remodeling deal: we have to re-dedicate each room.”

She drops to her knees, the oven mitt still on one hand, the other one reaching to undo my pants. “How about we start here?” she says, warm breath brushing against my now bare skin as she takes me into her mouth and I lean against the new marble counter, fully–

Ding dong!

Teeth are not meant to be used on a penis.

Ever.

“Whatthehell?” is what I think I’m saying, but it comes out as a fairly long, inarticulate shout as Amanda leaps to her feet and twists and turns, hands on my shoulders as I fold in half, her head spinning faster than that chick in The Exorcist as she tries to minister to me but knows people are at the door.

“I’m so sorry! The doorbell startled me and I bit down and omigodandrewareyouokay?”

I just hear the word “bit.” That is the only verbal cue I am capable of processing through the haze of pain.

Bit.

She bit me.

Ding dong!

“I’m ignoring that. Screw this!” she hisses, running to the sink and getting a clean washcloth, wetting it and running back to me.

Cold, limp cloth is suddenly on my penis, which matches the limp part now. Except the washcloth doesn’t have teeth marks.

“Did I break the skin?” she asks, bending over.

“Words you never want a woman to ask when she’s eye level with your cock,” I finally groan out.

She pokes it. It twitches. “No blood,” she says.

Are we really having this conversation?

A series of beeps from the front door make me look up from the most important piece of flesh in the universe.

Beeps. A failure alarm. Then:

“HEY!” Declan shouts through the door. “YOU GUYS ARE HERE! WE HAVE A BABY WITH A DIAPER CRISIS. OPEN UP!”

“They’re early!” Amanda cries out. “What do I do?”

“Open the door,” I choke out. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine! I did this to you! I bit you!”

I don’t point out that I’m more upset that she outshot me at the gun-safety course than I am that she bit my junk, but whatever.

“You didn’t break the skin.” I reach out and touch her breast.

“What are you doing?”

Blood goes where it’s supposed to.

“Touch me,” I tell her, moving her hand where I need it.

“What? Now? Are you insane?”

“OPEN UP! WHAT’S THE NEW CODE, ANDREW? I DON’T CARE IF YOU’RE HAVING SEX IN THE FOYER. WE WON’T LOOK. IT’S NOT THAT IMPRESSIVE ANYWAY. WE NEED TO GET INSIDE NOW.”

Amanda gets it suddenly, stroking me enough to confirm that parts may be injured but they’re still in working order. Too bad she can’t do that to my shooter’s ego.

She leaves me with my crisis as I turn away and carefully, achingly, tenderly, put him back in my pants and zip up. He’ll be fine. Tender loving care from Amanda that doesn’t involve incisors is all I’m going to need.

Later.

After the Diaper Crisis is resolved.

And no, that’s not code for kink.

Declan marches into the foyer and without a word, makes a beeline for the guest bathroom. Shannon is on his heels, cradling her stomach.

A cackle that sounds entirely too witchlike emerges from my wife.

“Baby got you, too? Thought you experienced mothers didn’t get hit with surprise diaper blowouts,” she calls out to Shannon.

“Shut up.” Shannon’s normally sunny disposition has definitely been called on account of rain.

Or baby poop, in this case.

“Take a shirt from my dresser,” Amanda tells her, turning back to me with sudden concern. How she can switch from cackling mockery to genuine worry like that is startling.

And a little arousing.

“What is that about?”

“Shannon told me ‘everyone’ knows diaper blowouts are possible when you hold a baby. Looks like someone got a taste of her own medicine.”

“Wrong metaphor.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m right, and that’s what counts.”

“That I understand. But ‘taste’ and ‘diaper blowout’ in the same sentence...” I shudder. The sudden movement makes my bitten bit hurt.

Ding dong!

We look at each other. “Terry?” we ask in tandem.

“You rang?” Terry’s bass voice literally rings through the house, the vibration like a slow-rolling earthquake. The doorknob jiggles. I go to the door and answer it. Unlike Declan, he doesn’t try the keypad.

Also unlike Declan, he doesn’t have the old code. Dad refused to give it to him.

“Terry!” I say, opening my arms for a hug. He gives it back, one hand burdened by a bottle of wine. Over his shoulder I see his trusty Subaru, resting snugly between Declan’s Audi SUV and my Tesla.

“Still driving that piece of shit?” I ask as he bends down and picks up a six-pack of beer, handing the wine off to me.

“No. That’s Declan’s company car.”

“I don’t drive that anymore. My assistant asked for it,” Declan informs us as he walks into the room, looking haggard.

“Your assistant asked for it? Is she crazy?” Terry asks.

“He. He asked for it.”

“You traded Grace for a guy?” Terry’s impressed.

“Grace retired and I hired a great new assistant. Why are you asking? You need a job? Self-imposed poverty finally getting to you?” Our oldest brother left Anterdec years ago, right after Mom died. He lives off the trust fund from Mom’s side of the family, which is a low-six-figure pittance. Declan loves to needle Terry about this.

So do I.

“We could use an estate manager,” I say. “Apartment over the garage is free. You know the place inside and out.”

“You mean I had sex in all the important places before you had your braces removed,” Terry says, one hand in his pocket, the other holding the six-pack of beer that he shoves at Declan’s gut. “Here. Microbrew beta tests from my friend’s place in Sherborn.”

“You mean bacterial cesspools? Any friend of yours who brews beer is probably on some watch list,” Dec taunts, but he takes a bottle out and holds it up to the light. “Flemish red sour ale? Gluten free?”

“Don’t knock it till you try it.”

“Gluten free? What’s wrong with gluten? When did gluten start to offend everyone?” Dec mutters as he opens the screw top and takes a sip. He makes a surprised face. “Not half bad.”

“It needs to be all good,” Terry says, frowning. “Try sipping. The taste grows on you.”

“Like bacteria,” Declan says, circling back.

Shannon enters just then, wearing a yellow short-sleeved linen shirt of Amanda’s and carrying a grinning baby who looks like Declan. Ellie’s eyes started out a dark blue but have turned brown like Shannon’s, a rich color like whisky blended with a hint of cream. She’s teething, chewing on Shannon’s index finger, drooling all over her mom’s hand.

Mom.

Shannon is a mother.

There is nothing like a baby to make everyone drop what they’re doing. Babies suck all the attention oxygen out of a room. Evolutionarily, they should. Their very survival and ability to function in the world depends on being cute.

Like sorority girls.

“I see there is beer,” she says pointedly, arching one eyebrow and giving Declan a look that says Why am I holding the baby after being shat on and you’re sucking down a cold one?

He takes Ellie instantly.

Whipped.

I’m never going to be like that when Amanda and I have kids. No way. He catches me smirking at him and narrows his eyes.

Time to hum the Mission: Impossible theme.

Terry bursts out laughing.

Nothing like three men in a family. You always have a brother to team up with against the third.

“Recovered from the birth yet?” Terry calls out as he reaches for Declan to give him a bear hug.

“Getting there,” Shannon replies.

“I was talking to Dec,” Terry explains as she laughs, a brittle sound that makes me offer her one of Terry’s beers, which she takes with a skeptical scowl.

“Gluten free?”

“Try it.”

Patting the tops of her breasts, she looks at the bottle again.

“Do your breasts have celiac disease?” Terry inquires, noting the strange gesture.

“Quit talking about my wife’s boobs,” Declan checks him.

“Dec! It’s fine,” Shannon sputters, blushing. “I just wasn’t sure if I could handle the milk.”

“It’s beer. Not milk,” Terry assures her.

“Beer increases milk production,” she informs him.

“Really?”

“It’s a galactagogue,” Declan adds, his face plastered with that damn know-it-all smirk he patented during our childhood.

Terry crosses his arms and gives his little brother his full attention. “You’ve become a breastmilk expert?”

“I’m a new parent. It’s required.”

“If anyone in this family is a breastmilk expert, it’s me,” Shannon says in an arch tone.

“Technically, Ellie is the expert.” At the sound of her father saying her name, the baby squeals.

“Come into the living room!” Amanda insists.

We do what everyone does at a family dinner.

File into the kitchen.

“It’s weird to be here like this. No big cocktail party. No corporate schmoozing. And no Mom and Dad,” Terry announces, his voice dropping at the end.

“Is it? We’re used to the place,” I say, ignoring the comment about Dad, who wasn’t invited.

For a reason.

After Amanda gets everyone settled with a drink, I pull her aside.

“We can’t let them know about any of the off-the-grid systems,” I remind Amanda as she fusses over a table covered with appetizers. Somehow, her simple filet, salad, and wine has expanded to include assorted olives and cheese, giant shrimp cocktail, and a fig-bar thing that Shannon’s about to make love to.

“I promise I won’t leak,” she says, shooing me off with a dismissive hand. “Even if I disagree.”

“It’s not that they’ll never benefit from the systems. In an SHTF scenario, we’ll take care of everyone.”

“Even Chuckles?”

I sigh. “Fine.”

“And Marie?”

I grit my teeth. “You’re pushing it.”

“She’s a human being!”

“Remind me to up our stash of sedatives.”

“Andrew! Stop being dramatic.”

“I am being prag-matic.”

“She’s still sore at you for the Unicoga mess.”

“I rescued you and Shannon from being co-opted by a bunch of swinger couples who thought Marie’s yoga class was about meeting bisexual women who wanted to swing. And they thought you and pregnant Shannon were the unicorns!”

“Doesn’t mean she’s not still mad.”

“She is crazy. I got the good mother-in-law.”

“About that.” She clears her throat. “We really should have told Mom.”

“Pam? Why?”

“Because she knows a lot about these things.”

“Your mother knows a lot about being a prepper?”

“Not prepper stuff specifically. But systems? Risk analysis? Come on. There’s no one better.”

“No.” I shake my head. “No one can know. Rule number one of being a smart prepper: Tell no one.”

“Tell no one what?” Terry asks from behind, scaring the shit out of me. I can’t let him know he scared me, so I turn to the next emotion: annoyance.

“Nothing. Just talking about money.”

“Oh.”

“What do you think of the remodeling?” Amanda asks nervously. “I know it’s a bit much.”

“Why all the heavy construction equipment outside? Looks like it’s out of scale for the interior work.”

“Re-doing septic,” I lie.

Deflection is an art form. He knows I’m lying, but how do you pry into sewage waste systems?

“You’re keeping Dad’s pool?” Terry always called it that.

“It’s my pool now, but yes. We are.”

“You’ve got an outdoor pool already, and that lap pool was built for athletics. Not leisure,” he says in a voice I’m not used to. I forget that Terry, unlike the rest of the McCormick men, isn’t judgmental. He’s not arguing a case.

He’s genuinely asking.

“Call it nostalgia,” I explain, laughing softly. “I can’t explain why I’m keeping it. I just am. Nostalgia, maybe?”

“For all those years Dad worked you like a dog?”

“For all the years I practiced naked in an empty house.”

Shadows roll over his face, representing emotion I don’t understand. “Got it,” he says, just as Amanda puts her hands on our backs and pushes us to try some food.

Dinner itself is easy: good steaks, good salad, great company.

Best of all? I get to hold a baby. No one tells you how good babies smell. Ellie is a solid sack of potatoes in my arms, my food barely touched as I make googly eyes and soft raspberries at her. She’s in my lap, facing me, triple chins showing as I hold her, those sweet chubby cheeks begging for kisses.

What? You think men can’t find babies adorable? Even Fortune 500 CEOs have weak spots. Mine is my niece.

Especially when she kicks me in my bitten bit.

“Oof!” I groan, tightening my abs, moving those little feet away from soft, injured places where feet definitely don’t belong.

“She kick you in the nuts?” Dec says under his breath, chuckling. “Welcome to fatherhood. It should come with a cup.”

We’re finishing dinner, conversation turned to political events I have no desire to consider, when Ellie reaches for my nose and lets out a ribbon of giggles so pure, I’m not quite sure I heard them.

“Did she just giggle?” Shannon asks.

Wiggly arms bang against mine. “She did! Ellie, did you giggle?”

I get a peal of laughter in response, and then a raspberry.

The entire table claps.

“Why don’t you clap for me when I laugh and stick my tongue out at you?” I ask Declan.

“If you were half as cute as my daughter, I would.”

Terry holds his hands out to me, the gesture clear: my uncle time is over. His uncle timer starts as he holds her in his arms, smiling deeply as she stares back and reaches up, yanking on his beard.

“Tough little grip,” he says, voice deep, making Ellie’s face tighten with fear.

“Shhhhh,” Shannon warns him.

“Okay,” he says in falsetto.

Declan stands and stretches, Shannon walking up next to him, holding the stem of a wine glass. “All four of our hands are free at the same time,” she notes, waggling her eyebrows with a lasciviously hilarious expression.

“Nap time!” Dec calls out.

“It’s not Ellie’s nap time,” Shannon replies.

“Not hers. Mine.” He yawns loudly as if to prove a point, the sound tipping the baby over the edge. Wailing, she makes Terry startle, which just sets Ellie off even more. Shannon’s maternal hands reach for her and bring her into her body. One-handed, Shannon reaches under her shirt, unclasps her bra, lifts a panel of cotton fabric, and instantly, the baby goes quiet.

Amanda catches me watching. “She’s breastfeeding. Just like that.”

“How does she hold the baby and get her to attach like that?”

“I think it’s something installed in you when you grow a placenta from scratch,” she says as she walks away, laughing. I stand and follow her into the other room, where a row of boxes await us.

“My wife has many talents,” Dec says, moving to Shannon and giving her a kiss on the cheek.

We walk back into the room, each carrying a banker’s box that’s clearly heavy. Mine is heavier. We set them down, mine in front of Terry, Amanda’s box in front of Declan.

“Here,” she says. “This is the first of many boxes for each of you.”

“What’s in here?” Terry asks, puzzled.

“Relics from your childhood,” I explain. “We had an archaeologist carbon date them.”

He reaches up and strokes his beard, which has more and more salt in it every time I see him. “I’m only thirty-seven.”

“That means we’re fifty years apart in dog years, Terry.”

“Woof.”

Because Terry has a voice that goes so deep you’d think his vocal cords were reincarnated from coal miners’ souls, the sound has a jarring feel to it, making us all laugh nervously.

Not quite all.

Declan stands there, now holding a very happy baby, eyes on his box.

“What’s in there? It has my name on it.”

“The shroud of Turin?” I joke.

One-handed, Dec opens the top and peers in, groaning. “The rest of my trophies. Some notes from girls in what looks like sixth grade. A t-shirt from the volunteer week we spent in New Orleans in tenth grade. Geez, Mom,” he says in a soft, teen-like voice. “It’s just crap we don’t need.”

“Mom didn’t consider it crap,” Terry declares, closing his box. “Dad did.”

“I wonder if that’s why it was in that strange storage space behind the furnace?” Amanda asks.

“How many more boxes?” Terry asks her, his throat tightening as if he’s fighting emotion.

“Three. Each. We can help you load it when you go.”

“Thanks.” He finishes his beer and walks into the kitchen, frowning, looking around. “You really modernized this room.”

“We did. It needed it.”

“Amanda told me to take a look around. What’s the deal with the solar panels?”

I freeze. “Uh, hot water for the pool.”

He nods. Doesn’t push. Most people don’t. But Terry’s the type to quietly take it all in and later come to his own conclusions.

“You left the treehouse. You two want kids?”

“Yes.”

A wistful smile makes his beard widen. “Nice.”

“Amanda wants to leave the living room as is. None of the paintings are going. She loves Degas as much as Mom did.”

His smile turns tight, eyes starting to glimmer in the light. Oh, shit. Are those tears?

Just then, Declan walks over, jostling the baby, who is smiling at us. Terry sniffs once, turns away, and laughs, his voice deep as always. That hasn’t changed, even if the house has.

“Normal people go away on their honeymoon and spend a week having sex. You have to up the ante and remodel an entire estate,” Dec says as Terry looks at a figurine Mom bought in Greenland, a carved stone face that creeped me out as a kid.

“We can’t all go to Hawaii and have a mystery honeymoon,” I needle him. “You and Shannon are freakishly weird about your honeymoon. What the hell happened?”

He turns to stone. From across the room, Shannon’s neck pivots. She’s obviously listening. Why are they both cringing, like someone punched them in the nuts?

If Shannon had nuts, I mean.

“I think this remodeling honeymoon is perfect!” she shouts, sounding exactly like her mother.

Declan cringes again.

“Has Dad seen any of this?” Terry asks. We’re really veering into uncharted emotional territory now. Need to pivot. McCormick men don’t do this.

“We didn’t invite him. He made it clear he wants nothing to do with the remodel. Nothing to do with this house anymore,” I tell Terry, who just nods, inhaling slowly as his chin moves up and down with approval.

With understanding.

Heavy, familiar silence pings between the three of us, Shannon still talking to Amanda across the room. Only the presence of little Ellie keeps it light.

“You’re making this place your own,” Terry finally says, his hand moving to my shoulder, squeezing once. “Good for you. I always thought you were a little too close to Dad to become independent. When you and Amanda bought this place, I–” He breaks off and shakes his head slowly, ruefully. “I wondered. But now that I’ve seen it, I admire you.”

Declan’s jaw drops.

My eyes dart to the boxes of memorabilia Mom carefully curated. “You do?”

“I do. Dad’s a formidable presence. He tossed this place aside when he was done with it. He made Mom store all those emotionally connected mementoes in a place for discards. He doesn’t feel the way most people do. We’ve had to learn it all on our own. Mom gave us the foundation. At least there’s that. Unlearning the emotional ‘truths’ James McCormick put into us is an ongoing process.”

Shannon and Amanda are clearly listening. The baby’s feet kick against Declan’s belt buckle, her happiness contagious. I grin at her. She grins back, all big eyes and drooly smiles. Chubby hands with dimples at the knuckles play with my brother’s forearm, patting lightly as if to assure herself Daddy is here.

And he is.

Always.

Whether we like it or not. My father is in my head, deep in my DNA, while Amanda’s father is locked away in a prison. He’s inside her, too, the dual presences part of the human condition.

Ellie’s life has been nothing but love so far.

And if my brother and sister-in-law have anything to say about it — and they do — she’ll know nothing else.

“Eh. Listen to me. When did I become so maudlin?” Terry says, laughing heartily. It’s not fake, but it is a nervous sound. He seems to want to say more.

Dec gives Ellie a distracted smile and says, “How about we get these boxes in the cars so Mommy and I can take you home.”

Terry hates conflict. Declan thrives on it. I navigate it, finding it a neutral.

But in this moment, all bets are off. No one behaves with any predictability.

We all help Dec and Shannon with their boxes, Amanda gathering up Ellie’s baby stuff, kisses and hugs dispensed as my brother and his wife find ways to ghost on us without ghosting. No one bothers to challenge their leaving, because no one wants to talk about the elephant in the room.

Or not in the room.

“Dad really didn’t bother, did he?” Terry says as they drive away. Amanda’s already gone into the house, headed off to bed. Terry stares up into the night sky, so many stars staring right back, as if waiting for us to entertain them with stories.

“Didn’t bother with what?”

“His past.”

Shoving one hand in my front pocket, I count to five. Terry hates conflict, and besides, that’s not what this is. It’s something more.

A reckoning.

All night, I felt him holding back, looking around the house like he was living in the past but eating and drinking in the present. I get it. I do.

Yet I’m not him.

“How about we have one more?” I ask, the question less a suggestion and more an offer. Come inside, I’m saying.

Talk.

To my surprise, he takes me up on it, a long sigh emerging from the big brother I used to worship.

It’s time, that sigh says.

But time for what?

Amanda comes into the kitchen wearing an old set of my Harvard sweats, combing through her hair. She’s so at ease around Terry, smiling and giving him a hug, that it unmoors me. I should feel rooted in place by her welcoming domesticity, but it’s deeply disturbing.

At the same time it feels so right.

“You’re leaving now?” she asks him, but as I pour Terry a small glass of wine, she realizes her error.

Life has a funny way of stacking all the important parts into compressed sections of time, as if it loses calibration and has zero regulation, like giving a three year old an entire red-dyed Elmo cake, three frozen mochas, and a strobe light. I don’t want to hear the story now.

But the story doesn’t care about my preferences. It comes out when it’s damn ready.

“Not yet,” Terry says with a sad smile.

“I’ve never seen you here before without your dad here, Terry,” Amanda says, the question in her voice.

“There’s a time for everything.”

Amanda squints in confusion.

“We’re going to need more alcohol,” I say, finishing Beer #1 and starting Beer #2.

“That’s why I brought the wine,” he says, pointing to the half-filled bottle. “BYOC.”

“BYOC?”

“Bring your own courage.”

I let down my shields. He’s carrying a memory bank the size of a jetliner. Whatever my brother is ready to tell me isn’t easy. But it is time.

“The story’s that bad?”

He gives me a look that reminds me of Mom so much I suck in my breath, hands fisting, blood halting.

“Yeah. It is.”

“Right. You know, maybe this is a bad idea.”

“It is. But I’m doing it anyhow. You need to know. You’ve needed to know for a really long time, and it was easier to stay away than to face you.”

“Me?”

“Not you individually. Just you – the collective you of the McCormick men.”

“You do realize you’re one of them. One of us.”

“Sure am. And when I’m around you, Dec and Dad, it makes me realize how fucked up we all are without Mom.”

“That’s why you went away?”

“No. But it’s why I stayed away.” Until Shannon and Declan met, Terry had been out of my life for almost eleven years. Somehow, Amanda and Shannon have woven him back into our lives, making Dad thaw, giving us all some emotional connection, however tenuous.

Through all this, Amanda’s just there. A presence, steady and calming, a witness to what Terry and I are trying to decode.

“And you,” Terry says, pointing to Amanda around his nearly-empty wine glass. “You are the one who started to bring me back.”

“Me? I had nothing to do with Andrew stealing your dog for that fake date with me!”

Terry laughs. “No. I mean when you came to me to ask me to join Dad, Dec and Andrew for that crazy hotel scheme with Shannon when Declan was being stupid and broke up with her, way back in the day. You’re a great friend.” His eyes catch mine. “And perfect for Andrew. I wondered then.”

“You did?” she squeaks.

“You were so pissed at him. Ranting about what an asshole he was.”

I laugh. Terry and Amanda don’t.

“You’re not joking?”

She grimaces. “You really were an asshole.”

“Truth is an absolute defense to defamation,” Terry notes.

“Thanks, bro.”

He toasts me.

“This sounds intense.” Amanda pulls away from me and looks up, her face clean and dry, devoid of makeup, fresh and real. “Maybe I should go somewhere else while you two talk?”

“No.” The word comes out of my mouth quickly, without thought. “No. Stay.”

“You’re sure? I’m not...”

“Not what?”

“Family.”

“You most certainly are.”

That comes out quickly, too.

But with more thought.

“I’m not here for long, and I plan to drink enough wine to tell the whole story and then Uber my way home.” I don’t remind him his Subaru is parked outside.

“I can have Gerald take you.” I hold up my beer in a display meant to communicate that there’s no way I’m driving anyone anywhere.

“For once, I might succumb to luxury,” he says, draining his first glass and moving on to the second. I can tell Amanda wants desperately to ask me what the hell is going on, but even if she could ask, I don’t have an answer.

“You’re making this sound like I’m about to find out that Dad’s responsible for Jimmy Hoffa’s remains being buried under Faneuil Hall,” I joke.

“Nah,” Terry says with a sonic boom. “But it’s taken me all these years to come here and talk to you.”

“So talk.” I sweep my arm toward the living room, where two couches sit at angles to each other, in the same spot the interior decorator set them when Mom decorated. “Unlike you, I have actual furniture that allows your knees to rest at a right angle.”

Amanda quirks an eyebrow.

“I’ll have you over some time so you can see what he’s talking about,” Terry says to her, his voice warm and slow. The wine’s soaking in.

We settle in place, Amanda’s body loose against mine as she cuddles up, uninhibited and totally at ease, as if we routinely have Terry over to hang out, drink wine, and drop life-altering bombshells on us in a voice designed to narrate movie trailers.

“I was at school. Second year of college, just took my last final. In the dorm, packing up, when the call from Dad came. I had a flip phone. I remember it well. Dad could barely speak. Just said there’d been an accident and I needed to come home. Now. Grace got on the line and said a driver would be there in an hour. I kept asking which of you had been hurt – Declan or Andrew. She wouldn’t say.” He shakes his head. “I never thought it was Mom.”

Amanda’s eyes shine with tears, making her eyes the color of fine whisky.

“By the time I got home, Mom was gone. You were in ICU, Declan was a robot at home, and Grace managed everything. Dad was taking care of arrangements – whatever you do when someone dies.” He takes a sip, hand shaking, and his voice goes so low it’s nearly subsonic. “I’ve been blessed with ignorance on that topic, and I hope to remain ignorant for a very, very long time until forced to acquire that particular set of knowledge.”

I say nothing.

“I remember trying to hug Declan, but it was like embracing warm cardboard. I’d never seen him like that.” Terry catches my eye. “You know what I mean.”

I nod. “He’s never been the same.” Neither have any of us.

“And then Dad came in, gave me a half hug, and acted like Dec wasn’t in the room. Grace shadowed Dad, taking notes, taking on whatever he asked her to take on, and he was gone. Done. You were still in the hospital, and I didn’t know what to do. Grace came back and told me staffers would pack up the rest of my dorm room and that I should eat and rest.”

I don’t want to hear this. Not one fucking word. This has been a huge mistake. I never should have asked, and as the words come out of his mouth I want to smother them with a pillow. Not him.

The story itself.

Amanda squeezes my hand. She’s a warm wall of support, leaning against me, but right now I’m pretty sure she’s the one propping me up.

“I was supposed to intern that summer. Learn how to take over the company ‘some day.’ That was the last thing on my mind as I tried to get Declan to talk. He left the room. I was alone at the house.” He looks up. “Here. Completely alone, once Grace left to take care of whatever Dad asked her to do. I ate. I rested. And then in the morning, I went to Declan’s bedroom to offer to go to the hospital with him and see you, but he was gone.”

My stomach twists.

“I called Grace. She said you were conscious and to come to the hospital. When I got there, the police were outside the room, talking to Dad. Dec was sitting in a chair in the hallway, the color of a piece of photocopy paper. I understand now he was in shock. We all were. It was like walking through — ”

“Molasses,” I whisper.

“Grace tried.” He finishes the second glass of wine. I realize he’s brought the entire bottle along, and he leans forward to pour more in Amanda’s glass. She nods and gives him a sad smile. “She tried to be the emotional glue Mom had been. Dad was angry. So fucking angry. I’ve never seen that much rage.”

“Declan’s mentioned it.” I drain my beer.

“Bet he has. He was the target.”

“Really? That bad?”

“That bad.”

“I don’t remember.”

“You didn’t see it. I did.”

“I – all I remember is being told Mom was gone. Recovering enough to go to the funeral. And then you disappeared.”

“Remember how Dec wouldn’t leave the grave site?”

“Yeah. I do remember that.”

“Grace brought him home. And that’s when...” Terry voice trails off, like a boulder being scraped against a washboard, slow and steady, coming to a rocking halt.

“I don’t know where you were, Andrew. Probably asleep. But I got up in the middle of the night to get a snack and try to stop the buzzing in my head. Found Declan and Dad in the library.” Terry looks at Amanda. “It took a really long time for Andrew to bring you here, didn’t it?”

I freeze.

She frowns. “Yes.”

Half his mouth curls up in a weird smile. “Ever wonder why?”

Puzzled, Amanda’s eyes dart between my brother and me. “Is there a reason?”

Terry shrugs. “This house has wings. Bedrooms in one, offices, library, formal parlour and all that in the other. There’s no way you could have heard thundering elephants if you were asleep in the section where the bedrooms are.”

“And?” I prompt him.

“Declan was sitting in a chair by the fireplace.” He looks right at the spot, brooding. “His head was tipped down, shoulders slumped in defeat. Dad was drunk and going off, in that quiet, hissing voice he has.”

“The one that makes you wish he’d just yell at you and get it over with?”

“Yeah. That one.”

A creeping dread makes me close my eyes. “Let me guess what he said.”

“Go for it,” Terry rasps. “Because I really don’t want to say it to your face. Haven’t wanted to say it all these years.”

“I know what he said. Dad told me.”

Terry jolts so hard wine spills out of his glass, over his hand, and onto the corner of a couch cushion. Amanda jumps up and grabs a hand towel, blotting it.

“Shit. Sorry.”

I wave my hand. “No big deal.”

Terry gives me a dark look. “You look exactly like Dad when you do that.”

“He’s in all of us, you know.”

“Dad told you he screamed at Declan for saving you instead of Mom?”

Amanda pauses, her hand stopping in mid air, beginning to tremble.

Clarity, it turns out, comes to us at the most inopportune moments, when all the emotional centeredness can accomplish is distilled down to a single revelation.

“Yes. He did.”

Amanda’s free hand flies to her mouth in shock. She already knows this, but hearing it from Terry is different.

Terry’s face turns to a mask of rage.

His turn to look exactly like Dad.

“God damn it,” he rumbles.

“And Dad asked my forgiveness for ever saying or feeling it.”

Terry’s thick eyebrows fly up, his face making it clear he’s reeling.

“But damn him for doing that to Declan. Jesus, Terry, he really did that – that night? The night of Mom’s funeral?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s why you left?”

“Not just that.” Terry looks at the stain on my couch. “You have any Club Soda? We can get that stain.”

“Fuck the stain. Finish the story.”

“Not much more to it.” He peers at me. “You knew? All these years?”

“Dad’s softened.”

“No. Not softened – he’s been weathered. There’s a difference.”

I give him that. “What happened? That night? It had to have been bad for you to just… leave. Leave everything behind like you did.”

“How about I give you two the short version? I stepped in and tried to get Dad off Declan’s back. Dad turned on me and screamed, too. I screamed back. Came close to blows. Dec had to hold Dad off me.”

“Whoa.”

“Yep. Only time I saw Dec move.”

“And?”

“I told Dad I was done being a McCormick if he was going to blame Declan for doing exactly what Mom asked for. How could he blame Declan for following Mom’s dying wish?”

At the words dying wish the room starts to spin.

“He was grieving,” I choke out.

“He was wrong,” Amanda insists.

Terry and I turn and look at Amanda, who is pissed, the words cold and damned. Her face is red, nostrils flared.

I remember that kind of anger.

“Yes. He was,” Terry concurs.

“Yes,” I add. “What he said to Declan made you leave?” I don’t put any emotion in my words.

“It made me quit the company on the spot. I turned twenty-one shortly after.”

Twenty-one.

“The money. Mom’s money.” The room’s spinning a little slower. Amanda puts her hand over the back of mine, the warmth bringing me back to center. “The Mongomery Trust.”

“Right. I walked away from everything. Found a friend from college to live with. I tried to explain to you and Declan. Never found the right time. Dad turned you two into his business bots and...”

“And we stopped being a family.”

“How can you two talk about this so coldly? So...so rationally and calmly?” Amanda’s voice is tight with tears.

“Trust me. There’s more than enough emotion,” Terry mutters. “It’s just muted by time.”

“And some forgiveness,” I add.

Terry snorts.

“I said some.”

A hint of a smile crosses his mouth.

“I have spent more time with all of you since Declan met Shannon than I have in the eleven years before that,” he notes.

I think about that for a minute. “Yeah. Sounds about right.”

“That’s so wrong! Emotionally, I mean. Family is family,” Amanda pleads.

“You can make your own family,” Terry says. “I couldn’t stay. Something in me snapped that moment as I watched Dad blaming Declan for making an impossible choice. For doing exactly what Mom asked him to do. He was blaming his own son for not being able to perform a miracle, and angry that his other son was the one who lived. Some part of me cracked in half in that split second. I was done. I wanted nothing to do with any part of Dad.”

“So you just knew.”

“I knew. I knew deep in my bones that I couldn’t continue to live my life the way I had been living.”

“Ever regret that decision?”

“No.”

“Once you know something deeply, that clarity is all that matters.” I cut my eyes to Amanda to find her staring back at me with a knowing look.

Nothing gets past her.

“Right. My only regret is that Dad shut me out of your lives. Then you guys did, just through inertia.”

“We thought you were the one who wanted the space.”

“We McCormicks suck at communicating,” he adds.

“Yes. You do,” Amanda declares, emphatic. “A few conversations and so many issues could have been solved years ago!”

We both shrug.

“Men,” she whispers. “And I thought having my dad abandon me at Fenway Park was bad,” Amanda says, stroking the hair off my forehead. “I’m so sorry, Andrew.” Her eyes jump to Terry. “And you, too.”

“I don’t need you to be sorry for me, Amanda,” he says.

“But I am. So much pain.”

Terry sets his full wineglass down on a sand dollar coaster. “I’m fine. Just rattled by being here. We grew up here. Mom’s imprint is here. I saw you changed the bedrooms, the kitchen, and you’re doing structural changes, but the living room is pretty much the same.”

“That’s me. My choice,” Amanda tells him. “I love everything she’s done.”

Tears fill Terry’s eyes, glistening as they grow, but never break. “Oh. Good to know.” He stands, offering her a hug, which she takes happily. Then it’s my turn.

And he’s off.

“You okay to drive?” Amanda calls out to him as he leaves.

“I already called Gerald. He’s in the caretaker apartment. Can drive you in five minutes,” I announce, watching as Terry’s face changes to a thankful acceptance. No way I’m letting him drive home like this.

And no way can I drive him, either.

He waves. “I’m going to go for a walk around the grounds. Thanks for the ride home. I’ll enjoy the luxury,” he adds in pensive voice. “I didn’t need as much liquid courage as I thought.”

I look at the bottle of wine. He’s right.

Maybe all it took was time.

And the offer to listen.