“I’m going to be going to Albuquerque Acres, which sounds fancy but it’s really just a home for old crazy addicts like me,” Mom says to Dad’s grave.

No one knows whether to laugh or cry. We all just look at her, kind of stunned.

“I wanted to come say goodbye to you. I’m sure I’ll be allowed out with relatives, and we can come back, but… I felt I should let you know in person. And to apologize for how I’ve treated you— all of you— in the past.”

Her old, frail hands are shaking, but I take one of them into my own. I’d already been holding Riley’s hand in my other hand. Harlow holds Mom’s other hand and soon we’re making a circle around Dad’s grave, all of us holding hands.

“We love you, Mom,” I tell her. “And I’m sure Dad forgives you.”

“Do you forgive me?” she asks, looking at me and then at my brothers.

I take a breath. I know there’s a very big chance she’ll revert back to the selfish, arrogant woman she always has been. I know she is just feeling contrite because of all the heartache she’d put us through before Drew was born. But she had never asked us for forgiveness before, and I figure there’s no better time or place to make peace.

“Yes,” I tell her, and Harlow and Ramsey say the same.

“But I put you through so much,” she says, tears rolling down her eyes. “I’m just beginning to realize, nearly too late, the full extent of it.”

“It’s okay, Mom,” Ramsey says, reaching out to pat her hand on top of my own. “We really do forgive you.”

“We’ve been through worse,” Harlow says, and I have to give him that. He’s definitely been through worse— and I guess he’s right that we all have. “But we have each other other, brothers united through thick and thin. And the love of the women— and children— in our lives, to see us through.”

There’s something about the way he says “children” that makes me form a question in my mind. Monica must have the same reaction, because she cocks her head and looks at him, and then at Whitney.

“So, wait a minute,” she says. “I hate to break up the hippy dippy mood around here, but… Whitney, if you were upset because of everything going on with—” she nods her head in Mom’s direction, clearly not wanting to be more specific— “all of this, then, you weren’t worried about getting pregnant?”

“What?” Ramsey asks, shaking his head as if her question does not compute. But Riley is smiling, and I am too, because I know what she’s getting at. “What does one of those things have to do with the other? And, Monica, it’s rude to pry like that…”

“No, it’s okay,” Whitney says, a big smile crossing her face. “Monica was thinking I was upset due to not being able to get pregnant. I was, for a while, but now I have no reason not to be.”

“Really?” Riley says, breaking out of the circle to go hug Monica. Whitney soon joins in, as does my mom. “Congratulations.”

“Yes, really,” Whitney says. “Soon I’ll have one of these.”

She leans over and kisses sleeping Drew on the top of his head. “I just got the positive test last week. We were waiting for the right time to tell you, and this seems as good a time as any.”

“Hooray!” James says, running around in a circle.

“Don’t step on the gravesites,” Ramsey tells him.

I slap Harlow on the back. “Good job, little brother!” I say.

“Yes, great job,” Ramsey says.

“I’m gonna get a cousin,” James says, in a sing-songy toddler voice. “He’s gonna be so cooooooooool.”

“Hey,” Whitney says, laughing. “Maybe it’ll be a she. I know that boys run in the family, but I think it might be time for one of us to have the first girl.”

“I agree,” Riley says, and reaches over to hold my hand again.

“Unless…” Whitney says, looking curiously at Monica. “You guys aren’t…”

“Pregnant again?” Monica laughs. “Hell no. Oops.”

She looks at James and then says, “Heck no. We do want another one, but we’re waiting a little longer.”

“And I’m kind of hoping it’s another boy,” Ramsey says. “Because I think that everyone needs a brother, or two.”

As we walk back up the hill, to take Mom to the new life that awaits her at the home and to put little Drew to bed, I can’t help but agree with him.

Everyone definitely needs two brothers as amazing as my own. Then, as I look down at a sleeping Drew and over at his smiling, happy mommy, I think: and a wife and son as amazing as my own, as well.

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