We Are the Brennans

by Tracey Lange

  The cabin pressure in the kitchen changed with the weight of shock and anger coming from Sunday and Kale. Sunday more shocked, Kale more angry. Curiously, Jackie didn’t feel much anger toward Denny. For the first time, his older brother was the one having to answer for a significant fuckup and, it could be argued, this particular fuckup was worse than any of Jackie’s. But rather than relish Denny’s reckoning, he felt an alien sympathy for him. Denny might be a controlling asshole much of the time, but there was no denying they all relied on him. It was an unspoken agreement; they let him figure everything out so they didn’t have to. Just like they’d let him claim the family spotlight when they were younger. Better to let him be responsible for making their mother happy, maybe even healthy. Let her pin all her unrequited hopes on him.

  The more Denny explained, the more his whole demeanor sagged. Jackie had only seen him like this one other time. When he lost his place on the Olympic Development team senior year after wrenching his knee in the wrong direction during a slide tackle.

  When he explained that he’d taken a loan from a private investor secured by Brennan’s in West Manor, an ear-piercing silence descended on the room.

  “My God,” Kale said. “How much do we owe?”

  There was trepidation on Denny’s face when he met Kale’s eye. “With interest, close to seventy grand.”

  Sunday gasped. “You could lose the house and Brennan’s?”

  Denny didn’t answer.

  Kale pulled back from the table, clenched the sides of it, and hung his head. Even though Jackie loved Kale like a brother, there’d always been a thin layer of jealousy wrapped up in it because he and Denny were so tight. It seemed a given they’d be best friends and partners their whole lives. But maybe this would be the wedge that drove them apart.

  “I have a plan for paying it back,” Denny said. But it sounded hollow. As if he’d said it to himself so many times the words no longer had any substance.

  Visions of his family packing boxes and crowding into some row house or having to split up materialized in Jackie’s mind. If that didn’t propel Shane over the limit of his anxiety capacity, nothing would.

  Kale was still stiff-arming the table with his head down. Sunday held hers in her hands. But they couldn’t give up; there had to be a way to fix this.

  Jackie laced his fingers on the table. “What do you need, Denny?”

  There was gratitude in Denny’s eyes when he turned to Jackie. “I just need the new place to open on time. Everything’s riding on it now. The inspectors come day after tomorrow. We’re in good shape, but they’re going to give us a to-do list. I need to be out there twenty-four-seven, getting the place ready.”

  “All right.” Jackie patted the table with his hand. “I’ll get some time off so I can work at the pub. It’ll free you guys and Paul up to prep the new place. Would that help?”

  “Yeah, but what about your probation officer?”

  “The two-year limit is about up. I can get him to go for it.”

  Sunday spoke next. “You give me access to everything—everything, Denny—and I’ll try to get it under control.” She stood and walked over to the counter while she spoke, flicked on the electric kettle to start water, like she needed to fortify herself with tea. “I can prioritize bills, make some payment plans with vendors.”

  Denny gave her a weary nod.

  Kale lifted his head. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because you didn’t want to go to Mamaroneck in the first place.”

  “That’s not true—”

  “Come on.” He daggered Kale with a look of disdain. “You wouldn’t say no but you fought me every step of the way.”

  “I asked questions—”

  “You were just waiting for it to fail—”

  “Stop!” Jackie tried out his newfound credibility and stood up. “You two can argue later. Now that we know, we can deal with it.”

  They both shut up but didn’t look at each other.

  Sunday collected the Jameson bottle and glasses, put them on the counter. “We’ll figure it out. It’ll be okay.” She turned to the whistling kettle.

  Kale shoved back from the table to stand up. “I’ll look into an expedited home equity loan. But I want to know one other thing. Who’d you borrow the money from?”

  Denny shrugged. “Just some guy in Katonah that sold his mom’s house and didn’t know what to do with the cash. You might remember him.” His voice perked up a bit like that would make everyone feel better. “He went to school with us. Billy Walsh. Everyone called him Belfast Billy back then. He lived—”

  Sunday’s cry cut him off.

  Jackie had just grabbed on to that name mentally—Walsh—when he turned to see that she had jerked the kettle while pouring. Scalding water had flowed over her good hand, which was resting on the counter, and then run onto the floor. She uprighted the kettle and her eyes met Jackie’s. Walsh. It couldn’t be. Her hand was already turning bright red.

  Kale stepped toward her, but Jackie moved in and turned her to the sink, pushed her hand under cold running water. Billy Walsh. No fucking way. Jackie had confirmed that Billy was still gone from West Manor. But he’d never thought to check a small town up the road.

  “Would you grab the first aid kit from the laundry room?” Jackie asked Kale.

  He headed down the stairs off the kitchen.

  Denny pushed up out of his chair for a better look. “Are you all right?”

  “She’s fine,” Jackie said.

  “I’ll go find some rags for the floor.” He started down the hall.

  Jackie lowered his voice. “Sunday, look at me.”

  She shook her head, trying to ward off what she’d heard. Or maybe what he was going to say.

  “We have to tell them,” he said.

  Kale jogged back up from the basement. “Found it.” He unzipped the medical kit on the counter, started rifling through.

  “No,” Sunday said, pulling her arm away from Jackie.

  “Yes,” Kale said. “You need to bandage that. But I can’t find any aloe vera…”

  “There’s some in the downstairs bathroom,” Jackie said. When Kale left again he turned back to her. “We have to tell them.”

  “No, Jackie. Not now.”

  “But they—”

  “Please. I can’t now.” She squeezed her eyes shut and her burnt hand gripped the counter.

  Kale reappeared with a bottle in his hand. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Jackie said.

  “That’s not nothing.”

  Sunday pulled herself up straight. “I’m fine. Just a headache.”

  Jackie needed to get her, and himself, away from Kale and Denny for now. “I just have to get her to bed.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll bring up the first aid stuff.”

  Jackie helped her up to her room. Kale followed them in and placed the kit on the foot of her bed.

  “I think it’s a migraine,” she said. “I’ve gotten a couple since the accident.” She reached over and shook two pills out from a bottle on her side table, downed them with water. “I’ll be fine, really.” Then she lay down and pulled a pillow over her head.

  Kale seemed to realize where he was. His eyes started to wander around the room.

  “Thanks for your help, dude,” Jackie said.

  “Yeah, sure.” Kale took a last look at Sunday and left the room.

  Jackie sank into Sunday’s desk chair and let his head roll back. He’d felt so good about the talk with Denny, the most hopeful he’d been in a while.

  Then Denny had mentioned Billy Walsh.

  He picked his head back up and looked at his sister, buried under the pillow. It reminded him of another time he’d sat in that chair, watching until she fell into fitful sleep while he wondered what the hell to do about the dark secret they shared. After smearing some aloe vera on a large bandage he did a clumsy wrap around her hand with gauze. The steady breathing meant she was on her way to dee
p sleep, which was good. She’d feel better tomorrow, and they had a serious talk in their future. They had to decide what to do with this information, what it even meant.

  He started to head to his own room but stopped at the door to check on her once more.

  She still lay there, in pain and hidden away. Kind of like the last five years of her life.

  * * *

  When Sunday appeared at the breakfast table the next morning she looked like a “before” picture. Puffy face, narrow eyes, hand still wrapped in his haphazard gauze job.

  “Wow,” Denny said. “You look like shit.”

  Dad swatted the back of his head. “Don’t be saying that to your sister.”

  “Don’t say bad words, Denny,” Shane said. “You shouldn’t say bad words.”

  “Sorry, Shane.”

  “What happened to your other hand?” Shane asked her.

  Sunday looked down at it. “Nothing. It’s fine.” She poured herself some coffee and headed back upstairs. Not once did she look Jackie’s way.

  He let her be for a few hours, until Theresa dropped Molly off with him on her way to a Saturday shift. He took Molly up to knock on her door around noon.

  “Hey,” Jackie called through the door. “Hot-Ta-Molly and I are headed to Hollis Park. You should come.”

  “Please come?” Molly asked. No way Sunday would turn down a voice that sweet.

  But she did. Without opening her door she said sorry, she wasn’t feeling well.

  So Jackie had taken Molly to the park alone. She kicked the ball and he played goalie for a while, he pushed her on the swings and watched her boss a couple of other kids around on the climbing structure because they weren’t doing it right. They headed home a couple of hours later and, as they approached the house, there was a flutter of anxiety in his stomach. It was there until he brought lunch up to Sunday a little later. Some small part of him had actually been afraid she might have left, packed a bag and headed back to California.

  But she answered and said he could come in. She was sitting at her desk, working on her laptop, or, more like, just staring at it. She didn’t look at him when he came in and put a plate down on her desk. He’d thrown together a turkey sandwich.

  “Thanks,” she said. Her legs were pulled up on the chair.

  He took a seat on the edge of her bed, behind her. “Sunday, we need to talk about this.”

  She spoke to her screen. “I can’t right now.”

  “When?”

  “Later.”

  “Jesus.” He lifted his hands and let them drop on his legs. “At some point you have to deal with it.”

  She turned her face to him, and if looks could kill he would have been a goner. “You have no fucking clue what you’re talking about.”

  He didn’t have the heart to push it. Or maybe he was too scared. “Fine. But do you think it could be a coincidence?” Dealing with Billy Walsh being back in town was one thing—and they would absolutely be dealing with that fucker one way or the other. But if he had a specific agenda behind the loan to Denny …

  Her forehead fell down against her knees. “No,” she said. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”

  * * *

  Early the next morning he went to the pub to help Kale with deliveries. It was a two-man job and Denny had some function at Molly’s school. But Jackie forced Sunday to come with him. She hadn’t come out of her room since their talk, not even for dinner. He covered for her, told everyone she was sick—déjà vu from when he made excuses for her five years ago. With his typical warmth Denny had said, “Tell her to stay in there, for Christ’s sake, so the rest of us don’t get it.”

  The clock was ticking. It had been a day and a half since Denny told them about Billy Walsh and she still refused to talk about it. As soon as they got to the pub she mumbled hello to Kale and disappeared into the office.

  “She all right?” Kale asked.

  “Yeah, she’s fine.”

  But Kale stared after her like he could see through the door. He wasn’t buying it. Apparently even now he and Sunday were tuned to each other to an obnoxious degree.

  They’d always been that way, like they lived in their own little world and the rest of them just visited from time to time. When they started dating in high school, Jackie had been angry with both of them. Not only was Kale best friends with Denny, now he was taking Sunday too. And she was breaking an unspoken pact. She was the one person he could count on to be in his corner, to drop everything and take his side without fail when the rest of them were coming down on him for shitty grades or being lazy. And he was that person for her, unswerving support when she had an argument with Denny or needed something from their parents. Kale was usurping his role and Jackie wished he would get his own damn family. He even tried some minor sabotage, like being a third wheel or needling Kale—Don’t you have your own home, Collins? My parents should charge you rent. He gave up before long though, because it became obvious they were going the distance, and alienating Kale would mean alienating Sunday.

  They were in the middle of unpacking and breaking down boxes when a familiar blond guy wearing a high-end suit walked in. He stopped by the bar and cocked his head. “Jackie?”

  “Yeah?” It was starting to come back. Jock-type friend of Denny’s from high school, had gone somewhere Ivy for college.

  “Michael Eaton.” He walked over and extended a hand, then turned to Kale. “Hey, Collins. Good to see you.”

  Kale answered from behind a tall pile of cardboard. “You too, Michael. You looking for Denny?”

  “Yeah, we have a meeting.”

  “He won’t be here for another ten minutes or so,” Jackie said. “But you can have a seat and wait for him.”

  “Thanks.” Michael hesitated by the bar. “Is Sunday here by any chance?”

  Kale’s head picked up at that question.

  Jackie yelled toward the office for her and went back to flattening boxes.

  “Wow,” Michael said when she stepped out. “You’re all healed up.”

  She shrugged a shoulder. “Getting there.”

  “No, really. You look great.”

  “You meeting Denny?” she asked. “You want some coffee while you wait?”

  “Sure, thanks.” Michael turned to Kale again. “Excited about the new place?”

  “Yep.” But Kale didn’t sound very excited at the moment. He turned away and went to work with a box cutter.

  Sunday grabbed the coffeepot from behind the bar and led Michael to a booth. He had a bouncy walk, like he had trouble containing his enthusiasm.

  “I wanted to thank you for recommending that DUI lawyer in LA,” Sunday said, pouring coffee. “He’s trying to wrap it up quickly.”

  She sat across from Michael and explained the details. She was pleading no contest to a wet reckless, which would mean a three-month driving suspension and one to two years of probation, but she wouldn’t have to go back to California for a court date. Jackie focused on binding cardboard stacks for recycling while he listened, but he stopped when Michael said something about finding her stories.

  “Sorry?” she asked.

  “The ones you published in the LA Arts Council magazine. All their back issues are online.”

  “Oh,” Sunday said. “I didn’t know that.” Her glance drifted in Jackie’s direction but didn’t quite reach him.

  “Yeah. I thought they were really good,” Michael said.

  “That’s nice, but I went through years of ‘No thanks’ before anyone bit.”

  Jackie listened to her play it down, but apparently her time in LA hadn’t been a total washout.

  Kale was clearly taking all this in as well. He stood very still, box cutter in one hand and ball of twine in the other, his head half-turned toward the booth behind him so he didn’t miss a word.

  Michael folded his arms on the table. “You changed the names and details, but the one story was about Denny, right? How hard it was on him when he had to give up on soccer
senior year, refigure his whole future.” He shook his head at the memory. “I bet it meant a lot to him.”

  Sunday offered some noncommittal mumble in response. What else could she do—Jackie knew damn well Denny had never read the story. None of them had.

  Michael kept going, oblivious he was outing her. “And the other one, about Shane…” He considered his words. “You wrote about his struggles, but it was more about his strengths. That was unexpected.”

  Sunday flashed a small smile, the first Jackie had seen since she heard Billy Walsh’s name the other night.

  “You working on the next one?” Michael asked.

  “I am,” she said.

  Was it about him? The other brother? Probably not. The tightest bond they shared would have been too painful for her to write about.

  “Well, if you’re ever looking for a test reader…” Michael flipped his hands toward his chest.

  “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Kale finally moved then. He laid his box cutter and twine on a nearby table, walked back into the office, and closed the door.

  Jackie would have bet all the cash in the safe that Kale was already on his laptop, pulling up those stories.

  * * *

  Midafternoon on a Tuesday was pretty dead. Jackie’s only customers were two old-timers nursing their Buds while they watched a baseball game.

  He had always loved working the bar. Having a regular’s drink ready before they took their seat, laughing with strangers, lively action on a busy night. Being the hero for waitstaff by making their customers’ drinks fast and strong. He had worked evenings and weekends at Brennan’s for years, which was good money, enough to afford his own apartment and stay supplied in canvases, paints, and brushes. It also left his days free. It had been a perfect setup. But Jackie’s probation officer had forbidden it for two years following his sentencing. That’s when his dad had to get him a job as a laborer, and Denny and Kale had to hire Paul.