We Are the Brennans

by Tracey Lange

  “No, but maybe I should. I’m making a mess of things, especially with Kale.”

  “No, no. You did the right thing. What good would it do now?” She threw a hand up. “You were drunk, you can’t even be sure of what happened. He’s gone away, what’s the point?” Her eyes drilled into Sunday’s. “You know your father has to watch his blood pressure. God forbid he finds out. Or your brothers or Kale. None of them would rest until they found him.” She crossed herself to ward off such a thought. “Besides, these things have a way of getting out. And you know how it goes, there’d be talk about you. Pregnant and drinkin’ at the bar, going to the bartender’s room…” She shook her head. “It would be a stain on the soul of the whole family.”

  “But I feel like I’m lying to everyone all the time.”

  “You’re just right. This is no one’s business but yours.” She tapped the table with her finger. “Mark my words. If you tell Kale, he’ll never look at you the same again.”

  If her final decision to leave could be traced back to a single moment, that was it. She couldn’t tell her family. She couldn’t tell Kale. And she couldn’t stay in control of herself around them.

  When Sunday mentioned the idea of California, her mother offered to pay for the plane ticket.

  Five years later, a realization slid into place. Given her mother’s reaction to the name Walsh, she’d likely known about her dad’s affair and couldn’t chance the scandal. People knowing her husband had been unfaithful with the mother, and her daughter had been tempted by the son. The world had just asked too much of Maura Brennan and she wasn’t up to it. Instead, she had shut herself off from everything, even her family.

  Like mother, like daughter.

  A peaceful crowd was scattered throughout the park. Parents with young children, a few runners and dog-walkers. It was one of the first truly warm days of the year. Sunday tilted her face up and soaked it in.

  She was stalling though, putting off thinking about the most agonizing part of that whole time. The morning she left.

  Over dinner the night before her flight, she told Kale and the family she’d received an unexpected job offer in LA to write content for blogs and websites. Eating around the table ceased and flatware was laid down while she went on about what an opportunity it was, a good résumé-builder. She remembered rushing her words, trying to inject excitement, willing them all to just accept what she was saying.

  At one point Denny had turned to Kale. “Did you know about this?”

  Kale, who seemed more resigned than shocked, had shaken his head.

  “This seems a bit sudden,” her father said.

  “You can’t leave, Sunday,” Shane said. “Dad, she can’t leave.”

  She remembered gulping water then, forcing down the lump that was threatening to close her throat.

  “I would think you’d all be more supportive.” All eyes turned to her mother. “Sure it’s only temporary.”

  Until that point Jackie had said nothing, just sat in his chair, gripping his arms like he was trying to contain himself. But he glared at her. “Suddenly you’ve decided to support her writing?”

  “If she’s a chance to make a go with the writing, of course she should try it. Isn’t it what she went to school for? She’ll be back before you know it.” And somehow that deceptively logical support from a highly unlikely corner had ended the conversation.

  The next morning she called a taxi to take her to the airport. Kale showed up at the house to say goodbye—they hadn’t slept in the same bed for weeks at that point. When the cab arrived, he carried her bags out, loaded them in the trunk. She fought off tears that would come very shortly by thanking him for understanding. “I just want to see if I’m any good at it—”

  “Don’t.” He shook his head. “I know this isn’t about some goddamn job.”

  “I just need some time,” she said, “to … figure things out.”

  He glanced at the cab. “I think you already have figured things out.”

  She bent down for her backpack, knowing she had to get in that cab or she wasn’t going to be able to leave. When she stood back up she stepped forward and hugged him.

  He was stiff for a second, but then he hugged her back and said, “I hope you find what you’re looking for out there, Sunday.” He let go and walked away without looking back.

  The only reason she could get in the taxi that day was because she told herself she’d be home soon. She’d go to California, get her head straight, maybe see some LA therapist. Figure out how to get past that awful night. Reset her brain, her emotions. Then she’d come back to him.

  She still didn’t know whether she really believed that at the time or if it was just what she had to tell herself to get in the cab. Maybe there was no difference.

  A faint breeze whispered through the park, across her face, and she realized her cheeks were damp so she searched her bag for a tissue or napkin. Coming up empty she made do with her sleeve and stared at the small interior pocket of her bag. She hadn’t opened that pocket since the night she slipped their postcard in there, the night Vivienne found it and assumed it was Sunday’s. She’d zipped it away and refused to look at it again, not even long enough to move it from the bag to a drawer.

  But it seemed a good time to do it now, sitting on their bench in the park. She was already steeped in self-flagellation, what was one more lash of the whip.

  She unzipped the pocket and slid the card out with two fingers. It was worn, soft with age. Corners tattered, colors faded, small wrinkles and indentations. But there was the beach, the waves, the palm trees. The place where the two smiling stick figures in the corner were supposed to start their grown-up life together.

  She flipped it over because she wanted to read the name again. Magens Bay. She would always know it by heart, but she wanted to lay eyes on it, see the letters in solid form. When she turned it over something was wrong. There was writing that didn’t belong there, and for the tiniest second anger flared up at the thought that someone had used it to jot some random note. But then she recognized his handwriting.

  Booked. Promise! June 2, 2012

  So many realizations hit her at once she became dizzy while she tried to put them in some kind of order. Kale had booked their trip. He’d been planning to surprise her with the postcard. He would have given it to her or had her find it somewhere and waited for her to notice, to understand. When he was in Ireland and she couldn’t find it … He’d taken it with him because he’d already written the note and didn’t want her to find it without him. That’s why he’d been so angry when she stayed home. He was planning to give it to her on that trip. She knew all this to be true because it would have been so Kale to do it that way.

  And when she was such a mess after he got home, her behavior erratic, he would have waited, and kept waiting, not wanting to start out that way on the road to their marriage. That last morning when she left … Had he thought about telling her? Doubtful. By then she had him believing she wanted something else.

  She leaned forward, her arms on her knees, as she stared at the card and made one final connection that cut to her core.

  He had planned for them to elope on June 2. She had left New York on May 19. Just two weeks before.

  * * *

  She didn’t know how long she stayed that way, bent over and staring at the card. She was half-aware of passersby while she fully grasped the discovery she’d made. Kale had done it. After two years of talking about it, despite the backlash that would come from her family, he had booked the trip.

  She felt the bench shift as someone sat on the other end. Why they had to choose this particular bench out of all the available ones in the park was beyond her, but she figured it was time to pick up her head. Feeling protective, she covered the postcard with her hands. Then she took a deep breath and sat up, planning to grab her bag and go. She was not in the mood for small talk with a stranger.

  When she turned toward her bag, she saw who was sitting there.
>
  “Pardon me,” he said. “You’re sitting on my bench.” His hands were folded in his lap and he looked sideways at her, clearly as surprised as she was.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Kale

  “Pardon me. You’re sitting on my bench.”

  Sunday had been so lost in whatever she was thinking about, he had managed to walk up behind her and take a seat without her noticing.

  When he spotted her there, sitting on the very bench he was headed for, he had stopped in his tracks for a moment. He didn’t necessarily believe in signs from the universe, but, given the timing, this had to mean something.

  He was at the end of a strange and terrible day.

  The night before, when Grail had forced the conversation about everyone’s whereabouts on opening night, he never considered stalling. His first concern was that Denny and Sunday could actually be suspects. His next concern was further questioning would bring painful secrets to the surface for Sunday. If he could head all that off, he was going to do it. But he’d essentially told his wife, in front of an audience, that he spent time alone with Sunday at her house that night. So when they got home he expected a confrontation—Vivienne’s rage, tears, questions. But it never came. She just said she was tired and went to sleep.

  He lay awake next to her for a long time, her words still ringing in his ears—Do you see it now? Do you see they’re all just a bunch of liars who hurt the people around them? There was no denying it. Denny had lied to him for months, risked his very livelihood. Sunday had left him rather than tell him the truth. Jackie had been lying to him for five years. They had all kept harmful secrets, from him and from each other, for a long time. Vivienne wasn’t wrong.

  When he returned from the Brennan house that morning she met him with coffee and a smile, and asked that he take a drive with her and Luke. He agreed and she directed him to Manor Hills, past several houses that were for sale. That was when he understood what this was all about. She was still planning for a move, trying to seal the deal, despite what she’d heard last night. Or because of it, because she had some leverage.

  They walked the upscale neighborhood, with its flat roofs, monotone HOA-approved house colors, and themed street names—Van Gogh Court, Renoir Drive. They toured the health club, infinity lap pool, and eco-friendly playground. Kale did his best to be interested yet noncommittal, which was tough because Vivienne worked hard at getting Luke excited about it—That yard’s big enough for a tree house. This house is right across from the park. There are lots of other kids on this block. Kale tried to see himself there, in an alien neighborhood. Living in one of those houses, meeting new people. Maybe shaking up his world would be enough, in time, to unlearn what made him truly happy.

  They had an early dinner out and when they got home Luke ran up to change out of the nice clothes she had him wear that day. Kale sat at the kitchen table, slumped in his chair, hands dangling between his legs. He was being carried away upon Vivienne’s momentum and had to get a handle on it. She only confirmed it when she joined him at the table with a pile of house listings.

  “I’m exhausted,” he said. “Do we have to do this right now?”

  She spread out the flyers on the table. “Yes, we do.”

  The whole day had felt like it was funneling toward this painful moment, the one when he had to take some kind of stand. Because Vivienne had spent the last eight hours laying out what the path forward with her would look like.

  “These are the places I think we should consider,” she said.

  He understood why she was drawing a hard line in the sand. She couldn’t stay in this house, in this situation, any longer. But it meant there was no more time to think about it. He was either staying with Vivienne in this half-hearted marriage or doing the thing he thought he’d never do.

  “This one is my favorite,” she said, pointing to one listing. “Can’t you just see us here?”

  He stared down at the photo. A new house on a corner lot with a perfectly manicured lawn. No, he couldn’t picture himself there at all, and the fact that she could just confirmed how little she knew him. Or how little she cared about what he wanted. If their marriage was this flatline after four years, what would get them through the next forty? She would never really know him, not the way they did, the complicated lot he’d thrown in with twenty-five years ago. Vivienne wasn’t wrong about the Brennans. The whole family was a mess. But they were his mess. He was part of them.

  “We drove past it today,” she said. “I talked to a real estate agent last week and it sounds like prices are staying pretty firm, especially with summer coming up.”

  He heard Luke moving around upstairs. How does someone explain to a three-and-a-half-year-old that his family is going to change? No one had explained it to Kale, his mother just left one day, and all his father ever said was that she was unhappy. Kale had vowed never to be like her, yet he followed her footsteps into a lifeless marriage. Part of it had been obligation. He’d tried to kid himself that he could be content doing the right thing. And part of it had been because, after Sunday left, he didn’t want to be alone.

  “These three are all the perfect size,” Vivienne said, sliding papers around. “All in our price range. Assuming, of course, we sell this place.”

  His gut flipped as he thought about living separately from Luke, going whole days without seeing him. But it was possible to still be a good father. It wasn’t ideal, it wasn’t fair to Luke, but Kale would not disappear. Of course he’d have to make room for another man in Luke’s life at some point. That thought was accompanied by such an acute pang of alarm he squeezed his eyes shut with his fingers for a moment.

  “I don’t think there’s much to do to this place before we list it,” Vivienne said. “We’ve kept it in pretty good shape…”

  “You’ve kept it in good shape.” And she had. Part of what made this so hard was that he didn’t have any of the more convenient complaints people cited to end a marriage—adultery, neglect, constant arguing. They just lacked a fundamental intimacy that kept someone from feeling alone in the world. Kale had forgotten what that was like. Until Sunday came back and he realized she was still the voice in his head.

  “Thanks,” Vivienne said, studying the flyers. “Anyway, it should be a close trade.”

  Kale didn’t know if he had any future with Sunday. But this marriage was shortchanging him and Vivienne both. He couldn’t let her go any further. “I think we should—”

  “The agent is coming Monday to do a walk-through so we can decide on a selling price.” Her eyes widened. “Oh, and I already got a line on some good babysitters. They have couples events in the clubhouse each month. It would be nice to start going out once in a while. I met some people—”

  “Vivienne.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, then took a breath. When she let it out her shoulders sank and a slow blink seemed to wash a feverish hope from her eyes.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. “But I can’t do this with you.”

  Her mouth tightened and she looked down at the flyers again.

  “You deserve someone who wants—”

  “I knew it.” She shook her head. “I knew you were going to do this. After everything they’ve done to you, you’re going back for more.” She curled her lip in disgust. “Figures. You’ve been a Brennan groupie your whole life.”

  Kale didn’t look away. Whatever she needed to say, she was entitled to say it.

  Her face scrunched in disbelief. “She’s back a couple months and that’s it? Seriously?”

  With a rush of sadness he thought back to those early days with Vivienne, when she’d helped him pull out of an alcohol-fueled haze of loneliness. He was grateful to her for that, and for giving him Luke. He wished he could explain it all to her, why Sunday left. But it didn’t matter, it wouldn’t change anything. He shook his head. “This isn’t about her—”

  “Bullshit.”

  He stopped.

  She drummed her fingernail
s on the table, considered her next words. Then her fingers slowed and stopped. “The postcard I found that day in the desk. She’s not the one who kept it all these years, is she?”

  He didn’t respond. He didn’t want to lie to her.

  “Un-fucking-believable.” Her laugh was riddled with scorn. “You know she’s just going to hurt you again, right? It’s in their blood, Kale.”

  He thought about pointing out that, Sunday aside, they just didn’t want the same things. But the blaze in her eyes said he’d only be feeding her fire. So, instead, he said, “I’m sorry. I never wanted to hurt you.” As true as those words were, he could hear how hollow they sounded.

  “Whatever.” She waved off his pathetic platitude. “I can do a lot better than this.”

  “I know you can.”

  “Luke’s staying with me. And we’re still moving to Manor Hills.” She arched her eyebrows, daring him to challenge, even though she had to know that was unrealistic now.

  “We’ll have to figure all that out. I’ll do whatever I can to help you get what you want—”

  “Don’t pretend to give a shit about what I want.” She started yanking the house listings into a pile. “I don’t care what your plan is, I’m selling this house.”

  “This house is half yours. We can sell it if you want.” He debated for a moment, but this was all about telling the truth. “You need to know I took out a small equity loan on it. Twenty thousand.”

  “What? Why did you … Wait. Don’t tell me. You did it for them.”

  “It’s my problem, it’ll come out of my share.”

  “Yeah, well, you might as well hand over the rest of your share too because I’m going to need other help.” She crossed her arms and flung one leg over the other. “Child support, money for groceries and bills. Even after I’m full time in the fall.”

  He leaned toward her on the table. “I promise I will not leave you in the lurch.” In that moment he didn’t care if he ended up sleeping on a cot in the office at the pub. “We’ll work together to make sure you and Luke are taken care of.”