by Julia Kent
“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 eyeb
rows 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.