The Walsh Brothers

by Kate Canterbary

I swallowed a sigh. "Andy, you should trust me, but you have to understand that I can't rewrite this today."

  "Kind of like how I should know better than to be power-fucking?" I started to respond, and Andy held up her hand. "I get that you're not rewriting anything. That's fine, and that's not what I'm asking. But you expect me to believe it's all going to work out? I'm supposed to hang around for a few years and cross my fingers, hoping it falls into place? What happens when I'm left out all over again or your siblings decide they want to keep the partners' table exclusive to family? It might be bullshit paper, but I can't wait around with the hope that the bullshit paper changes. You need to get that I can't hitch my entire career to the possibility of something. I've worked too hard, Patrick."

  "Andy, please. Just…let's go back to my place. We can talk this out. Or we can get dinner. I'm sure you're hungry."

  "I can't do this. I'm going to finish my apprenticeship because I have ongoing projects, but I'm not letting this mistake with us ruin my career. It's only three weeks until the end of my time here and my exams, and then I'll be gone. This was all an enormous mistake from the start, and I let it happen, and I'm sorry."

  There were at least nineteen things I could have said, and they were all better than my silence. Andy pushed past me. I leaned heavily against the wall as the door rattled shut.

  Neglect didn't begin to describe what was happening to my work. There was no convincing myself that it was my priority when Andy was planning to walk away forever.

  "Are we doing anything today?" Riley asked when he strolled in late Tuesday morning. "Or are we watching these guys frame walls? I'm good with both."

  I glared at Riley, and stepped aside him to collect a document from the printer. "Here are my current jobs. Come back with status reports mapped to the milestone trackers, and prioritize issues that you find. When you finish, check on the new investment properties. Establish cost estimates for aligning to code. When all of that is done, I'll talk to you."

  "Great," he muttered. "Way to start the day as a dick waffle, Patrick."

  Whatever the next level of dick waffling was, I reached it. Screaming at one of Shannon's advertising and PR assistants, Caley or Coley or Corey, after she left yellow card stock in the printer, was a low point. She cried, extensively.

  I watched construction on the new offices. For the most part, I was pleased with the amount of demo, framing, and drywalling accomplished over the weekend. The painters got an earful when I noticed they were only applying one coat of paint over the primer, and when they didn't seem concerned, I fired them on the spot. A lower point.

  Sam cornered me in the stairwell, and I inadvertently kicked one of his hornet's nests, fresh water supplies. He wanted to partner with a sustainable landscape designer, but getting excited about grassy roofs wasn't on my short list for the week. I told him I didn't care about the impact on insulation or net neutral footprints, and he dropped every water conversation talking point in his arsenal until I walked away. Even lower.

  The real trouble started when I went to the kitchen. Tom was deep in conversation with Shannon's bookkeeping assistant. I flattened myself against the hallway and listened. By itself, a new low.

  "So I heard that Sam goes to all kinds of weird natural healers, like acupuncturists," she said. "He drinks this horrible juice every day. It looks like frothy grass water. I think it's for cleansing or detoxing or something."

  I knew that juice well. Lemon, ginger, cayenne, cucumber, and mint, and Andy was completely responsible for Sam's newfound obsession. The two of them could talk about herbs and bee pollen for hours.

  "I've been here a long time, but I still don't understand Sam, or the way everyone tiptoes around him. Sure, he's a creative genius or whatever, but they act like he's really emotionally fragile. I think he has major mental health issues and they just don't want to see it. I don't think Shannon would ever admit it, either. But what's really strange is that he's a total manwhore. All while being the most fucked up guy in town. I've heard that he's all about anal, and never sees the same girl twice. He doesn't let any of his dates see his apartment."

  Truth. On all counts.

  "I knew that," she said. "Strange, considering he's such a germaphobe. What d'you think about Andy? She's really beautiful. Like, without even trying. They're always talking about bizarre natural stuff. Are they…do you think maybe they're hooking up?"

  "That would explain why they hired her full time."

  Furious, I sprinted upstairs to Shannon's office and slammed the door behind me. I waited while she finished her call, and by waiting, I mean I stomped across the office repeatedly and kicked her desk until she gave me the finger.

  Shannon's phone crashed into place, and she turned to me with a scowl. "What the fuck is your—"

  "I want you to fire Tom. And that assistant, the one who handles bookkeeping."

  "Don't even start. Whatever it is, shut it down. We've had enough firings here today."

  "They're sitting in the kitchen debating whether Andy has a job here because Sam's fucking her, and they're also discussing his psychiatric disorders and preferences for anal sex and fringe medicine. I. Want. Them. Gone."

  Shannon scanned my face, her eyebrows lifting and lips pursing in response. "Tom is a valuable, trusted member of my team. He's been here for years. I'll agree that I want to limit that kind of conversation in this office, and I will talk to him about that. I can also discuss this with Danielle, but I'm not sure we're talking about termination-level offenses."

  I rolled my eyes.

  "I think you're sensitive about Andy, and overreacting. What the fuck is going on with you? This, Coley, the painters? And let me tell you, Sam is going to cash in on your little outburst about Roof Garden Girl. We're calling her that now. I like it better than her name."

  My hands fisted at my sides. "Make it happen, Shannon. I'm not asking you."

  Shannon's mouth fell open, and I turned to go. "What did you just say to me?"

  "You wanted it this way, Shannon. This was your call. You want me to be in charge, you want to be my second in command, then you need to find a way to get this shit done without argument. This is what you asked for, now deal with it."

  The door bounced off the frame and banged against the wall, muffling Shannon's shouted curses as I stormed out. The walk to Café Vanille on Charles Street absorbed some of my nervous energy, and seeing Lauren's sunny smile brought me down a few more degrees.

  "I ordered you a roast beef sandwich." She pointed to the table. "Sit down. Let's talk."

  The bistro table was tiny, and I felt like a lowland gorilla as I settled into the wrought iron seat. "I don't know what to say."

  "Start with why you decided to text me at four in the morning."

  "Sorry about that." Another sleepless night. "Did Andy say anything to you this weekend? You guys went to the farmers' market, right? Is that where she got that necklace, the one with the matching bracelets?"

  Lauren nibbled her croissant and shook her head. "Not how this works, pal. You need a friend right now, and I can be your friend, but I'm not trading insider information."

  "I fucked up, Lauren. I fucked up everything, and she won't forgive me, and she's leaving."

  "You do love a good exaggeration, Patrick." Lauren smiled and sipped her coffee. "Yeah, you fucked up, but it probably wasn't everything. Maybe she's not forgiving you at this moment, but it takes time to walk away from anger and hurt. You need to let her be angry, be hurt, and process things at her pace. Don't deny her that unless you want her to stay a little angry and hurt forever, but be there when she's ready to leave those pieces behind. And maybe she said she's leaving. Is it possible she said that to lash out, to hurt you the way you hurt her?"

  I stared at my plate and remembered the lunches spent with Andy. My stomach jolted with the realization I wasn't simply in love with her. Andy was for me, and I was for her. I could go on living without Andy, but I was going to be one miserable son of a bitch.
r />   Just like my father.

  Andy's head was bent over her laptop. The whir of nail guns obscured my footsteps and she didn't notice me in the doorway. I set the iced green tea beside her notebook and said, "I'm sorry. I'll do anything."

  She edged the cup away with the back of her hand, and kept her eyes on the screen. Minutes passed without response while I stared at her, waiting. I couldn't access the memory of her skin against mine, and as I saw my Andy-less life unfolding before my eyes, an agitated, screaming howl formed in my chest.

  I ran to the attic, ducked under the low, exposed beam ceiling, and burst through the door. With my hands braced on the roof deck railing, I gasped for breath. It was sunny and warm, and lilacs perfumed the air, but it might as well have been rain clouds. I was that miserable.

  The door squealed behind me, and Matt appeared at my side, his knuckles white around his phone. "What are you doing up here?" he asked.

  I crossed my arms over my chest. "What are you doing up here?"

  He leaned forward and studied my face. "Your eye is twitching. If I had to guess, I'd say that's a problem."

  A bitter laugh rumbled up from my chest. "Eye twitching isn't my biggest problem. I'm in the middle of some kind of mental collapse, and it's all I can do to not punch holes in walls."

  "Oh, me too, that's great," he said dryly. "We can lose our shit together. I can't think of a better plan."

  Matt was the calm one. If there was a bomb to diffuse, I wanted Matt doing it. He mediated the worst of Shannon and Erin's disputes, and every time Angus went balls to the wall asshat, Matt was our man. Seeing his head jerking in a spastic bob and his eyes erratic, I squinted in concern. His shit was long lost. "What's your problem?"

  "Lauren's brothers are flying in Thursday night. The Navy SEALs. They've been off the grid for a few months. Top secret missions. Naturally." He gestured to his phone. "They're going to show up, and they're going to take one look at me, and they're going to know their baby sister is my little fuck doll, and they're going to make my body disappear after the greatest hits of black site torture."

  That did sound bad. "Can't we just get them some hookers?"

  "We do that kind of shit now?" Matt croaked, his hands running through his hair and tugging it until he looked freshly electrocuted. "When did we become the kind of guys who hire hookers? I don't even know where to find a hooker."

  "I don't know, I figured Nick knew something about that," I said. "It was a bad idea."

  "You think? And that's not the end of my problems. Erin's definitely coming. She's taking a red-eye flight from Rome, and arriving here Friday. I've been asking her for months, and I haven't seen her in so long, and I'm so happy that she's coming but the idea of Erin and Shannon under a tent at my wedding makes me throw up in my mouth. Shannon doesn't know yet, and when she finds out, she'll probably kill me, or ditch the wedding altogether."

  I wish I could remember the argument that precipitated the schism between Erin and Shannon, but it was going on five years and the details were blurry. Shannon definitely had a point-by-point inventory of Erin's offenses. They were too much alike, and they pushed up against the wrong parts of each other.

  Whatever it was, my sisters hadn't spoken in years and Erin required the distance of an entire ocean to cool off while she worked on her doctorate in Europe.

  "I got it," I murmured. "Let's stick Erin and Shannon on Lauren's brothers. Make the girls responsible for keeping you alive."

  "And Lauren can tell them to keep Shannon and Erin apart." He nodded. "Okay. That might work. Does that mean we're pimping out Erin and Shan?"

  I pressed the palms of my hands against my eyes and groaned. "What they do with two SEALs on leave isn't my concern. It's not like they don't know how to rip off some testicles when needed."

  Matt's fingers flew across his phone's keyboard while he asked, "So what's your problem?"

  "I'm turning into Angus," I declared flatly.

  "Unlikely. You're just a bitch sometimes. Doesn't mean anything." He glanced up from his phone. "Lauren's on board with her brothers keeping the girls apart, and wants to run point on that task force."

  "I'd pay good money to see that. Now stop worrying about jumper cables hooked to your dick." I sighed before barreling ahead. "Would you tell me if I started turning into Angus?"

  "Yes, and don't be a moron. You're not turning into Angus. Have you gone on any homophobic rants recently?" I shook my head. "Did you go on a pub crawl where you slammed every business partner that you have in town to anyone who will listen? Enslaved any children? No? You're not Angus."

  Unconvinced, I stared out over the rows of roofs and toggled through memories of my father. Angus did unconscionable things, and most of those things defied forgiveness. But he didn't start out that way. If anything, he was a good father and husband right up to the day my mother died, and he turned on us because he believed we didn't do enough to save her. He broke, just like the rest of us, only those cracks deepened and spread over time whereas most of our cracks healed in strange, arthritic ways.

  In a moment of perverse clarity, I understood Angus and his psychosis. I recognized the sound of his pain from the inside, and I knew its acrid taste. Andy was alive only three floors below my feet and merrily manipulating load-bearing walls. I couldn't imagine the gnawing agony of losing her to a horrific death, drowning in memories of her, or coming face-to-face each day with the six babies she gave me.

  What was it that Hunter S. Thompson said? Something about no sympathy for the devil?

  Thompson was wrong.

  I wasn't forgiving, excusing, or justifying. I understood, and for the first time in my life, I sympathized with that particular devil.

  "He chose to be a dickhead, Patrick. Don't forget that. He just didn't want to crawl out of the hole."

  Step one to avoiding miserable bastardhood: stop being a dickhead.

  Step two: get out of the hole.

  I wanted it to be that easy.

  I walked to the far corner of the roof, and stood beside Matt. We gazed to the east, and a thin shimmer of the Atlantic in the distance. "How did you know, with Lauren?"

  He typed another message then pocketed his phone. "Are you asking because you're writing your toast for the reception and want a cute story? I don't think any of our stories are fit for general audiences."

  Shit. Was that expected? Sam knew how to tell an eloquent story. Riley knew how to hit the bawdy humor. Shannon always delivered with the heart. Erin had the smart wit. Firm handshakes were my wheelhouse.

  "There's no cute story," he continued. "It's hard work. It looks easy, but a lot of work goes into getting two people to that spot. There's never enough time, ever, and that's the most important thing. Time. Time to argue about keeping the peanut butter in the fridge, or whether we're raising our kids Catholic. And everything in between. We make each other crazy, but we'd also go crazy without each other." Matt propped his fists on his hips and shrugged. "I can't breathe without her, and I knew after one night. I picked out the ring less than a month later."

  That sounded familiar.

  "But really, why would anyone put peanut butter in the fridge?"

  "That's absurd, and don't get me started on the hair in the drain," I muttered.

  "Oh my God, so much hair," he groaned. Matt turned to face me. "Back up. What?"

  I squinted at the ocean in the distance. "Judging by the amount of hair in the drain, women should be bald."

  He glanced at his watch. "Let's not delude ourselves into thinking we're getting any work done today. It's presently beer o'clock, and I want to know whose hair is in your drain. It'll take my mind off waterboarding."

  22

  Andy

  My first year at Cornell, my roommate Myra's boyfriend from back home sent her a bouquet of flowers for their anniversary in October, and they arrived in a thin glass vase. As far as dorm rooms went, ours was petite, and flat surface real estate was at a premium. Myra made space on her desk for the
flowers, but if she attempted to use her desk for anything else, the vase was always two seconds away from disaster.

  Myra kept the flowers as long as possible—she even hung them upside-down to dry like a freaking prom corsage—and she kept the vase, too. Standing empty, it didn't serve a purpose, but it was a totem for their relationship—they survived college on opposite coasts after all, and if she couldn't see him every day, at least she could see the vase.

  One day that winter, she was in a hurry to get to class and rushed past her desk in her thick puffer coat. She clipped the top of the vase, and it tumbled to the ground, shattering into a million shards. We found stray chunks and slivers in every corner of the room, and they appeared out of the blue weeks and months later. We agreed the suspicious gray carpeting was to blame for intermittently sucking in and spitting out the shards, and wearing shoes everywhere but bed was essential.

  When springtime descended upon Ithaca and flip-flops didn't pose a frostbite risk, a chunk of glass roughly the size of a silver dollar carved up the head of my big toe as I walked across the room. I needed seventeen stitches—that's a lot of stitches for a toe, and it hurt like a motherfucker. How that piece of glass appeared, months later and smack in the center of our room, I will never know.

  Patrick was my shard of glass on the first day of flip-flop weather. From the start he was dangerous, and even my best efforts at self-preservation failed. I knew nothing good could come from climbing into bed with my boss, but I went there knowingly. It ripped me open and branded me with the kind of thick, silvery scar that never faded.

  And it hurt like a motherfucker.

  Patrick seized every opportunity to get me alone—which wasn't easy, considering the Sam-Riley-Shannon-Patrick-Matt Show was packed into a couple of cramped offices and it was turning into a full-blown variety hour as the wedding neared—and he wrapped me up in tenderly whispered pleas for another chance. Between the office construction, the wedding, and all things Patrick, the week was overflowing with commotion, and I needed space to get my head on straight.