Phoebe was too busy glaring at Rob across the table to hear her. “Happy. Which is all I want for my boys.”
“There’s nothing happy about bankruptcy,” Rob mumbled around a mouthful of food. Thankfully, no one else seemed to hear.
“You and Dad did make us happy,” Jake insisted, glancing between his parents at either end of the table. “You guys gave us everything. This lake, this house. Your love and support.”
“You were all lucky to grow up here and in a big family like this,” Olivia chimed in, softly. “It’s exactly what I always hoped for Luci.”
Jane tipped her head appreciatively and laughed. “Oh, honey. We don’t deserve either one of you.”
Edward raised his glass again. “It’s wonderful to have you.” He looked around at each of his offspring, eyes crinkling. “Look at you all. Grown up and thriving.”
“Some of us more than others,” Perry quipped, raising his glass haltingly before tipping it back.
“Why do you say that?” Phoebe asked, setting her own down.
“Because you’re still all coming to me. Jake needed a job. You needed money.”
“I got my own job,” Jake interjected. “In the end, I didn’t need your help.”
“Because I wouldn’t get you a job, not after the last one I secured for you and you blew.”
Rob set down his fork with a clatter. “You asked your brother for money? Phoebe, we agreed.”
Phoebe swallowed hard. “We agreed on nothing. I’m just trying to save our house.”
Edward opened and closed his mouth. “What’s wrong with the house?”
“And you.” Perry pointed across the table at Jake. “You’re still living like life is one big party. Letting Emma drink. Encouraging her to be like you!”
Elsie took a spoon and clanged it against her water glass, silencing everyone if only for a beat. “Oh, I don’t like this talk. I can feel our family tree shaking right up to its branches.”
“Tree?” Patrick asked. “What tree?”
“Nana is right,” Jane told them all. “Enough of this. Let’s eat.”
But Jake was still stung by the accusation. “I didn’t let Emma drink!” he told them, looking severely around the table. “I would never.”
Emma, who’d been pushing food around her plate, winced.
“Do you know what that cost her?” Perry asked. “Do you have any idea?”
“Dad,” Emma mumbled. “Please stop.”
Jake pushed his chair back. Which only made Olivia hop up to help him. “What do you want, honey? I’ll get it for you.”
Jane did the same. “It’s okay—I’ll get it.”
“See?” Perry threw his hands up. “All the women, hopping up to help Jake. Poor, helpless Jake.”
Jake wobbled, grabbing the edge of the table for balance. “I am not helpless.”
“Enough.” Jane raised her voice over the rest of theirs. “These petty jealousies! How many years are you going to nurse them?”
Perry turned to her. “Mom, you can’t fix everything. Why must you force us together?”
Jane pounded the table and her bracelets rattled on her wrist. “Because we’re a fucking happy family! Now sit down and eat.”
Everyone stared at their plate, except for Patrick, who giggled nervously under his breath. “Grammy said…”
“Shush,” hissed Phoebe.
Edward waited as his wife drew in her breath, sat down, and returned her napkin to her lap. “What do you all think of the avocado dressing?”
* * *
They ate in silence, the deafening sound of utensils scraping plates. When it was clear the meal was over, Jane stood up. “I’m getting dessert.”
“I can help you,” Olivia offered.
As soon as she said it, both Perry and Jake stood, though Jake teetered on his crutches. Jane held up both hands. “Stop. Phoebe and Rob, you help clear. The rest of you stay where you are.”
Phoebe picked up plates, steering far around her husband as they passed. Jane returned with a steaming blueberry crumble right out of the oven. “Fresh from the farm,” she said, dumping it on the table.
Edward grimaced. “Well. That looks lovely, honey.”
Everyone had a small serving, though no one except the kids ate much. Phoebe had taken one bite of dessert, hopeful they could limp through just five more minutes and then she could beat it the hell out of there, when Rob started talking. “I’m afraid Phoebe and I have some bad news.”
She swallowed hard. “Rob. Not now.”
He looked across the table at her, his eyes heavy with sadness. “You have to be honest, Phoebe. If not with yourself, at least with the rest of them.” He left it at that, and Phoebe felt all eyes upon her.
“Not in front of the kids,” she said softly, eyeing Patrick and Jed across the room. They’d strayed from the table and into the kitchen, where they sat on the tile floor pushing around a green-and-white Hess truck, a relic from her own childhood.
“I can take the kids outside if you want to talk,” Jake offered.
It was the smallest window, but Perry was determined to pry it open. “Because you know what’s best for everyone else’s kids.”
Olivia stood abruptly. “How about I take all the kids outside for a bit?”
No one argued, and Jake watched her go in exasperation. “Come on, Perry. Enough.”
“It’s not enough until you understand. What you did out there on the lake—it’s like some big secret. You don’t remember what happened? I call bullshit.”
“Be careful, Perry. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about my daughter!” Perry roared. “Whose life has been turned upside down since your accident. How the hell are you going to be a parent when you almost killed the three of you out there that day?”
“He didn’t do it!” Emma leapt to her feet with such force that her chair flipped over. It crashed to the floor, and everyone jumped. “It was my fault! I was the one who was driving the boat.” She turned and bolted from the table.
“Emma!” Amelia called after her. There was the slam of the front door, and silence fell over the room. “Perry, we need to go after her.”
But Perry had sat back down, hard, in his chair. “That can’t be right.”
“What did Emma mean?” Jane demanded.
Jake grabbed his crutches and jammed them under his arms. His face flushed red, eyes wild. “I was trying to protect her.”
“Wait. You knew this all along?” Amelia asked.
Edward rose. “Okay, everybody, let’s catch our breath. Please let’s take a minute.”
“Is that true? What Emma said?” Phoebe turned to find Olivia standing in the doorway, arms crossed.
All the anger drained from Jake’s face at the sound of her voice. “Baby, I was going to tell you.”
“But you didn’t,” Olivia persisted.
“Liv, please.”
She started to laugh, a soft, sad laugh. “All this time. You lied to the police. You lied to me.”
“Olivia,” he pleaded. “I needed to protect Emma.”
“From what?” Amelia snapped. “We should’ve known, Jake.”
“From Perry!”
Jane put both hands to her forehead, her voice stern. “Jake. Not now.”
“Then when, Mom?” He turned back to Perry. “The measuring stick you hold for all of us to live up to? It’s impossible. You’ve done it to me my whole life. And I couldn’t stand the thought of you doing that to Emma.”
There was a collective intake of breath. Perry stared back at his brother, saying nothing.
Amelia reached for his hand, but he brushed it off. Then, slowly, he rose from the table and pushed his chair in.
“Perry,” Edward said softly. “Hang on a second.”
Perry was already moving away from the table.
Phoebe was the only one who dared to follow Perry out to the foyer, where he paused at the door. “Do you want to be alo
ne?” she asked, gently.
He opened the door and looked across the yard. “I’m used to it.”
She watched him walk across the yard at the pace of a much older man. The rainstorm had let up earlier, and a single ray of sun shot through the spongy sky. Phoebe looked up in time to see a bank of gray cloud swallow it.
Perry
He drove home but did not go inside. Instead, he walked through the rain around to the back of the house and continued across the puddle-filled yard. At the top of the stairs that led down to the lake, Perry removed his shoes. They were hand-stitched saddle-brown wingtips with brogue detail. His favorite pair, and a gift from Amelia last Christmas. He set them side by side on the top step, then removed his socks, which he carefully rolled and nestled, one into each shoe. At the rate the rain was coming down, he estimated the shoes would be filled with water in less than fifteen minutes.
At the bottom of the stairs, Perry stepped lightly across the grass and onto the dock. The boards were soaked and cold beneath his bare feet. He bent to roll up his slacks and continued to the edge. There, he sat and dangled his feet into the water. The rain had returned in soft, silver streams, breaking the glassy surface. He needed to sit and think.
He’d been wrong about so much. All these years he’d worked to provide his family everything, thinking that would somehow secure them a position of safety within their position of good standing. When it wasn’t just the outside world he needed to shield them from, but also themselves. He was so busy proving himself—to his family, his neighbors, and yes, to Jake—that he hadn’t noticed Emma needed him in a way he had not considered. He’d been wrong about his feelings for Olivia; they were not something to be ashamed of. And they posed no threat to his love for his wife. Good, strong Amelia, whom he’d strayed from not in infidelity, but in heart. Just as he had with Emma. They did not need things; not fast boats or high fences. They needed him. His attention and his time. Such foolishly simple things. And yet they were everything.
His feelings about Olivia had stirred in him a consternation, a kind of awakening. At first Perry feared he was falling in love with her. The urge to protect her from Jake may have come from a good place, but it was displaced. It was Perry’s urge to protect himself from their past. A younger brother against whom he competed. Whom he compared himself to, and always came up short. Olivia represented another thing Jake had won. What Perry realized now was that she didn’t need saving. And she certainly did not need him. Jake did not pose a threat to her. It was he, Perry, who’d felt threatened. And it was something he would have to come to terms with.
* * *
Perry sat until his wet hair was plastered across his forehead, his glasses blurred by rivulets. Until the gray sky turned charcoal, then opaque. Until his shirt clung to the skin of his back, his slacks soaked through. Then he climbed the stairs again, past his wingtip shoes, back across the yard, and got into his car.
When he pulled into the farmhouse driveway, he realized it would be for the last time. He had been here twice before. Once for the dog. Once to bring Olivia groceries. This time was different. This time he was here for something else. The thing he should’ve started with.
His headlights must have alerted him, because Jake was already standing on the small porch of the cottage, perched angrily over his crutches. The rain had picked up on the drive over and was coming down in torrents now. It didn’t matter. Perry was soaked through and shivering with cold. Which somehow seemed fitting.
“What do you want?” Jake shouted from the stoop. The door to the cottage was closed behind him. He would not be inviting Perry in.
“I want to say I’m sorry.”
Jake said nothing.
“I was mistaken about Emma. And about you, too. But you have to understand…”
Jake pointed one crutch at him. “No, Perry! You have to understand. Your whole life you’ve carried this chip on your shoulder. And I never understood it. But I always felt like it was somehow my fault.”
Jake’s voice cracked as he fought to be heard over the driving rain. Perry strained to listen.
“Maybe it was hard for you to fit in. Maybe you weren’t as comfortable in your own skin as Phoebe and I were. I used to feel sorry for you. But not anymore. You’ve done it, Perry. You beat us all. You beat me! You’ve got the big house, the fancy job, the happy family. You’ve got it all. You win!”
Perry held up his hands. “I’m not trying to beat you. I’m trying to help you.”
“Help me?” Jake tipped his head back and laughed. “By inserting yourself between me and Olivia? By scrutinizing every fucking thing I do? It’s not a competition, Perry. It never was.”
“This is about more than you and me, Jake. You’re about to be a husband and a father.”
Jake surged forward on his crutches and came at him quickly down the steps, stopping just short of Perry. For a second Perry thought he’d take a swing at him. “Then why can’t you be fucking happy for me?”
“Because you don’t get it. It’s not just about you anymore!”
“I know that, Perry! Why the hell do you think I’m still here? Because I love her!”
Perry shuddered beneath the rainfall. “But do you love Luci?”
Jake glared at him from beneath the hood of his raincoat. “I’m trying to!”
It was the most broken, honest thing his brother had ever said.
Jake swung sharply away from him on his crutches, and stumbled. Instinctively Perry reached out between them, then stopped.
“Go home, Perry,” Jake called back. “Go home to your own family.”
Perry stood in the downpour as Jake struggled back toward the house, dragging his bad leg up over the front walk, one excruciating step at a time. Perry remained in the yard beneath the driving rain until the cottage door slammed behind his brother and the only sound remaining was water. He could not go.
A while later, the lanterns flanking the front door went on. His heart lifted. Olivia’s figure filled the window, the oval of her face blurred by the showers. Could she see him out there?
As if in reply, Olivia placed her palm flat against the glass. The rain roared in his eardrums. Then she turned out the lights.
Emma
She hadn’t gotten far. Her mother found her down at her grandparents’ dock, and whisked her wordlessly home. Emma was ready for the complete freak-out. For the long lecture. For all of it. After all, her father couldn’t even look at her at the dinner table. But her mother didn’t utter a sound when she got in the car.
“Where’s Dad?” Emma asked.
At first her mother didn’t reply, and Emma thought maybe she hadn’t heard. Then she raked her hand through her wet hair and swung the car out of the driveway. “I don’t know.” It was the only thing she said the whole way home.
Back at the house, Amelia strode inside ahead of her and Emma followed uncertainly. She watched her mother toss her purse and keys roughly on the pedestal table in the foyer and head for the stairs. Halfway up, she stopped and turned around. “Hey.” Her voice was sharp. Unlike her.
Emma looked up at her, afraid to say anything.
Amelia jabbed her finger in the space between them, her face distorted and red. “I love you.”
It was the last thing she’d expected her mother to say.
“Do you know that?”
Emma felt herself sag in the middle of the foyer. “Yeah, Mom. I do.”
“No matter what you do, nothing will change that. You got that?”
Unable to speak, Emma nodded.
“Good.” Emma watched her swipe at a stray tear. “Okay, then. Let’s talk in the morning.”
As her mother disappeared down the hall from view, something inside Emma gave. The night had been a car wreck. And yet.
Emma wandered into the dark kitchen. Outside the rain battered the windows, but she left the lights out. She felt jumpy, and she itched for something to allay it. To take the edge off. She paused at the liquor cabinet, and con
tinued on.
For the first time in ages she was hungry. Like starving. She’d barely eaten at her grandparents’. Let’s be honest, she’d barely eaten in weeks. She tugged the refrigerator door open. Light spilled from the cavernous interior, and Emma blinked in its glow. Then she began reaching. For a block of cheddar. For the pitcher of iced tea. In a glass container she found leftover pesto pasta. In another, tiny meatballs. From the cabinets and drawers she grabbed a plate, a cutting block, utensils. Then she sat down and dug in.
When she’d emptied her entire plate, she shoveled more forkfuls of pasta into her mouth straight from the container. Who knew cold spaghetti could taste like heaven? As she filled herself, her thoughts meandered. She thought of Sully. Of the bravery it must’ve taken to walk up her front steps and be confronted by her father. The same way he’d stood up to the camp director that first day when he was late: not with disrespect, but with confidence. Not because he thought he was all that. But because it was the right thing to do. He wasn’t like Amanda Hastings and some of the others. Sully McMahon cared.
Just as she cared about Alicia. Tomorrow, she would go to Alicia’s house and apologize. Even if it meant facing Chet. Even if Alicia was still upset with her. There was something to be said for lifelong friendships. Just because you grew up together didn’t mean you grew at the same pace, or even in the same direction. Sometimes you grew away from each other, and that was okay, too.
The last thing she thought about was something Great-Grandma Elsie had said at dinner that night, about family trees. Emma thought about her own family, picturing each one of them. All lined up together in a great big forest. Grandpa Edward was like an old oak, staid and sure. Just like Jane, though her branches were more colorful, her leaves a fiery red. Her mother was slender and delicate, maybe a white birch, who bent and flexed with the seasons, never breaking. Aunt Phoebe and Uncle Jake were probably the most alike, vibrant and full, with branches that shot skyward in every direction. Jake’s toward all the places he had traveled to, the adventures he’d had, the people he’d collected along the way. And Phoebe’s toward her husband and children, her leaves rippling with her big ideas and even bigger laughs, but always circling back, like vines, wrapping around her family and her home.
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