Will groaned into his beer bottle as his mother's voice rang out from the living room. Judy had hosted a baby shower for Shannon today—hence our banishment to the greens—and now that most of the guests had left, she was sorting through the gifts with Shannon, Lauren, Andy, and Tiel.
I'd expected Shannon to buck against the mother-in-law gaze, but instead of rejecting Judy, she seemed to be fully embracing her. Shannon was even talking about Will's parents staying with them after the baby was born. Considering that my sister asked exactly no one for help—ever—I was shocked and impressed by that.
"There you are," Judy cried as she rounded the corner into the kitchen. She wagged her finger at Will while clutching a stuffed animal by the throat in the other hand. "I've been looking for you all over the house. You're going to need to put a bell on this baby if you don't want to lose him. Or her." She folded her arms and pinned him with a gaze that could peel paint. "Would you just tell me the sex already? I know you know."
Will drained his beer and set it on the table with a heavy thunk. "What do you need, Judy?"
Tiel, Lauren, and Andy appeared, their arms loaded down with leftover cupcakes and pastries. Shannon shuffled in behind them.
"We got it all, Mom," Lauren said. "And we're not supposed to bug them, or they'll go back to Montauk and have the baby without telling us, too."
Judy wrapped her arm around Shannon's shoulders as she cradled the stuffed animal in the other. "At least I'm getting a grandchild," she said. "What would I do without my darling daughter-in-law?"
Lauren turned toward the table, away from her mother, and rolled her eyes. She grabbed Matt's beer from his hand, knocking it back with one long gulp while the rest of us tried—and failed—to withhold laughter. It was easy to see how those comments rankled her and Will, but Judy's tone was loaded with stinging levity and tongue-in-cheek fun.
If I didn't know better, I'd think Judy was a long, lost Walsh with the way she busted balls.
"Are you getting impatient again?" the Commodore, Lauren and Will's father, asked Judy when he stepped inside from the patio. "By God, woman. You can only hold one baby at a time."
"You know what I need right now?" Shannon asked, seemingly oblivious to the discussion around her. "I need a piece of cake the size of my head, and some milk, and then I want to lie down and watch all the episodes ofFixer Upperthat I have recorded."
Tiel hefted a plate. "Would a tray of cupcakes work?"
"Oh, God. I hate that show," Andy said with a groan. "You know they don't get to keep the furniture, right? It's all staged. And do you know how many clients tell me they need shiplap every-fucking-where right now? They don't know what it is or why it has no business in their Victorian Revival, but they want it."
"But you secretly love it," Lauren said.
"Sometimes," Andy conceded.
"Whoa. I didn't realize this was such a political topic. I'm going upstairs and eating all the cupcakes, and anyone who can handleFixer Upperis welcome to join me." Shannon poached a sandwich off the tray.
"I'll fix you a plate, hon," Judy said, hustling around the kitchen. "You go up and get off your feet. Have a rest, and I'll take care of the leftovers here."
"Can we go through the rest of the gifts tomorrow?" Shannon asked Judy. "I wanted to do it tonight, but I'm exhausted, and—"
Judy brought her hands to Shannon's cheeks with a fond smile. "Of course we can. We'll get Froggie's clothes washed, and the closet set up, too, and then your hospital bag. The nursery will be all ready for him…or her."
"Judy," Will rumbled. "We don't know."
"Okay, okay," she said, holding her hands up in surrender. She pointed to the back stairs. "Go upstairs with the girls, and I'll bring your snack."
Tiel made her way to my side and ran her fingers through my hair. She was smiling, and that was a good sign. She'd insisted she was all right with the baby festivities, but that little wrench of jealousy still twisted at me and I had to imagine it was the same for her.
"How was your outing?" she asked as her nails scraped over the back of my neck.
Nodding, I said, "It was good. Not great, but I'm getting there."
Golf was a new arena for us, and on the course, most of us were more entertaining than skillful.
"You're awfully cute in this," she said, dipping her chin toward my red trousers with little white embroidered lobsters, navy polo shirt, and v-neck sweater. "Such a prepster. I'm going to snuggle with Shannon for a bit, and then we can head home."
Tiel dropped a quick kiss on my lips before retreating, and I went back to scrounging for carrots. Will set out another round of beers while the Commodore told stories about planting explosives on ships in the dead of night and spending three weeks in the jungles of Colombia, and it occurred to me that this was as close as we'd been in decades to parental figures. Sitting at this table and talking war stories with the Commodore while Judy doted on Shannon and harassed Lauren for grandchildren was surreal in that it was perfectly typical, though we weren't familiar with typical family interactions.
But…there was one problem.
"Does anyone know where Erin is now?" I asked when the Commodore's story about the sharks that frequented the waters off San Clemente Island and the running shark jokes at SEAL training concluded.
"Greenland," Matt and Nick replied at once.
