“I was expecting something more demented,” Matt said. “Why spend twenty-two years since Mom’s death being the biggest cocksucker in the world, only to do this? It’s not like he couldn’t have funded that research a long time ago.”
“He did,” Shannon said. “According to this, he’s been a major donor for about thirteen years now. Always anonymous.”
“And he’s suddenly concerned about grandkids?” Sam sneered. “We’re talking about the person who referred to you as ‘cunt,’ Shannon, and routinely suggested that Mom was a whore and Erin wasn’t his, so yeah, I’d say this is more than demented.” He filled his glass again. “He knew what he was doing the entire time, and this is just another manipulation. I don’t want a fucking dime of it.”
“When was it written?” I asked.
“Two years ago,” Shannon said.
“Two years ago?” Sam yelled. “Two years ago! Two. Fucking. Years. Two years ago, he creates trust funds for our nonexistent kids because he’s such a caring guy, and two months ago he rips me a new asshole because he’s decided I’m a disgusting queer. Unbelievable. No, actually quite believable, and we’re the fools for expecting something different.”
“We agreed,” Shannon said. “It’s the past. We’re letting him go. We’re not letting this screw us up anymore. We can’t do that to ourselves. And we have to look at this as a window into his fucked up mind. Think about it—this tells us with great clarity that something mattered to him. He tried to explain it with this because all he had when he was alive was anger.”
“Shannon, it is one big ‘fuck you and the horse you rode in on.’ I’m not going along with any revisionist history tonight. He was a demented son of a bitch, and I’m not remembering him fondly because he wants to pay off our debt and send his fictitious grandchildren to college.”
“Refusing the money would let him win,” I said.
“I don’t think so, Patrick,” Sam scoffed. He pushed to his feet and circled the table. “Taking the money would mean we think of him every time we look at our office space, or the children that we’re all too fucked up to have.” He stopped pacing and gestured to Lauren and Matt. “I don’t mean you two. You’ll have awesome, well-adjusted kids, largely due to Lauren, and we’ll be the fucked up aunts and uncles who take your kids to Red Sox games. The rest of us are a little too damaged for anything normal or healthy.”
“He loved Cornell, Sam. He loved the work, even though he had unusual ways of showing it in recent years. He loved that house. And he loved Mom—”
“Then he should have killed himself a long time ago, Shannon! It woulda been better,” Sam roared. “And how can you even say that? If he loved her so much, how could he talk about her the way he did? How could he disown you, and me, and Erin? At least these guys look like him.” Sam waved his hand at Riley and Matt. “It wasn’t like he could pretend they weren’t his.”
“He loved her more than anything, and he couldn’t live without her. I wish you could remember what it was like before she died, and the way they were together. But after Mom?” Shannon held out her hands and let them fall to her lap. “He existed. Just barely. He did everything in his power to drown it all out, and it made him a monster. In the end, he tried to make a few things right in the only way he could.”
“He called you a cunt!” Sam ran his hands through his hair and bent at the waist, as if winded from the exertion. “How can you overlook that? How can you ever forgive that? How can you forgive everything he did, everything he said?”
“I’m not,” she replied. “I’m letting it go. There’s plenty to be angry about, Sammy. But it’s his shit, not yours, and you have to let it go.”
“I like how you think you’re letting it go. I like that you think you won’t wake up some day and realize he gutted you. He completely fucking gutted you. You don’t even have a clue how much he ruined you but someday you’ll figure it out.”
Sam shook his head and shuffled down the hallway. The table descended into quiet again, the only sounds coming from the slosh of whiskey into glasses.
I thought about Sam’s tirade, wondering if he was right—were we too damaged? Taking over the business meant my time was devoted there, and not on dating. Marriage never figured into my thoughts. My interests centered on open relationships without the responsibility of keeping track of birthdays or holidays. Kids only crossed my mind when they screamed their demands from the middle of the grocery store aisle.
Lauren’s engagement ring caught my eye when her fingers ran through Matt’s hair. His eyes drooped shut and he whispered something into her ear that elicited a smile. That voyeuristic feeling returned and I wished away the unbidden thoughts of Andy that appeared every time I noticed Lauren’s loving touch.
“We need to sell that house. Hire a crew to clear it out. Be done with it,” Matt said. “But someone needs to make sure he doesn’t have a pack of wolves roving the grounds first.”
“I’m not going out there.” Riley shook his head and reached for a bowl of paella. I watched as he picked through the dish with his fingers, selecting chunks of chorizo to nibble. We failed him on the table manners front.
Before I realized what I was offering, I said, “I’ll go. It’s my problem.”
Four pairs of eyes snapped toward me in surprise. “We can do it together,” Shannon said.
“No. You’ve got enough on your hands with the estate, and I really don’t want to be involved in all the legal bullshit. I’ll do this. You do that.”
“Yes, boss,” she replied with a salute. I grimaced at the title. “This officially makes you the CEO, you know.”
“No,” I said. “It means business as usual.”
“What we need,” Matt slurred, his hand sweeping over the table and narrowly missing a few wine glasses before Lauren steadied him. He was five minutes from falling face first into bed. I wasn’t far behind him. “Is a party. Like the one they had in Oz when the witch died. The first witch, not the one chasing Dorothy.”
“Not the direction I was expecting you to go, my friend. I was thinking something along the lines of engagement party, but please, proceed,” Riley said.
“Yeah, that too,” Matt said.
Lauren started clearing the table, and he smacked her rear end as she walked away. Their easy affection was unexpected and so arrestingly intriguing I struggled to tear my eyes away. Was that how couples interacted? Whispered words and ass slapping?
