“Everything okay?” Martin asked.
“Fine.” The word was a tight syllable on his lips. He knelt next to his grandmother. “How are you doing?”
She smiled at him. “Lovely. Your sister has put together a great day. And Martin here was telling me about the young woman you’ve been helping. It’s so good to see you doing that. I wish you’d had someone when you were making those decisions.”
She wanted to talk about his dad. She couldn’t help herself. Philip was her only son, and the distance between him and Seb had always been a difficult spot for her.
He wouldn’t let her distract him. “Oliver said you were sick.”
“When?”
“A couple weeks ago. A respiratory infection, he said?”
“Oh that. It was just a sniffle. I don’t know what everyone was so worked up about. They wanted to take me to the doctor’s, but I said some tea and a little gin and I’d be fine. And I was! I knew you were coming. Oliver told me. I had to be in fighting shape to see you!” She patted his cheek and then sipped her drink.
Seb gave her hand another squeeze, then stood. “I didn’t get a drink for myself.” He slipped away before Martin could ask questions that would slow Seb on his new mission.
Oliver was out on the back patio under one of the propane heaters, laughing with a couple of their cousins.
Without bothering with niceties, he slung an arm around Oliver’s shoulders. “I need to talk to you.”
To his brother’s credit, he gave no resistance. Oliver didn’t ask what this was about. He let Seb march them across the yard to the old shed in the far back corner, behind the pond.
“They’ll find my body sooner or later,” he said as Seb pulled the moldy old door open.
“Shut up and get inside.”
Oliver didn’t look overly worried. “If you’re going to punch me, you’re better to do it out here. The shed’s cramped. You won’t be able to wind up so well.”
Seb shoved him through the open door. He flicked on the light switch, and the one bare bulb in the ceiling flooded the small space with ugly yellow light.
They stared at each other: Seb scowling, Oliver trying to maintain a serious facade, but mouth trembling as he fought down the grin.
“She’s dying, Seb.” Seb dropped his voice to sound more like Oliver’s, wobbling dramatically and pressing the back of his hand to his forehead.
“I never said she was dying.” Oliver’s grin escaped its confines.
“She keeps asking for you, Seb.”
“She did. You’ve been her favorite since you learned to hold a crayon the right way down.”
“Crayons work from both ends.” He shook his head. “Don’t distract me! You told me she was sick.”
“Shewassick.”
“You said she was in the hospital.”
“She should have been.”
“She said it was just a sniffle.”
“She also weighs ninety pounds and thinks three gin and tonics is an appetizer. You can’t believe everything she says!”
No one had ever needed punching as much as Oliver did in that moment. “You lied to me.”
“I used selected truths.” Oliver rocked on his heels and grinned.
“Selected truths.Fucking lawyers.” Seb paced in the tiny area of the shed. “You could have told me! Said she wanted me to come. I would have.”
