Doug snapped his fingers at Chip, who went silent. “I know she hurt your feelings with what she said to you this morning, but this is not a venue for freely disrespecting your mother.”
“Then she should have been here to defend herself!”
“Enough!”
“Hi,” Carver said, and everyone looked at him. “I feel like I’m out of the loop.”
“Yeah, ‘cause you were out of the loop for five years,” Chip snapped.
“Okay, sorry you guys kept a secret from me for five years and my entire life.”
“You want to know something?” Chip said, leaning forward to meet Carver’s eyes and pointing at Doug. “He wanted to tell you after I found out. Did they tell you that? Mom’s the one who put her foot down.”
“What?” Carver said, looking with surprise at Doug, who sighed.
“Hey,” Conway said, “can we not? You’re kind of being a child, Chip.”
“What?” he exclaimed, laughing. “I’m being a child? I’m the only one who wants to talk straight! It’s not my fault Mom’s losing the locker room, it’s her own fucked-up decisions.”
“A family isn’t a football team!” Conway snapped. “You can’t fire your mom, okay? We love each other unconditionally through each other’s mistakes and wrongdoing, that’s the point!”
“I do love Mom, but I’m gonna criticize her,” Chip said. “I’m not gonna be told I can’t criticize her. I’m forty fucking years old.”
“Well, I think you’re being a little bit of a misogynist and a hypocrite,” Conway said, “because what about those women you cheated on Maggie with? What if you’d gotten one of them pregnant?”
“Whoa,” Carver exclaimed, astonished, as Chip got up and stormed out of the room. “Whoa! Connie!”
Conway shrugged and flopped back against the couch with her arms folded. “I’m sorry, but he’s been so aggravating all day, and I feel like I’m the only person he’s even pretending to actually listen to, so.”
Doug had closed his eyes and was now just standing there, waiting.
“Can I just, uh,” Carver said, raising his hand. “He has a point about Mom being here. It doesn’t make sense for her to not be here.”
Doug opened his eyes and glanced over at him. “There were some sentiments she wanted me to express on her behalf.”
“Well, like what? Why can’t she express them?”
“She feels fairly humiliated right now.”
“But that’s normal!” Conway exploded. “It’s normal and human to feel humiliated! Sometimes you have to feel that way!”
“Try to see it from her perspective, sweetheart,” Doug said.
“I want her to see it frommyperspective! I’m not going to shame her or attack her, I just want to talk to my mom! I’ve been holding this inside for five years, I’ve gone to therapy about this!”
“You have?” Carver said to her, concerned.
Conway rubbed her eyes. “I couldn’t tell you because you didn’t know.”
“Right.”
“Plus we barely see you, which I frankly don’t blame you for!”
“Please stop with the shouting and truculence,” Doug said. “Please. This little drama isn’t an excuse for us to act like a bunch of Italians.”
Chip appeared in the doorway with an open can of Diet Coke in his hand. “You know something about Italians?” he said. “They’re actually pretty happy people. They might sound like they’re yelling at you, but they’re smiling. Maybe that’s more psychologically healthy.”
“I don’t care,” Doug snapped. “You know what makes me happy? Decorum. Sit down.”
