Doug snapped his fingers again, and they turned back to him. “I’m not finished,” he said. “We want you to know we recognize you as the adults you are and we cherish you as individuals. We don’t take any of you for granted. We acknowledge that, while it’s unlikely that you would, you could decide one day to never see us again. And we already see Carver very little, which we take considerable responsibility for and hope might change.”
A silence followed. Doug folded the paper in half and put it back in his pocket.
“Is that it?” Chip said.
“As far as this piece of paper goes, yes,” Doug said.
“Okay,” Chip said. “Well, thanks. I appreciate the sentiments. Is there anything else?”
“No,” Doug said. “Unless you have any questions.”
“Nope, I asked all my questions,” Chip said, getting up. “I’ll be out in the backyard with the kids. They have school tomorrow, so we can’t hang around here all day, so if Mom could hurry home sooner rather than later…”
“She’ll probably be home in forty-five minutes,” Doug said, sounding exasperated. “Can you hang on ‘til then?”
“Yup,” Chip said, and strolled out of the room again.
Conway cleared her throat. “They were good sentiments, Dad. I appreciate you guys saying that stuff.”
“Me too,” Carver said.
Doug smiled at them. “Thank you both. You know how dear you are to us.”
“Yeah,” Conway sighed. “We know.”
Their father left the room without saying anything else, then walked upstairs. Carver knew where he was going — up to the study so he could read obscure Internet forums in peace.
Conway shook her head and turned to him. Carver noticed she had a few small fake gemstones near the corners of her wide blue eyes. “This has all been so crazy.”
“What are those things near your eyes?” he said, squinting at them.
Conway reached up to touch her face. “Oh, stick-on gems. They were a party favor at the wedding last night.”
“There were party favors?”
“Yeah, I got a sheet of these and a bubble wand.”
“Man. I did not actually enjoy that wedding at all.”
“You kind of ruined the end of it for me, too,” Conway said. “No offense.”
“No, it’s fair to say,” Carver said. “How are you, by the way? I wanted to ask yesterday, but I thought you wouldn’t tell me.”
She grimaced comically. “Implying I’m going to tell you now?”
“Come on,” Carver said. Out of the blue he felt connected to her in a way he hadn’t felt since he was about fourteen; they had slipped into an ancient ease. “All the shit you’ve heard about me in the last twelve hours and I can’t know if you’re okay or not?”
“To be fair, the only new thing was the Scott stuff.”
“Like that’s not enough by itself?”
“Listen, we can talk, but can we do it later?” She settled down into the couch, tossing her pale hair over the back of it. “After Chip leaves? I just have a feeling when Mom comes back, the two of them might blow up at each other again, and it’s making me anxious. Like, my stomach hurts, as stupid as that is.”
“Again? What did they fight about earlier?”
“Obviously Mom was angry at him for telling you, and she just went off on him, very blame the messenger. It wasn’t fair to Chip, but he came back at her, and you know how he is, he hits so far below the belt. I mean, that’s why you hit him in the face, right? Like, I love him to death, but he’s a fucking asshole. So Mom went nuclear and said she’s tired of him blaming his failures on them and he said she’s never given a shit about him. Pretty brutal.”
Carver was on his feet before he even realized he was getting up. “I’m gonna go talk to him.”
