“Left her!”
“Okay. You ever think maybe Dad stayed in large part because of you? You know you’re his favorite.”
“Yeah, sure,” Chip muttered.
“You are! And Conway’s Mom’s favorite.I’mthe odd man out.”
“You’re Mom’s favorite, you dumb little asshole.”
“Excuse me?” Carver said, laughing. “In what world?”
Chip flung the ball for Ralph very far and hard. “Connie’s not her favorite, you just think that ‘cause she’s the baby and they’re both girls. You’re the one Mom’s always so concerned about.”
“Yeah, I give her reasons to be.”
“And the one she’s so proud of. The way she was showing you off at the wedding, you think she shows us off like that these days? She hasn’t shown me off since high school. ‘My son, the quarterback.’ Maybe a little when I was in law school. ‘My son, he’s in law school.’ Last thing I did to her pleasure was produce grandkids. ‘My son, the working pair of testicles.’”
“Alright,” Carver said uncomfortably. “Regardless, you’re Dad’s favorite. And I think it means a lot to him how much you’ve always looked up to him, and he’s never going to be made disloyal to Mom. So maybe, for his sake, find a way to be okay with this.”
Ralph ran up to them again, wagging his feathered blonde tail.
“I am okay with it,” Chip said, seizing and flinging the ball again. “I’ve had five years to be okay with it. I’m just not gonna live in a fantasy world. I don’t want him to be disloyal to her, I just wish he’d admit how fucked up it all was.”
“He had thirty years to accept it before you found out. Maybe he felt like that at one point but can’t access the feelings anymore.”
“What, the guy’s got fucking amnesia? Carv, what are you doing? Why are you carrying so much water for them? You’re the casualty here, no offense. You’re the one they ran over like a chipmunk.”
Carver grinned at him. “I’m very resilient except for my fits of hysteria, remember?”
Chip sighed. “I just didn’t like that shit in there. Him reading their little, like, closing argument — which Mom clearly wrote all of, by the way, that was her writing. And the shit she said in it was a work.”
“A work?”
“Like in wrestling. Kayfabe. You don’t remember? Didn’t we watch a ton of wrestling together?” (Carver shook his head. His main memories of wrestling were his fervent crush on ‘90s Shawn Michaels, and being terrorized by Chip trying out moves on him.) “Alright, well, it was manipulative lawyer shit, telling us what she thinks we want to hear. You think they’ll actually change? Good luck with that.”
“They will if we don’t give them a choice,” Carver said, watching Ralph run after the ball. With a sudden surge of boldness, he added, “And maybe you should quit coming to them for money and career help, and come to me instead.”
Chip’s gaze shot over to him. “Why?”
“So you’re not as beholden to them in general. Negotiation tactic.”
“What, you want to loan me money?”
“No, I’ll give it to you no strings attached, I don’t give a shit. I can get you work too. You think I don’t know anyone who could employ a guy with a JD and a solid resume? Lillian and I literally own companies we could install you as an executive at, if we wanted to.”
“Christ. You’ve never offered before.”
“You’ve never asked.”
“I’m not asking now,” Chip said pointedly, wrenching the slobbering ball from Ralph’s suddenly possessive mouth.
“Well, I’m offering now. I don’t want them to feel like they have that over you. It fuels mutual resentment.”
“And you think it wouldn’t for you and me?”
“I’m way better capitalized than they are. No offense, but the amount of money you need would be, like, chump change to me. You know Mom and Dad are retired, they’re technically on a fixed income. I’m not saying come to me every five minutes, I’ll start getting pissed off, but if there’s a problem in your life that money could fix — a good school you want to send the kids to, or whatever… I seriously don’t think I want any kids of my own, so.”
“Yeah,” Chip muttered. “Alright. I’ll keep that in mind.”
