Scott drew his lower lip into his mouth. “Sure,” he said, in a ‘watch it’ tone.
“If you’re tight on cash, it doesn’t make sense to put two grand of work into a car that old.”
“Carv —”
“It’s just gonna break down again. It’s a Chevy. I think you should buy something newer with fewer miles on it.”
“I don’t want to.”
“You’re about to spend like ten months of car payments on this one repair.”
“It just has sentimental value,” Scott said, sliding his hands into his pockets. “I know it’s irrational. I’ll take what you said into consideration.”
“Alright, if youknowit’s irrational, then what are we doing?”
“You know who you sound like right now?”
“Who?”
“Doug,” Scott said pointedly.
Carver laughed and glanced back down at his phone. “Leave me alone, I’m trying to call the Uber.”
When Carver got back to the house, Doug let him in and told him his mother was waiting to talk to him in the study.
It was just the three of them now. Conway was back in White Plains — she’d left before Carver went out to dinner with Lillian, saying goodbye to their parents inside the house first and then insisting on a private goodbye out in the driveway with her brother before getting in her hand-me-down Acura and zooming away.
With only Doug and Nora in it, the house felt too big and too quiet. His parents never seemed to mind this or even notice it. Once Doug gave Carver his mother’s message, he placidly went back down the hall to the den and resumed watching what was, from the sound of it, a Civil War documentary.
Nora was sitting behind the desk in the study. She had a few lamps on, but was primarily lit by the large computer monitor in front of her. The bluish-white light from it made the dark circles under her eyes and the puffiness in her face obvious, andthe collar of her white button-down was wrinkled. She looked even worse for wear than Carver did. As he approached her, she gestured for him to sit down in the armchair facing the desk, and he did.
“I did some digging,” she said, “in our files and then online, and I have some information for you. I have a phone number and email address for Isaac’s youngest brother Josh, and an email address for his sister Lena. She apparently still lives on Long Island, where they all grew up, but Josh lives in the city. I couldn’t find any contact information for their sister Sylvia, she’s a big business hotshot and seems to keep herself locked down. I found several of your cousins on social media, too, but I figured you should start with his siblings.”
Carver was floored and took a moment to react. “Just like that?”
Nora knit her brow at him as if irritated. “I said I’d do this, didn’t I?”
“What? No, you didn’t.”
“Oh,” she said, then smoothed her hair back from her forehead. She looked much older than he was used to, as if she could be in her early seventies, which made him nervous. “I meant to say that.”
“Did you get any sleep last night, Mom?”
Nora met his eyes. “No,” she said with a wry laugh. “Of course not. Here.”
She handed him a print-out. On it was the contact information for a Josh Levin and a Lena Levin-Kim. Carver stared at this array of numbers and letters, marveling at what they made together. He could call his uncle right now. It was so unbelievable that he developed the sudden irrational fear that none of this had been real, his parents had made everything up, there was no Isaac — he would call this number and get an out-of-order tone, or the man on the other end of the phone would say, “Who?”
“Why are you giving me this?” he said, shaking the paper and looking up at her.
“Do you not want it?” Nora said. “You don’t have to call them, obviously. I assumed you wanted to.”
“No, just… last night you were kind of snapping at me when I expressed any interest in his family.”
“I wasn’t snapping at you, I was just cautioning you to not get carried away by a fantasy,” Nora said.
“That’s not how I remember it.”
“Well, it was an emotional evening, Carver, I’m not surprised we came away with different accounts. Regardless, I’ve spent all day being verbally abused by your siblings about what a heartless and controlling monster I am, so, here.” She shrugged and leaned back in the desk chair, steepling her hands in her lap. “There’s your way in. Do whatever you like, tell them whatever you like.”
