“That’s complicated,” she said. “But in a nutshell, it comes down to Serj driving his two oldest boys into a competitive frenzy. I don’t have kids myself, but most parents I know go out of their way to make sure everything is equal for their kids. Same presents, same privileges. Right? You treat them the same.”
“Only got the one, but sure.”
“Not Serj. He had a different parenting philosophy, and no matter how much Jasmine disagreed, he raised those two boys to compete for everything—if there was a band they both wanted to meet, then Serj would only let the boy with the highest test score backstage. He gave Eddie an Alfa Romeo that’s worth more than the record store, but only after Eddie ‘proved himself’ at the festival grounds in some scheme Serj devised to see which of the boys could sell more T-shirts.”
“Huh,” Mr. Marlow grunted.
But that was only half the story! She wasn’t telling him what Eddie did, that he cheated on the test to get that backstage band meeting, and that he locked me in a festival outbuilding for two hours until a janitor found me—just so he could win our dad’s ridiculous T-shirt selling game.
“Serj raised them to be competitors, not brothers,” she was telling Mr. Marlow. “No surprise that the boys would be out for blood, really. It just escalated. Eddie got more competitive—and craved more of Serj’s attention. And before you know it, the boys were always bickering, accusing each other of treachery. It was high school. How much treachery could there be?”
She’d be surprised.
“Honestly, I’d rather be redeployed in a war zone than have to go back to high school,” Jane’s father said.
Thank you.
“Well, it basically amounted to terrible shouting matches,” my aunt said, “and to keep the peace, Fen moved into my sisterZabel’s place. He was already hanging out here after school, so I put him on payroll.”
“What about his mother? How does she feel about all of this?”
“She wants a happy home, so she’s trying to keep everyone calm, always playing referee. But she’s miserable about what’s happened with those boys. She wants Fen at home. But she sent him to us to keep him safe.”
“Is Serj, uh, physical? I mean, is he violent?”
Does shouting in your face count?
“No, nothing like that. It’s just the constant arguing. It’s mentally exhausting. She’s got the twins, too—her youngest? She didn’t want them seeing the boys fighting all the time. It wasn’t healthy.”
“I see.”
“But Fen getting kicked out of the house? That was never as bad as all the talk around town said it was. So if you hear that Fen did this or that, it probably isn’t true. He’s a good kid. Little dramatic, but that’s better than boring.”
Well, thanks, Auntie.
“I won’t listen to gossip,” he assured her.
Thank you, Mr. Marlow.Jane was lucky to have him. I was a little jealous, to be honest.
“You’ve only got one kid?” my aunt asked. “You get along?”
“We do,” Mr. Marlow said. “I would do anything for her. That’s why all this is bizarre to me. I can’t imagine my world without Jane.”
Yeah, well, I could definitely relate to that. Her face poppedinto my head, and a corresponding happy ache tugged at my chest. If I didn’t watch myself, I might do something dumb-diddly-dumb-dumb like declare my very messy feelings about Jane right here in front of Mr. Marlow, my aunt, and the group of loud tourists dripping ice cream across the parking lot.
Better to tell Jane in private.
Bees in my chest.…
Screw all this. I started to turn and jog into the shop, when I heard my aunt’s voice again.
“Heard some mud about your Jane, too,” she said.
“Is that so?” Mr. Marlow replied.
“That Mad Dog keeps her as close as he would a daughter.”
Silence.
