“You don’t think she’s going to reconcile with him, do you?” Melissa asked.
“Reconcile?” Kevin asked. “What do you mean, reconcile?”
“Get back together,” June said.
“I know what the word means,” Kevin huffed. “I mean, what do you mean about my parents reconciling? They’re married.”
June exchanged a look with Carol. Carol, standing closest to Kevin, reached up and patted him on the shoulder. Kevin looked at all of them, his expression clouded in confusion. Apparently, he was the last one to know.
Kevin turned back to Harrison. “Where’s Amy?”
“Ah…maybe the studio?”
Kevin looked at him oddly, and Harrison had a moment of slight panic that maybe it was obvious what he and Amy had been doing. But before anyone could ask, June gasped loudly and grabbed Carol’s arm.
“She’s getting up! She’s coming in!”
Suddenly everyone sprang into action, scattering away from the window. Melissa assumed a place on the couch and grabbed a discarded book. June raced for the kitchen. Carol seemed to be less sure what to do with herself and went to the tree to rearrange ornaments. Kevin remained standing next to Harrison, looking just as confused as Harrison felt.
A moment later, Barb burst through the glass patio doors. Her face was flushed and her hair windblown. She stopped just inside and looked around at all their expectant faces. “People change,” she said. “Everyone knows that. They do.”
No one dared say a word.
“It’s cold and wet,” she said, and marched across the room to the staircase, jogging up and disappearing into the second floor.
Amy’s dad sheepishly stepped inside next. He hooked his thumbs in the belt loops of his jeans and said, “Kev, we better get going.”
“What, so soon?” Melissa trilled. She tossed aside her book. “You don’t want to stay for dinner?”
“Melissa, can you help me in the kitchen?” June called, her voice sharp.
“What’s for dinner?” Kevin asked.
Harrison was discovering that Amy’s brother could not read a room to save his life.
“We’re ordering from the barbecue place,” Carol said. “So we’ll be having brisket.”
“Sweet,” Kevin said.
“I don’t know,” his father said. “I think your mother would rather us go on before we get snowed in.”
“I’ll talk to her.” Kevin spoke with an authority he clearly did not have, and went up the stairs after his mother. “Mom! Where are you?”
His dad looked around the room. “Nice place they’ve got here,” he said to no one in particular. “Don’t know why they’d want to open it up to riffraff.”
“Are you calling us riffraff, Bob Anderson?” Carol asked.
“Present company excluded of course,” Bob said. His gaze landed on Harrison. He smiled. “Still can’t believe we got us a celebrity here. Say…what happened at Myrtle Beach a year or so ago? You were leading going into the final day and then just faded.”
Harrison did not care to be reminded how bad he’d sucked at Myrtle Beach or, in general, of any blowout losses like that. “Well…sometimes golf is harder than it looks.”
“Did you get hurt or something?”
“Hurt? Nah. It was more of a complete mental collapse.” He smiled.
Bob’s eyes rounded. “Oh. Well then.”
Yeah, well then. Harrison had begun to doubt himself as he watched Jordan Spieth steadily gain on him. He’d questioned if he had it in him to win the big moments. But he was not going to explain that to Bob Anderson just now. And anyway, shouldn’t he be saving his marriage?
