Page 36 of Cherry Picking

“Eh, he wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Murphy grumbles.

I give him a skeptical look. “Have you seen him on the ice?”

Because I have. Three games now, watched from this exact spot, and every time he steps onto the rink, he sheds his skin. He plays left wing—Murphy explained the mechanics that first night, using a napkin to map out the zones.

He’s a blur down the boards, first to the puck, and seemingly indifferent to the physics of throwing his body at men twice his size. You don’t have to know the rules to recognize the sheer force he carries out there.

“Off the ice, he’s a total marshmallow,” Murphy says. “Or he was, anyway.”

I have a hard time reconciling that image with the man I’ve met. He carries himself with a jagged, callous edge. Though I do wonder if the change is a recent byproduct of losing his brother, something tells me the walls have been there for years.

“Whatever you say.”

I head for the kitchen, plating up two massive squares of lasagna. When I return, Murphy has successfully navigated himself into the armchair.

We sit in the glow of some mindless game show and dig in. I’ve stopped the performative routine of jumping straight into work the moment I clear the threshold. Most afternoons now, I just follow his lead. He prefers the company of a person over the management of a patient.

I still keep one eye on the clock and the other on the pill organizer, of course. It’s not all social hour.

The first bite is enough to understand why Briggs was so defensive. It’s magnificent. Ophelia might be a persona non grata in this house, but she’s an artist in the kitchen. There’s a hit of fresh herbs in the sauce, and the cheese is layered perfectly.

“This is annoyingly good,” I tell Murphy.

“She always could cook,” he admits grudgingly, forking up another mouthful. “I’ll give her that much and nothing else.”

Once we finish, I get him situated for the exercises. There’s a resistance band for his forearm and a sequence of small, clinical movements he’s required to do twice a day.

I take the seat opposite him and handle the counting so he doesn’t have to.

“You know my mom was an occupational therapist?” I say, nodding toward the band. “I never got the chance to know her, for obvious reasons. But my dad says she was exceptional at this part of the gig. She was mobile, so she did home visits.”

Murphy pulls against the band, his gaze fixed on his hands. “Is that right?”

“Yep. Covered most of Clark County.”

Murphy is quiet for a beat, working through a rep. “My wife taught music before she passed. Taught piano right out of the house.”

I look up. “That sounds lovely.”

“Kept that piano for years after. Neither boy ever showed an interest in learning.” He lets the band go slack. “Ziggy used to bang on the keys as a toddler. Drove me up the damn wall at the time. Now I’d give just about anything to hear that noise again.”

Something in my chest pulls tight. I think about my dad’s version of this—the photo on the mantle, the repetitive stories he tells me. It’s heavy—grieving for a real person while also grieving for the parts of them you were too small to hold on to.

“I can only imagine.”

“Briggs was four when Ziggy came along. He remembers more about his mother than he’ll ever cop to.” He stops, the band abandoned in his lap. “Talked about her all the time as a kid. Her singing, the perfume she liked. Then somewhere along the way, he just . . . stopped. Decided it was simpler to pretend he never knew her at all.”

I don’t offer a platitude. I just keep counting and let him reach the end of the thought on his own.

“He does that,” Murphy adds. “Decides a thing is easier discarded than kept. He’s been practicing that his entire life.” He drops the band and looks out the window. “You’d think losing his brother might teach a man otherwise. We’ll see.”

We finish the set in a quieter register, the conversation drifting into a space neither of us is ready to push. By the time I pack up to leave, the sun has dropped behind the fourplexes, and Murphy is nodding off in the chair.

When I’m back in the Corolla, I shoot a text off to Briggs.

Evie

I was planning to take this to my grave but I need to confess my sins. I ate the lasagna and it was magnificent. there was pie, too. that was even better