Chương 2
I had driven over believing Dad would complain about how much luggage I brought.
Instead, I had apparently arrived exactly when they expected me to arrive.
They had known I would come.
They had planned around it.
Mom had left me a chore.
“You knew I was coming here at eight.”
“Well, of course.”
“And you left Buddy for me.”
“The kennel was expensive, and since you weren’t coming—”
“Since I wasn’t coming?”
Her voice sharpened.
“Daniel, don’t make this ugly.”
Something inside me went unexpectedly still.
For most of my life, that sentence had worked.
Don’t make this ugly.
Don’t embarrass Megan.
Don’t upset Kyle.
Don’t argue with your father.
Don’t be sensitive.
Don’t make everything about you.
I had become so skilled at swallowing anger that my family seemed to consider it a personality trait.
“Who decided I wasn’t coming?”
Nobody answered.
Then Megan spoke much closer to the phone.
“Oh my God, Dan, it’s not a funeral.”
“Megan.”
“You’re acting like we abandoned you in another country.”
“You took the trip I organized.”
“And we’ll bring you something.”
Kyle laughed again.
Megan continued, delighted with herself.
“I’ll get you a little Alaska apron for work.”
Mom said her name in a tone that contained almost no disapproval.
I looked at the photograph over the fireplace.
Four smiling people.
The missing fifth person was standing in the room beneath it.
“Feed Buddy,” Mom said.
“We’ll talk when we’re home.”
“Who’s feeding him tomorrow?”
“You are.”
“I didn’t agree to that.”
“Daniel, he’s a dog.”
“Yes.”
“He needs food.”
“I understand how dogs work.”
“Well, then I don’t understand why you’re being difficult.”
That almost impressed me.
She had managed to transform abandoning both me and her dog into evidence that I was difficult.
Buddy sighed against my knee.
“Mom, when exactly did you cancel my cabin?”
“We didn’t cancel it.”
I straightened.
“What?”
“We transferred it.”
“To whom?”
Silence.
Then Megan said something I couldn’t hear.
Mom covered the phone, but voices leaked through anyway.
When she came back, her tone had acquired that artificial brightness she used in videos.
“To Megan’s friend, Spencer.”
I had met Spencer once.
He sold luxury real estate and had spent most of Christmas dinner explaining cryptocurrency to Dad.
“He’s in my cabin?”
“It made sense.”
“Did he pay for it?”
“That’s between us.”
“No, actually, it isn’t.”
“Daniel.”
“I paid for that cabin.”
“We were going to reimburse you.”
“When?”
“When we get home.”
I looked again at the note.
Thanks!
“Enjoy the cruise.”
“Daniel, please just—”
I ended the call.
My hand shook afterward, which annoyed me more than anything they had said.
Buddy lifted his head.
“Sorry.”
He wagged once.
I fed him.
That part was never in question.
He inhaled the first cup so quickly that I gave him the second more slowly, then refilled his water and checked the back door.
Outside, a sprinkler clicked across Dad’s lawn.
Somebody two houses down was running a leaf blower.
The ordinary Saturday noise felt insulting.
My phone buzzed with a message from Megan.
Don’t sulk all week 😂
A second message appeared.
Seriously I’ll bring you something good.
Then Kyle added a photograph.
All four of them stood beside a railing with gray water behind them.
Spencer was there too, wearing sunglasses and holding a champagne flute.
Dad had one hand in his pocket.
Mom was smiling.
Megan had added text across the photograph.
BROOKS FAMILY ADVENTURE!
I enlarged the image.
There were five people in it, but apparently Spencer qualified as Brooks family more easily than I did.
I saved the photograph.
Then I took a picture of the note on the refrigerator.
I took another of my suitcase in the foyer.
I wasn’t entirely sure why.
Maybe eight years of managing restaurants had trained me not to trust a problem that wasn’t documented.
Maybe some part of me had finally become tired of being told later that things had happened differently.
I carried my suitcase to the car but left the backpack inside.
Buddy followed me to the door.
“I’m not leaving you.”
His tail struck the wall.
“You have terrible taste in relatives, though.”
I called Owen from the driveway.
He answered on the third ring.
“If this is about your vacation, I hate you already.”
“I’m not going.”
There was a pause.
“You sick?”
“They left without me.”
Another pause, longer this time.
“What does that mean?”
I told him.
Not everything.
I didn’t need to explain New Year’s Eve or Megan’s birthday or the family photograph.
Owen knew most of it already.
When I finished, he said nothing for several seconds.
Then I heard a cabinet close on his end.
“Where are you?”
“My parents’ driveway.”
“Are you about to do something stupid?”
“I don’t think so.”
“That answer has never comforted anybody.”
I looked through the windshield at the house.
My parents had bought it twenty-one years earlier.
The living room had been remodeled three times.
Mom had spent almost eighteen thousand dollars on the most recent version because she wanted what she called a calmer energy.
Everything in that room was beige, white, pale oak, or carefully selected gray.
My career, according to Megan, involved greasy floors and teenagers who forgot to wash their hands.
According to Mom, I had never found my real path.
According to Dad, I was doing fine, which somehow sounded worse.
According to the company that employed me, I was responsible for eight restaurants producing more revenue in a month than my family understood.
“Owen.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you still have those storage racks from the Redmond remodel?”
He went quiet.
“Why?”
“And the spare menu boards?”
“Dan.”
“The old counter panels too, if they haven’t been scrapped.”
“I need you to tell me why you’re asking.”
I watched Buddy appear in the front window.
For the first time that morning, I smiled.
It wasn’t a happy smile.
May you like
“I think my parents’ living room needs a remodel.”
Owen exhaled through his nose.
