Page 36 of Brother in Law with Benefits

"Hey, Dad."

My voice sounds too loud.

"I'm late. I know." I rest my arms on my knees. "I should've been here for the funeral. I should've pushed harder to get home. I told myself the logistics wouldn't allow it, but that was—" I stop. "That was bullshit. I could've found a way. I just didn't want to face it."

A crow lands on a headstone three rows over. It watches me with the attentive, slightly judgmental quality of all crows.

"I met someone. Sophie. Chris's ex-wife." I almost laugh. "Yeah, I know. Complicated. But she's been taking care of Mom for six months while Chris was in Denver and I was in abroad. She just showed up. Kept showing up." I look at the headstone. "She's a pediatric nurse. Watches families every day — parentswho stay, parents who leave, kids who wait. She knows what showing up looks like, and she knows what it looks like when someone doesn't. She's been watching both for years."

The crow takes off.

"I've only built a bank account and a résumé. No home. No roots. No one waiting when I come back." I pull up a blade of grass, tear it apart. "I've been running from what you had. Since I was eighteen. Called it freedom. Called it important work. But I was running from responsibility. From permanence. From the chance that I'd stay somewhere and fail at it."

My throat tightens.

"Should've — that's the most useless word in the English language. Should've been here when you died. Should've called more. Should've said—" I stop. "Should've said I loved you more. While I still could."

The groundskeeper drives past in his cart and gives me the nod of someone who has seen a lot of men sitting by a lot of graves and knows to leave them alone.

I sit there until the sun has moved and my legs are numb and the thing in my chest has loosened enough to let me breathe.

"I want to try," I say finally. "Stay. Build something. Be the kind of man who shows up instead of the one who leaves." I stand up. Brush the grass off my jeans. "Not because Sophie wants it. Not because Mom needs it. Because I need to know if I can."

I touch the cool granite of the headstone. Leave my hand there for a moment.

"I'll come back," I tell him. "Tell you how it goes."

I walk back to my truck. Get in. Sit with my hands on the wheel.

Pull up David Kowalski's contact.

And this time, my thumb moves.

It rings.

But I don't say anything yet. Because I'm not making this call until I've seen Sophie. Until I've told her first. Until she knows what the decision is before I make it, not after.

I end the call before it connects.

I start the truck and drive back to Mom's house, and somewhere underneath the relief of finally knowing my own mind, a small, unresolved weight settles in alongside it — the knowledge that whatever I decide, there's a phone call to my brother waiting on the other side of it that no cemetery visit is going to make easier.

***

The grocery store on a Tuesday afternoon, which is apparently when the entire retired population of Copper Falls does its shopping.

I'm working off a list in Mom's handwriting. Ginger ale, saltines, the specific brand of chicken broth she says is the only one that doesn't taste like a penny. Eggs. Nothing with a smell to it. Six weeks ago I couldn't have told you what a person eats on the third day after chemo and now I could brief it.

"That's a Guilligan face."

Older guy at the end of the aisle. Silver hair, cut close. Cart with almost nothing in it.

"It is," I say.

"Camden Abbott." He puts out a hand and I take it. Grip like a man who works. "I knew your brother a little. Chris. He did a summer with a crew of ours, years back."

"That sounds like Chris. A summer."

"Barelyone summer," Camden agrees, and doesn't say the rest of it, which I appreciate. He looks at my cart. Broth, ginger ale, crackers. "How's your mother?"