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“So why did he call you? Why now?”
“Well, I have to admit it gets a little complicated at this point,” Michael said. The image in the picture frame blurred as a cloud passed over the house and lessened the level of light coming in from the kitchen windows. There was some shuffling around and the sound of more coffee being poured into mugs. “You remember the young lady who attended Ryan’s wedding?”
“Miss Lynn.”
“She’s expecting,” Michael said. “Sometime in November.”
A long pause ensued.
“I don’t know what to think of that,” Douglass said quietly. “I…I’m a little torn here, Michael. You’re the sensible one—what am I supposed to be feeling?”
“I don’t think I can answer that for you,” he said.
Silence.
As much as I wanted to walk around the corner and start throwing things, I didn’t. As much as I wanted to quietly tiptoe out of the house, I didn’t do that, either. I just stayed right there to the side of the kitchen entryway and stared at the landscape artwork, waiting for the sun to come back out.
“I don’t want to fuck this up again.” I could barely hear my father’s voice. “You have to help me out here.”
“You were overwhelmed before,” Michael said. “You have a chance to think clearly now.”
“I thought I was then,” he said. “How was I supposed to predict what happened? I just didn’t want him throwing his life away, but he did anyway. In the process, I lost the only thing I ever made that meant anything.”
“He’s not lost, Douglass. He’s still here.”
“He’s lost to me. He’s been lost to me for nearly a decade. I nearly lost Julianne, too.”
“Julianne lost herself.”
“Julianne was lost to grief,” my father corrected. “She died inside when she realized he wasn’t coming home.”
My chest clenched.
“It’s all my fault,” he said.
“You can’t change the past,” Michael replied. “You have to find a way to push forward. He’s here now, and I’ll keep talking to him, but you can’t expect him to just turn around in a day and say everything is okay again. There aren’t going to be any miracles here.”
“He’s here,” Douglass said. “He’s here; he didn’t die in the street. That in itself feels like a miracle right now.”
“There’s more you need to know,” my uncle continued. “They were married yesterday.”
“You have to be fucking kidding me.” There was the sound of the kitchen stool sliding across the floor and a hard, dark laugh. “Do you have any more surprises for me, Michael? Because I think I’ve had enough.”
“She’s good for him,” Michael said. “Young, but sensible. Probably more sensible than he is.”
The sun came back out, and I could see my father’s figure bent over the counter with his head on top of his arms. The stool was shoved out behind him.
“No prenup?”
“Honestly, Douglass, I don’t think she even knows.”
“That’s a no, then?”
“Of course not,” Michael snapped. “He doesn’t have the money for a lawyer, and he hasn’t exactly changed his mind about handouts—”
“It’s not a fucking handout. It’s his—all of it’s his. There isn’t any point to any of it without him.”
“Thanks,” Michael chuckled.
