Page 18 of None Of Your Business

Fourteen years after her stroke, she still picks small wars and wins them on principle. Dad watches her do it like it’s the first time, which I think might be the secret to how they’ve made this work.

He learned years ago that helping her and taking over aren’t the same thing. It took six months, two arguments loud enough for the neighbors to hear, and a coffee mug thrown at the wall.

The mug missed, but my mother maintains that it was intentional.

Maya hits my leg like a small missile before I’ve even got my jacket off.

“Uncle Hud.” Both arms go up, already certain of the outcome.

“You have a chair.”

“Up.”

I pick her up because I’d do almost anything she asked

“Traitor,” Josh teases Maya, looking up from his coffee. He’s been watching me with that shit-eating grin since I walked in.

I ignore it.

“How’s the research group going?” Mom asks, leaning her elbows on the table. “Still trying to salvage the unsalvageable?”

“Slow,” I tell her, adjusting Maya on my lap. “But nobody has divorced yet, so I’ll take the win.”

It can be exhausting work, watching two people reach the point where they stop choosing each other. Coming here on Sunday mornings to watch my parents bicker over burnt eggs is usually the antidote.

Dad slides the butter to Mom without her asking. She takes it without thanking him. He doesn’t need her to. Thirty-seven years of marriage compressed into one exchange.

I spend a significant portion of my professional life trying to understand what makes relationships survive. Sometimes I think I could save myself the grant funding and just study these two.

Josh’s wife Sophie is cutting a pancake into pieces small enough for Maya to handle, and I’m reaching for the eggs when I notice Josh still watching me over the rim of the mug.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing.”

“You’ve been staring at me since I walked in.”

“I’m admiring my older brother. Is that not allowed?”

Sophie glances between us. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Josh and I say at the same time.

“Okay, now I need to know,” Sophie says, leaning back in her chair.

“There’s nothing to know,” I say at the exact moment Maya—who has apparently been saving this for the right audience—pats my cheek and says, “Ro-an.”

Ah, fuck.

My mother zeroes in on me. “Who’s Ro-an?”

Josh sets his coffee down, delighted to have the opening. “Should I tell them?”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“There’s a lot to tell.”

“Josh,” I warn, glaring at him.