Page 59 of Playing By Ear

He cursed as he strode up the brick walkway to the house. So much for making a calm, confident entrance.

Jamie knocked on the front door. It swung open a few inches under his knuckles, unlatched, which seemed an odd security lapse.

He took a cautious step inside. “Hello?” All that greeted him was the scent of roasting lamb.

Like most semi-detached villas, this house was a mirror image of the one adjoining it. The staircase was still directly in front of him, but now the living room was on the left instead of the right. The wooden floors and banister were a lighter shade than those next door, but the warm, butter-yellow paint above the waist-high wainscoting was the same as it had been in Jamie’s childhood home, as were the family photos hanging on the walls of the empty entrance hall and leading up the stairs.

Jamie had truly gone through the looking glass.

He stepped into the hall, ready to raise his arms for a pat-down by Gerry or one of the lesser bodyguards. No one, human or canine, came from the living room or the staircase.

His pulse surged to a gallop. Was this an ambush? Or had one of the family’s enemies chosen Easter for a massacre?

A slow, delicate D minor 7 chord sounded from the living room. What the…

The strumming sounded again, now with a bouncy rhythm. He moved through the living room doorway.

Belinda, Aunt Norma, Aunt Rosemary, and his cousins, Miranda and Valerie, stood in formation in the middle of the room, with Norma at the center. They swayed to the chords for a few beats.

Then Norma shouted, “One, two, three, four. Jimmy!”

The five of them launched into the opening chorus of “Jimmy Mack” by Martha and the Vandellas. Standing on the couch, wee Lucy—the niece he knew only from pictures—played along on a darling little soprano pineapple ukulele.

“Oh my God.” He covered his mouth as the memory crashed in.

This was a reenactment of his tenth birthday party, when he’d just returned from a weeklong music summer camp. Back when Belinda was taller than he was. Back when Ritchie accompanied the women and girls on piano.

Back when he’d been Jimmy Mack.

Now they all swayed and spun in sync while doing the classic hand motions. Belinda, the cousins, and Rosemary ooo-woo-OOO-ooohed while Norma belted out the verse in her stunning mezzo-soprano that almost made Jamie forget she was Martin’s closest advisor.

The kitchen door burst open behind Jamie, and a mass of uncles and male in-laws poured in, playing the breakdown on kazoos. They circled him, blowing out of tune, clearly several sheets to the wind already.

Fucking surreal. He’d forgotten how raucous the family’s gatherings could be. Growing up, it had seemed normal, the dancing, singing, and general tomfoolery as they congregated for any occasion. It was all he’d ever known, and since that time, he’d met no one—not even the Warriors after a victory—who partied like the MacKrays.

As the singers did the final chorus, urging Jimmy to hurry back, Uncle Raymond and Uncle Pete bombarded Jamie with a barrage of back-slapping hugs and hair-tousling all right, lad?s, passing him off to his brother-in-law, Stuart, and the cousins’ husbands for more boisterous greetings. Absolute scenes!

The song ended, and Aunt Norma boogied forward with open arms. “Jimmy, how are you, lad?” She squeezed him hard, her dark bob brushing his chin. “You’re all grown up now!”

“I’m trying my best.” He had to shout to be heard over the others’ voices, a few still filtered by kazoos.

“You’ve got so handsome.” Norma went to cup his cheek, but her daughter, Miranda, pushed her aside.

“There’s yourself!” Jamie’s cousin exclaimed. “I cannae believe you’re here!” She embraced him, rocking their bodies back and forth in a celebratory bop. “I thought you didn’t like us.”

He didn’t like them, not in the abstract. But here in the flesh, feeling Miranda’s hug and seeing Aunt Norma’s grin, he pure loved them.

“Hang on.” He held Miranda at arm’s length and looked down at her bulging belly. “Are you⁠—”

“Aye, and it’s a boy, the first one born in this family since you.”

“That means in four months,” Valerie said, ploughing into his side with a giggle, “you’ll not be special anymore.”

“Don’t listen to these cheeky besoms,” Aunt Rosie said as she yanked Jamie close. “You’ll always be special. Did you get the shamrock shortbread I sent with your sister?”

“I did, and it was pure braw, as ever.”

Once he was released from the lovefest, Belinda took his arm. “Come and meet our Lucy.”