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“Your relationship with Jessica started out by you stumbling into her bar bleeding from your gut. You threw an entire party that cost us almost five hundred thousand dollars alone in the hopes that she might show up. And when she did, you violated the grounds of the mansion we were about to renovate to have some time with her. Sure, you didn’t get drunk and marry her. But you hopped into things incredibly quickly and you used whatever means necessary to get to her, but that’s okay because you can remember it?” I asked.
I sighed and looked back up to Andrea’s window, but I didn’t see her. There was no light, no shadow, and no fluttering of her curtains. There was only darkness.
I wanted to be up there with her in that darkness. Holding her and comforting her and telling her it’s going to be okay.
“You know nothing about this woman, Everett. For all you know, you’ll go to do the uncontested divorce and she’ll change her mind,” my father said.
“I know a lot about Andrea actually,” I said.
“What could you possibly know about her if you spent the entire weekend drunk with her?” Lucas asked.
“I know she owns and operates the inner-city youth center downtown,” I said.
“She what now?” my father asked.
“Yeah. Andrea grew up in poverty with a father who drank everything away. She worked from a very young age, and even then she always had to choose which bills she would pay during the month and which would go to the wayside. She told me she always favored her water bill because she knew she could build a fire and wrap up into blankets to get warm,” I said.
I watched my father chew on the inside of his cheek.
“I know she went to school. Got a degree. Honestly? I can’t remember what the degree was, but I plan on asking her again about it. I do know that it had to do with social work and kids, because that’s what brought her to Charleston. She started working at the youth center, got very close to the previous owner,” I said.
“Mr. Wilson,” my father said.
“So you knew him.”
“I was very good friends with him until he passed.”
“Well, his judge of character of Andrea was to pass down his entire youth center—operations and all—to the woman up there you just lit into for absolutely nothing,” I said.
I watched him turn his head back up to the apartment as Lucas cursed underneath his breath.
“She not only owns and runs it, though.
She fixes anything that gets broken inside it. The air conditioning. The internet. Holes in the walls. Small electrical issues. Technological issues. The woman can damn near fix anything. And then, if she has to fix something and it’s outside of her budget for the year, do you know what she does?” I asked.
“What?” Lucas asked.
I panned my gaze over to him and saw him growing pale with every word I said.
“She dips into her own damn pocket and pays for the difference so the center doesn’t suffer,” I said.
The three of us stood there and I watched shame and regret roll over my father and my brother’s features. And it served them right. I was embarrassed to call them family. Embarrassed to be related to them. Embarrassed to have to claim them in any way.
“I care about Andrea. And I admit, getting married was a mistake. Whether or not I can remember it, it shouldn’t have taken place. But as I’ve gotten to know her and as I’ve spent time with her, I’m beginning to realize that she is exactly the kind of woman I would have married someday. The kind of woman I would have whisked away on dates and weekend vacations and brought home to you and Mom, Dad.”
His eyes whipped back to me, as if I had snapped him out of a trance.
“What we did was reckless, Lucas. I admit it. But it has nothing to do with the fire or the business. I don’t know what’s going on in your personal life. Maybe something’s wrong with you and Jessica. Maybe you didn’t wind down over the Vegas weekend like you would have hoped. But you don’t get to dump that stress on me and rage out over my life because you’re unsatisfied with yours,” I said.
“There should be a prenup in place,” my father said.
“He’s right. You still need to protect yourself and your part of the business. Because it isn’t just you that affects. It’s all of us,” Lucas said.
I narrowed my eyes at him and had every want to call him out on his blatant hypocrisy.
“Have you asked Jessica about a prenup?” I asked.
“Why would he? He’s not getting married,” my father said.
