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“I don’t care what he’s wearing,” Connie said. “I care what you’re doing.”
“He’s never touching that boat.”
“All he did was offer to help,” Connie said. Then, like Hank might not’ve grasped the words: “To help.”
“I don’t want his help.”
“Yes, you do. Much more than you realize.”
A pause.
Connie went on, “When I first found out I was sick, can I tell you how I felt? I felt happy. I thought, Good. I thought, Maybe cancer is bad enough. Maybe this, at last, would force us all to realize that we can’t keep wasting our time. And when I saw you all after the surgery, and everybody was getting along, I thought maybe, just maybe, we were going to find a way to be okay. But I guess I was wrong.”
The boys didn’t lift their eyes.
Connie studied Hank for a second, like she was thinking. Then she said to him, “I want you to move home, too.”
Hank looked up. “What?”
“I want you to move back into your room. Here at the house. Stay until Thanksgiving.”
“Mom, I’ve got my own—”
“I know,” Connie said.
“It’s not gonna be—”
“I agree,” Connie said. “But I don’t know what else to do, and there’s no time to figure it out.”
Hank looked down at the floor, toeing a spot with his boot.
“Bring your things by dinnertime,” Connie said then. “You boys are going to find a way to get along—or kill each other trying.”
