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I cracked up. “Twenty-inches? You always were horrible at math.”
She giggled.
We finished our shower and dressed then headed down the stairs of the cottage. I took her hand as we walked up the four short steps to the front door of the main house. I pulled up the large brass knocker and let it bang down against the door three times, not too hard, but not too soft. Three times seemed like the norm. Wasn’t that how many times people usually knocked on a door? My mind was rambling out of control with unnecessary trivial crap. When the door opened, I took a step back.
“Hey, Ash.” Brodie looked at Mel and smiled. “Is everything all right upstairs?”
“Yeah. Fine. Listen.” I paused and looked down at my grey Chuck Taylors as if they had the words I wanted to say etched into them. Mel nudged me in the side with her elbow when I didn’t speak. “Can we talk?”
“Sure, come on in. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, everything is great. Do you think you could call your brother and ask him to come over?”
He gave me a puzzled look. “Now you’re starting to worry me.”
“I swear nothing is wrong. I just wanted to talk to you both about something and it would be best if he was here, too.” Mel squeezed my hand as if she tried to transfer all her positive energy to me. It made me feel good.
“Have a seat,” he said, pointing to the sofa. Mel and I sat side by side on it, and Brodie sat on the piano stool staring at us as he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and pushed a couple of buttons then held the phone to his ear and waited a couple of seconds before speaking into it. “What are you doing…? Good…come on over…yeah…yeah…I don’t know…Ash and Mel are here and want to talk…I don’t know…yeah…okay.” He pushed a button on his phone and looked at us. “He’ll be here in a couple of minutes.”
Gabrielle walked into the room. “Oh, hey.” Her smile was large and welcoming.
“Beer?” Brodie asked.
“Sure, thanks.” A beer was probably a great idea. Something to knock the nerves down a notch.
“How about you, Melody?” Gabrielle asked.
“Okay. That would be nice, thank you.”
“Sierra Nevada or Corona light?”
“Corona is fine,” I said, knowing Mel didn’t like many beers, but I knew she liked Corona and I didn’t want to complicate things.
A minute later, Gabrielle came out with four bottles of Corona, a wedge of lime sticking out of the top of each one.
The front door opened, and Jackson and Lena walked in with Rufus at their heels. The dog immediately came over to Mel and me and we patted him on the head before he took off and made himself comfortable over by Jackson. “Hey, so, what’s going on?” he asked then sat in a chair to the side of the sofa as Lena sat on the arm of it next to him. Gabrielle planted herself on the other side of Mel toward the end of the couch.
“Is something wrong?” Jackson asked Brodie.
“Don’t know. Ash said he wanted to talk to us, together. That’s all I know,” Brodie said.
I took a sip of the beer and looked up at Brodie then at Jackson. I’m sure my face was pale from fear, nervousness, anxiety. I had no idea how they were going to receive this news I was about to lay on them, but we shared a father, and they had a right to know. I decided to just say it. “I…uh…my father’s name was Charles Rutherford Beaumont,” I said then took another sip of my beer.
“What?” Brodie said.
“Wait, what did you just say?” Jackson asked.
“My father’s name was Charles Rutherford Beaumont. My last name is Beaumont. My mother gave me my father’s last name even though they were never married.”
“You’re shittin’ me,” Brodie said. “How…I mean, you just walk in here out of the blue and tell us this and expect us to believe you?” Brodie stood up, and I edged back, unsure of what he was going to do. I thought maybe punch me or something.
“Wait,” Jackson said.
“What, you believe him?” Brodie glared at Jackson and then back at me. Mel wrapped her fingers around mine.
“There’s no reason for him to make something like this up, Brodie. What would be the point? It’s not as if there’s any money, some big family fortune to inherit. Dad died years ago, and he’d left us long before that, we knew he was seeing someone. Mom knew.”
“Which brings me to the question, why now? Why did you wait until just now to come here?” Brodie asked. “And how old are you?”
