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He nodded and shook his head.
Then he was quiet for a long while.
“We going to Boston?”
“I’m taking you to mom’s,” I said. “I kind of felt like going home too.”
Tucker looked at me.
“Why?”
“Maybe time for a new adventure for me too.”
“Things with Sam?”
I shrugged.
“Told you, we’re the sad siblings. Helen and Dereck, they’re the successful ones,” Tucker said. I didn’t like the sound of that.
“Why can’t we be the ones who get it right too?”
“I guess we can, if we can figure it out,” Tucker said, sounding very wise for his age.
Later that night, when we’d had dinner at home and Tucker went off for a shower and bed, I sat with my mom on the sofa in the living room. I asked her about Helen and Derek and why they seemed so much more together than Tucker and I did.
“Oh, sweetheart!” my mother laughed. “They messed up plenty too!”
“They did?”
My father came in from outside where he’d been chopping wood for the fireplace.
“Remember that time he got busted for driving under the influence?”
“Derek?” I couldn’t imagine my strait-laced brother ever getting on the wrong side of the law. “Spent the weekend in jail, didn’t he? Put him right off the booze, that did!”
We laughed.
“And Helen?”
My parents shared a look and I realized they didn’t want to betray my sister.
My father rolled his eyes. “Oh, you might as well know. She was seeing a married man for many years.”
“Our Helen?!” My sister, five years older than me had always acted so superior and morally righteous.
“When was that she came back here, all cut up about it ending?” my father said. “Stayed here for weeks while you were off at college,” he said pointing at me.
“Where was I?” Tucker asked. “I don’t recall this at all.” He came in in a fresh shirt, his hair wet from the shower.
My mother and father shared a glance. It spoke of the many times that Tucker had disappeared over the past few years, saying he was popping out to see a friend and then didn’t come back for weeks.
“She got herself together,” my mother said. “Moved to Chicago, married Terry and as you know, they’ve been trying to have kids, so that is another story again.”
My dad arranged the wood in the fireplace and lit it up. He straightened up and turned to face me.
“You guys aren’t the only ones struggling to find yourselves. We all must do that at some time.”
“You mean, become a grown up?” I asked, with a smile.
“Yup,” my dad said seriously. “It’s a decision you have to make. You choose a life or a partner or a job and you stick with it. That’s all there is to it.”
“You make it sound so simple!” Tucker said.
“Oh, it’s simple all right,” my mother said. “But it’s not easy! Nobody said it was easy.”
“Right,” Tucker came to sit with us in front of the fire. For a while, the four of us sat in companionable silence, enjoying the fire and being together as a family.
