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“Oh, Gabriel, no, don’t leave. Thomas didn’t mean it.”
“I think he did.”
My brother shrugs. “Sure I did.”
I’ve been itching for a fight all week; if Thomas is offering to volunteer, I’m more than ready to take him up on his offer.
But for my mother’s sake, I make another attempt at leaving peacefully.
“I’m going.”
“No, you’re not.” Thomas stands up from the couch and gets in my face.
“Get out of my way before I make you.”
“Bring it, old man.” Thomas shoves me a little.
That’s it, I’m about to raise my arm to punch him when my dad comes to stand between us. “Boys, sit down. Both of you.”
My first instinct is to protest like a teenager, saying something like, but he started it. I think better of it and just sit back in my armchair. Thomas follows my lead and sinks back on the couch, looking nonetheless chastised.
Dad sighs. “Gabriel,” he says in his wisdom-of-the-father voice. “What your brother is trying to convey, albeit in his usual aggravating way, is that there’s a time to stay idle and a time to take action.” Pause. “This is one time you should take action.”
“And by action you mean?”
“Go after the woman you love; don’t just sit back and let her slip through your fingers.”
“She’s told me in no uncertain tones that’s exactly what she wants.”
“If men always listened to what women said—”
“Dad,” I interrupt. “You can’t say stuff like that in this century.”
“Nope.” Thomas pops his lips in an annoying sound.
“Let’s put it this way, then.” Dad looks at Mom with an expression of such adoration my heart cracks a little—that is what I could’ve had with Blake—and then resumes his speech. “If I’d listened to your mother when she told me to stay away for good, neither of you boys would be here now.”
All heads in the room turn to Mom.
She sighs. “I believe my exact words were: stay out of my way or I’ll put your contact lens in backward, cabron.”
“Ooooh.” Thomas hollers with laughter. “Go, Mama.”
He raises a hand and they high-five.
As much as I’m enjoying the family folklore, I’m not sure it applies to my situation. “Dad, I’m sure whatever you did wasn’t as bad.”
“No, you’re right, son, it was ten times worse. Your mother still forgave me, but she sure made me work for it.”
“Gosh, Dad,” Thomas says. “What did you do?”
Dad looks at Mom in a permission-to-tell-the-story way, and she gives him an exasperated nod.
“What you have to understand, son, is that we Mercers are go-getters.”
“Hear, hear,” Thomas interjects.
Dad throws him a be-quiet glare, and continues, “But we’re also impatient idiots and sometimes, that can cloud our judgment.” Mom scoffs emphatically at that. Dad gives her a you-know-you-love-me-despite-my-flaws look, and continues, “When I first met your mother in Miami and asked her to come to New York with me, she refused.”
