17. Henry
seventeen
I’m rarely a fan of these rowdy family dinners, and tonight is no exception. When Franki and I returned from shopping, she took a nap, and I holed up to work in Bronwyn’s office. Being away from New York isn’t an excuse to take a break from the pressures there.
By the time I get to the dinner table, only one available chair remains. I’m now located four people away and on the opposite side of the table from Franki, who happens to be sitting next to Gabriel.
The flush on my brother’s face and his glassy grin tell me he’s already been drinking even before he lifts his glass of wine to his lips. I pick up my fork.
I don’t believe Franki has any romantic interest in Gabriel, but I’m not sure my brother won’t come on to her when he’s drunk. She would turn him down, but there’s a sick weight in my gut at the realization that I no longer trust my own brother. He’s a different person when he’s trashed.
Franki laughs, and I glance her way. Gabriel is not that funny, and half his jokes are of the dirty variety.
Dean scowls at me across the table, as if the weight of his glare means anything to me at all. “Henry.”
My name isn’t a greeting from my brother-in-law; it’s a curse. I move my lips into a smile and pretend I don’t know he’s pissed that I invited that douche, Louis Larrabie, here for the weekend. Louis is a smarmy prick who’s been carrying a torch for my sister for years and hangs out with her group of friends. He’s an absolute dickhead, and I’m honestly not sure why Bronwyn lets him hang around at all.
Louis, with his overly coiffed blond hair and spray tan, shovels in a mouthful of lasagna, then alternates between gazing longingly at my goofy sister and shooting venomous glares at Dean.
I catch Louis’s eye and nod, giving him my best “Buck up, little buddy” expression. His eyebrows lift in the middle and he nods back with a heavy sigh.
Bronwyn isn’t paying any attention to him at all. The guy isn’t a threat to Dean, but Dean is desperately in love with my sister, and, though he rarely lets on to Bronwyn, it’s clear as glass to me that he’s the jealous type.
Which is exactly why Larrabie was on my guest list. There’s no way we’ll find Dean sleeping on a sofa if Louis Larrabie is on the premises. Dean will be in bed with his wife or sleeping in front of her door on guard duty.
I might find myself doing the same thing with Franki tonight. So maybe Dean isn’t as unhinged as I originally thought. Or maybe I’m becoming as obsessed with Franki as Dean is with my sister.
I spent the last hour reviewing Franki’s files. I’d never noticed anything in them in the last five years that indicated any specific red flags, but we weren’t exactly doing a deep dive. Her surveillance, if you can even call it that, was little more than a standard wellness check. I’d been attempting to respect her privacy, to the best of my ability.
Regret gnaws at me. She was assaulted, more than once, and because she didn’t seek medical attention or report it to the police, I hadn’t known. My sister kept it to herself because she didn’t know I would care.
I don’t feel numb when I think about what Franki experienced. That first rush of rage nearly took my ability to reason. I almost allowed what she went through to become about me, rather than what she needed from me. It was her distress that reminded me to get a fucking grip and think about what she was feeling, not what I was.
I pull out my phone and open the shopping app. Franki doesn’t need an unhinged, angry man. She needs one who can think of ways to make her life better. What I’m doing isn’t exactly romantic, but these will have to be things I picked up that are outside my plan.
The way she dives straight for the seat warmer every time we get in the car gave me some ideas. There are, to me, a surprising number of things I can get her that might help. Heated throw blankets, heated mattress pads, jackets with—
“Henry.” I can guess from the irritated tone of my father’s voice that he’s probably been attempting to get my attention for some time.
I glance his way. My father is in his late fifties, but he’s as formidable as he ever was, his blue eyes sharp beneath dark brows and a head of steel gray hair. “We don’t use our phones at family dinners,” he reminds me.
I click “Buy” on a blanket. “Acknowledged, but this is an emergency.”
“What kind of emergency?” Bronwyn demands, not believing me for a second.
I purse my lips and say something that will both reassure her that it isn’t a safety issue and put the attention squarely back on my sister and her husband, where it belongs. “Shopping. I need a black light. Immediately.”
She squeals in affront that I dared to bring up the way she and her husband were caught in flagrante delicto on the family room sofa, of all places.
“You prissy diva.” She fumes.
Order complete, I put my phone in my pocket and give her an arch look. “It’s not prissy to be concerned about accidentally touching surfaces that have been contaminated by—”
At the last moment, I notice my nineteen-month-old niece watching me from her high chair with rapt attention, so I change my wording to something slightly more child friendly. I clear my throat. “Shenanigans.”
Franki smiles, amused by my antics.
Good. If she can laugh at Gabriel’s tacky joke about Dean “eating out,” then she can laugh at my fussy act. Besides, it’s completely true that I’d rather not think about my sister and Dean being intimate in any form. I’d especially prefer not to think of them doing any of that in a location where there is a risk that I’ll need to apply bleach to my eyeballs. I want them to work out their issues. I do not want to know the private details of their sex lives.
I barely repress a shudder. Grandmother Rose, my father’s mother and the very woman who started me on my quest for a wife, is seated directly across from me. She gives me a commiserating tilt of her head. After what she considers her own mistakes with Bronwyn, she’s actively working not to say or do anything Bronwyn might take as criticism of her marriage.
Anytime there’s a hint of anyone referring to Bronwyn and Dean and their inappropriate location for their display of affection, she flaps her napkin near her face or literally clutches her pearls. Grandmother is holding on to her benevolent tolerance of “crass behavior” by a thread.
Bronwyn cinches her lips up tight. “You’re the one who told us we’d have privacy because you’d be in the office.”
“To encourage you to talk to each other. Not to soil public surfaces.”
“You make it sound like we were getting it on at a bus stop,” Bronwyn fumes, voice rising. “This is our home. You brought everyone here for a surprise house party without warning us. When was there time or opportunity for Dean and me to do anything?”
“How do I know what you’ve been up to with The Stealth Husband?” I ask incredulously.
“Stop. Calling him. The Stealth Husband. And you probably know the same way you know everything else about him. Because you stick your nose everywhere, Henry. Just mind your own business for two whole minu–”
“Quiet,” Dad says. “Bronwyn, you’re getting loud.”
Bronwyn backs off her rant, and I take a few automatic bites of my dinner and surreptitiously observe Franki. She’s turned to give attention to one of Bronwyn’s former college housemates, Sydney Walsh, essentially giving her back to Gabriel.
Good.
“Apologize.” Dean’s voice is quiet but deadly serious.
I heave a sigh and open my mouth to say the words “I’m sorry” to my sister. Teasing her was a dick move, and I took it too far.
Before I can speak, Dad says, “I beg your pardon?”
“You just shushed my wife like she was a barking dog. Apologize to her. Now.”
Oh. Dean is talking to Dad. Truth be told, I hadn’t even noticed that Dad shushed her.
He corrects all of us. Didn’t he tell me to put my phone away like I was a teenager? Mom does it too. She scolded Gabriel for telling a dirty joke at the start of the meal.
Dad sits for a moment, shocked that someone would dare to tell him such a thing, but his expression changes when he looks back at Bronwyn, dawning awareness filtering in.
When I follow the direction of his gaze, real guilt hits me like a right hook to the jaw. Our father telling her to be quiet hurt her feelings.
I won’t pretend I understand it, but I don’t always need to understand these things. It’s enough to know that it’s true that people feel a certain way, even if I can’t relate.
On the other hand, Dean standing up for her like this can only be a good thing, as far as I can see. I respect him for it.
Bronwyn leans into Dean and murmurs, “Please don’t. The least I owe them is to try to remember to use my inside voice.”
He says something in response that I can’t hear and kisses her hand.
“It’s not their fault. Believe me, they had their work cut out for them when they decided to try to turn me into a McRae,” she says in a watery voice.
I suck in a breath and drop my fork to the tablecloth-covered surface. Tried to turn her into a McRae. As if this family is something she has to earn. As if, all these years after her adoption, she doesn’t know she simply is a member of this family.
Bronwyn is our own little Tasmanian Devil and ray of sunshine rolled into one. I can’t imagine the hole that would exist in our lives without her. When she’d nearly died, it was as though the fabric of our lives was being torn to shreds.
Who and what is this family without Charlotte and Bronwyn McRae?
“You are my child,” Dad says roughly. “There’s no ‘turning you into’ anything. There isn’t a single thing on this earth that you could do or not do that would change that. I apologize if I ever made you feel like you needed to earn your place in this family. You’re an amazing person, Bronwyn. You’re wonderful exactly the way you are.”
She looks doubtful, and Dad blinks his blue eyes hard a couple of times before he continues. “You’ve got a heart like the ocean, Bronwyn. You’re awe-inspiring,”
Bronwyn answers with a watery laugh. “The roar of my surf gets a little loud, sometimes.”
Dad smiles. “It does.”
Bronwyn is like an ocean in many ways. She can certainly be overwhelming. Expecting her to act like less than herself would be a tragedy. “You can’t expect the ocean to sound like a pond,” I say, in what I hope is a reassuring tone. “Who would even want it to?”
Bronwyn makes eye contact and holds it. She dips her chin with a smile. “Thank you, Henry.”
“I have something deep and meaningful to add too,” Gabriel interjects.
When everyone looks in his direction, his eyes go wide. “I didn’t mean right now. I’m not telling you how much I love you in front of all these people,” he says, pouring himself a second glass of wine. “I’m shy.”
All the tension that had been building from the moment we started this dinner drains away with the laughter that follows. He’s good at that. What he said wasn’t funny, but his timing was impeccable, the sentiment was sincere, and he created a break from the uncomfortable emotion that had us in a chokehold.
I envy him that ability. I’m good at escalation. At poking wounds and annoying people. I’m absolutely good at manipulating a situation to get what I want, but I’m not good at making other people smile and relax the way he is. Gabriel has a gift that I’m not sure he recognizes or appreciates.
The conversation moves on, and I zone out as I think about my next move with Franki. Until I catch the tail end of Grandma Miller making some comment about having caught my parents going at it in the family car. I scrape my fork through my lasagna and try to ignore what the rest of them seem to think is hilarious, and I think is private and not meant to be discussed at a family dinner.
“It sounded like some animal was trapped and dying,” Grandad Miller says, sounding every bit as irritated as I am.
I’ve been told I think too literally and that other people don’t really picture what they say when they say it. But how do you say something like that and not get an immediate, horrifying visual? Of my parents, no less.
I gag and shove my plate away.
Immediately, from her high chair, Phee bangs her baby spoon and imitates the sound.
I will not turn red over this. I refuse. If I blush in embarrassment like a teenager, Franki is going to think I’m an idiot. I can play this off as a joke.
Except, I can’t . . . Because, dammit, Grandad, that was graphic and unnecessary.
“Aww, come on, Henry,” Franki says.
When I look up and catch her eye, my neck heats. Her smile is so fucking kind. Even before she speaks, I know what she’s really saying. “I’m here, and I like you just the way you are.”
“I think it’s cute when old people are still sweet on each other.” The real words that end up leaving her lips are meant to pull the attention away from me and onto herself. In her own way, Franki is trying to protect me. It’s not necessary, but she’s so damn wonderful.
Dad puffs up and joins in her fun. “Hurtful words, young lady. Hurtful words.”
“I hate to say it, but I think you’ve lost the moral high ground here.” Gabriel grins at our mother.
Then he throws an arm around Franki and leans into her. I tense, ready to push my chair back and go straight at him. Rip that arm away from her. He can’t touch her like that. He can’t—
He whispers something in her ear, and she turns to him and smiles. Then she pats his hand where it rests on her shoulder.
Inside, I don’t go cold; I burn hot with something I’ve never felt in my life. There’s no logic in it at all. It’s coming straight from my limbic cortex, the part of my brain that controls “Fight, Flight, Feed, and Fuck.”
My reaction is unreasonable. It’s unfair to Franki. She deserves better. I need to be better. I look down and shove my food around on my plate. If this is what jealousy feels like, maybe bringing Louis Larrabie here to encourage Dean wasn’t my best idea.