CHAPTER SEVENTEEN #5
She grimaced comically. “Implying I’m going to tell you now?”
“Come on,” Carver said. Out of the blue he felt connected to her in a way he hadn’t felt since he was about fourteen; they had slipped into an ancient ease. “All the shit you’ve heard about me in the last twelve hours and I can’t know if you’re okay or not?”
“To be fair, the only new thing was the Scott stuff.”
“Like that’s not enough by itself?”
“Listen, we can talk, but can we do it later?” She settled down into the couch, tossing her pale hair over the back of it.
“After Chip leaves? I just have a feeling when Mom comes back, the two of them might blow up at each other again, and it’s making me anxious.
Like, my stomach hurts, as stupid as that is. ”
“Again? What did they fight about earlier?”
“Obviously Mom was angry at him for telling you, and she just went off on him, very blame the messenger. It wasn’t fair to Chip, but he came back at her, and you know how he is, he hits so far below the belt.
I mean, that’s why you hit him in the face, right?
Like, I love him to death, but he’s a fucking asshole.
So Mom went nuclear and said she’s tired of him blaming his failures on them and he said she’s never given a shit about him. Pretty brutal.”
Carver was on his feet before he even realized he was getting up. “I’m gonna go talk to him.”
“Okay,” Conway said, moving her legs so he could get by. “But don’t tell him I told you about that.”
“I won’t, I won’t.”
Carver moved through the house toward the backyard, trying to ignore the ache he felt in his thighs and calves whenever he walked at a faster pace than a mince.
It was a beautiful morning, and the sun shone on an idyllic picture in the backyard: Maggie throwing a tennis ball for Ralph while Chip played with Bailey and Aaron a few feet away.
Someone had piled up a bunch of cushions from patio furniture in the soft grass, and Chip was picking up each child and tossing them into the pile like lawn darts.
They would land, bounce, then leap to their feet giggling and asking to go again.
As Carver approached Chip, Ralph darted over to him, a streak of fluid gold. “I don’t have the ball,” he said, showing his empty hands, and Ralph touched each palm with a cool black nose. “I don’t have it, buddy.” Ralph darted away, back to Maggie.
Chip continued throwing the children without looking up, but as Carver sidled up next to him, he said, “Hey.”
“Hey,” Carver said, watching Aaron sail through the air and land like a feather. “How much do these kids weigh?”
“I don’t know,” Chip said. “Maggie could tell you. Feels like about forty and fifty pounds respectively.” He lifted his sunglasses and looked down at Bailey, who was waiting to be thrown. “You know how much you weigh?”
She shook her head.
“Well, whatever it is, I’m getting tired,” Chip said. He was breathing heavily, though trying to hide this. Aaron came staggering over, looking dizzy.
“Yeah, if you want to take a break, I was actually coming out to see if we could talk for a second,” Carver said.
“Daddy, don’t stop,” Bailey said, with as much horror in her voice as if she were saying, “Daddy, don’t grind us up into meat paste.”
“Just give me a five-minute break, Jesus,” Chip said. “Go hang out with your mom. Maggie!” He called, and she looked over. “Let’s switch, throw me the tennis ball.”
Maggie shrugged and flung it to him with an impressive overhand; Chip caught it, and Ralph came running over to him while the children darted away.
“What’s up?” Chip said, and flung the tennis ball into an open stretch of grass. Ralph galloped away again.
“Does she know everything now?” Carver said, tipping his head in the direction of Maggie as she walked away from them.
“Yeah, I kind of had no choice but to fill her all the way in after she overheard some of the shit Mom was screaming at me this morning,” Chip said.
“Right. What does she think?”
“That our parents are out of their gourds.”
“She should already know that by now,” Carver said, laughing. Chip and Maggie had been together since college.
“Well, it’s not the first time she’s said it.”
“And, uh, how are you feeling about Mom and Dad?”
Chip snorted. “You mean Mom.”
“Are you maybe not crediting Dad with enough autonomy, here?”
“What autonomy? He’s made himself a fucking automaton.
Do you think,” Chip said, lowering his voice as he bent to accept the slobbery tennis ball from Ralph, “if Maggie came to me after Aaron was born and told me he was another man’s baby, that I would just take that on the chin and carry on with my life?
I’d burn the house down with all of us in it. No offense.”
“So, what, you think Dad should have burned us all to death? That’s the preferable outcome here?”
“No, but at least I’d understand it.”
“Well, you wouldn’t understand it, you’d be dead.”
Chip sighed. “I’m exaggerating, quit being so literal.”
“So what would you have actually done?”
“Left her!”
“Okay. You ever think maybe Dad stayed in large part because of you? You know you’re his favorite.”
“Yeah, sure,” Chip muttered.
“You are! And Conway’s Mom’s favorite. I’m the odd man out.”
“You’re Mom’s favorite, you dumb little asshole.”
“Excuse me?” Carver said, laughing. “In what world?”
Chip flung the ball for Ralph very far and hard. “Connie’s not her favorite, you just think that ‘cause she’s the baby and they’re both girls. You’re the one Mom’s always so concerned about.”
“Yeah, I give her reasons to be.”
“And the one she’s so proud of. The way she was showing you off at the wedding, you think she shows us off like that these days?
She hasn’t shown me off since high school.
‘My son, the quarterback.’ Maybe a little when I was in law school.
‘My son, he’s in law school.’ Last thing I did to her pleasure was produce grandkids.
‘My son, the working pair of testicles.’”
“Alright,” Carver said uncomfortably. “Regardless, you’re Dad’s favorite. And I think it means a lot to him how much you’ve always looked up to him, and he’s never going to be made disloyal to Mom. So maybe, for his sake, find a way to be okay with this.”
Ralph ran up to them again, wagging his feathered blonde tail.
“I am okay with it,” Chip said, seizing and flinging the ball again. “I’ve had five years to be okay with it. I’m just not gonna live in a fantasy world. I don’t want him to be disloyal to her, I just wish he’d admit how fucked up it all was.”
“He had thirty years to accept it before you found out. Maybe he felt like that at one point but can’t access the feelings anymore.”
“What, the guy’s got fucking amnesia? Carv, what are you doing? Why are you carrying so much water for them? You’re the casualty here, no offense. You’re the one they ran over like a chipmunk.”
Carver grinned at him. “I’m very resilient except for my fits of hysteria, remember?”
Chip sighed. “I just didn’t like that shit in there. Him reading their little, like, closing argument — which Mom clearly wrote all of, by the way, that was her writing. And the shit she said in it was a work.”
“A work?”
“Like in wrestling. Kayfabe. You don’t remember?
Didn’t we watch a ton of wrestling together?
” (Carver shook his head. His main memories of wrestling were his fervent crush on ‘90s Shawn Michaels, and being terrorized by Chip trying out moves on him.) “Alright, well, it was manipulative lawyer shit, telling us what she thinks we want to hear. You think they’ll actually change? Good luck with that.”
“They will if we don’t give them a choice,” Carver said, watching Ralph run after the ball. With a sudden surge of boldness, he added, “And maybe you should quit coming to them for money and career help, and come to me instead.”
Chip’s gaze shot over to him. “Why?”
“So you’re not as beholden to them in general. Negotiation tactic.”
“What, you want to loan me money?”
“No, I’ll give it to you no strings attached, I don’t give a shit. I can get you work too. You think I don’t know anyone who could employ a guy with a JD and a solid resume? Lillian and I literally own companies we could install you as an executive at, if we wanted to.”
“Christ. You’ve never offered before.”
“You’ve never asked.”
“I’m not asking now,” Chip said pointedly, wrenching the slobbering ball from Ralph’s suddenly possessive mouth.
“Well, I’m offering now. I don’t want them to feel like they have that over you. It fuels mutual resentment.”
“And you think it wouldn’t for you and me?”
“I’m way better capitalized than they are.
No offense, but the amount of money you need would be, like, chump change to me.
You know Mom and Dad are retired, they’re technically on a fixed income.
I’m not saying come to me every five minutes, I’ll start getting pissed off, but if there’s a problem in your life that money could fix — a good school you want to send the kids to, or whatever…
I seriously don’t think I want any kids of my own, so. ”
“Yeah,” Chip muttered. “Alright. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“The other thing I was gonna ask you is —” Carver glanced around, but the only people out here were Maggie and the kids, who were far out of earshot now. “Did Dad tell you about his affair?”
Chip froze as he was winding up to throw, then lowered his arm. Ralph, who’d darted out a few yards in expectation of the ball, came back to them and whimpered. “His what?”
“His affair.”
Chip looked floored. He stood there for another moment, his brow knit, then glanced down at the waiting dog and threw the ball. “What are you talking about?”
“He told me he had an affair before Mom did, when his work seconded him to Tokyo.”
“With who?”
“Some Japanese woman, apparently.”
“Dad? With some Japanese woman?” Chip let out a long whistle. “Holy shit. Okay.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. That’s fucking wild. Did Mom know about it?”
“I’m guessing she knows now, if he felt okay telling me. If she knew about it at the time, he didn’t say, he just said she had good reason to feel lonely and abandoned… and have her own affair, was the implication.”
“You sure he wasn’t making this shit up to cover for her?”
“No, I got the feeling it was real,” Carver said. “He said it kind of nostalgically, like there were memories associated.”
“Oh, dude, gross.”
“I know.”
“Still, good for him,” Chip said. “That honestly…” He laughed. “That does make me feel a little better.”
“Yeah, I thought it might.” Carver hesitated, then added, “I don’t remember if I said it last night, but if I didn’t, thanks for telling me.”
Chip shrugged as if brushing this off. “You needed to know.”
“I did, but nobody else was gonna say it. So thank you.”
“You’re welcome, man.”
“Alright, I gotta go talk to my wife.”
“Are you seriously going to dump that grade-A Wagyu piece of ass so you can go fuck your boy Scott?”
“Yep!”
Chip heaved a sigh and shook his head. “Man, you piss me off sometimes.”
“I’m supposed to, I’m your little brother.”
Chip reached up to tousle his hair, and did so with the force of a noogie. Carver twisted away from him, dancing backward in the direction of the house. “If I’m back in like two hours, you’ll still be here?” he called.
“Yeah, yeah,” Chip said dismissively, flapping his hand, and then threw the ball for the dog again.