Chapter 50 Cecily #2
Kerrigan elbows me. "Who knew paradise was a freak spring snowstorm in Arizona? Can I borrow the gem from your hoo-ha?"
"No, it's mine," I say.
"There is something wrong with both of you," Duke mutters, stepping away to introduce himself to Christopher.
Dom wraps his arms around my waist. "Nobody is allowed to see your carnelian but me."
Kerrigan looks at him in shock, but it quickly changes to a bark of laughter. Then she throws me a wink and lopes off to make sure the cowboy gets an eyeful of her.
With the aid of Cowboy Christopher's kind heart and massive truck with a tow hitch and chain, we are towed out of the snowy mess.
My dad offers to pay Christopher for his trouble, but he waves off payment. "I knew there'd be folks stranded out here. Just came to see if I could be of service."
I glance at Kerrigan, waiting for her to say it. She knows I'm waiting, so she whispers, "He can service me."
Christopher offers a friendly parting wave and walks toward his truck. He's halfway there when he throws a glance over his shoulder at Kerrigan.
"That's all the encouragement I need," she says, hustling after him.
"She's a trip," Dom says. He pulls me in close. "Do you have a thing for cowboys?"
"Who doesn't?" I tease.
His eyes narrow, leaning close until his breath streams against the shell of my ear. "Do you think you're funny, Mrs. Bellinger?"
A shiver trips down my spine, and it's not from the snow. "I do."
"We'll see how funny you can be later when your mouth is too full to make jokes."
I pat his chest playfully. "Promises, promises."
We load up into the RV, Kerrigan the last person in. Her cheeks are pink, and when I catch sight of myself in a window, I see mine are too. The cold, probably.
"Did you give him your number?"
"Yes," she answers, flinging herself into a chair. "It wasn't until I opened my mouth to talk to him that I considered he might have a girlfriend. But I figured, what the hell? I'd regret it if I didn't shoot my shot."
"It seems like it went well," Dom says. We're back in the same spots we vacated when we got stuck.
Kerrigan pushes her hair off her face. "I told him if it all works out, it would be a great story to tell our grandkids one day."
Dom coughs on the bottle of water he grabbed from the fridge before sitting down.
"Kidding," Kerrigan adds.
Duke's driving again, pulling out onto the interstate. Kerrigan looks at me. "What do you think about everything Duke said back there?"
"I think I'm still processing," I answer, giving my brother a once-over. For the first time since this road trip began Duke's shoulders are lower, his demeanor more relaxed.
Kerrigan looks with me, then turns her appraising eyes on our dad in the passenger seat. He is silent, sitting rigidly.
I look around and realize my mom is not sitting where she was before. "Where is Mom?"
Kerrigan points toward the bedroom. "She said she needed to lie down."
"Maybe the champagne got to her."
"Or maybe it was her oldest child."
"There you go again, Kerr, saying something that makes a whole lot of sense."
"Your brother shocked her," Grandma says, coming from the bedroom. "Neither one of you talk as quietly as you think you do. You never have. When you'd stay the night with me when you were little, I'd turn out the lights at bedtime and listen to you two gab for hours."
Kerrigan and I share a smile. Those nights were the best, and they usually meant we got out of whatever boring event our parents were trying to make us attend.
We would beg and plead and cajole and if that wasn't enough, we'd call in the big guns: Savage Grandma.
It isn't until now that I realize Duke is not a part of those memories because he was dutifully showing up for our parents the way they expected him to.
Taking one for the team. I never stopped to consider whether Duke wanted to be there.
Without thinking too much more about it, I'm up from my seat and moving toward the front of the RV.
"Dad?" When he looks at me I ask, "Do you mind if I take a turn as passenger?"
He unbuckles and gets up, and I step aside for him to pass. He's quieter than usual, not only in a lack of speaking, but there's a quality about him I can't identify.
"Congratulations." I buckle my seat belt and prop my bare feet on the dash.
Duke lifts his eyebrows, "For what?"
"Shocking Dad into silence." Snow is gathered on either side of the road, but the pavement is clear.
"He expects defiance from you. From me? Not so much."
"Has he said anything to you since"—I thumb behind myself—"back there?"
Duke shakes his head. "He might never. You know how he is. He may rewrite history to make it so he doesn't have to face everything I said."
"Well, apparently you got to Mom. She's lying down. I guess the truth exhausted her."
"Was it me, or the champagne?"
"Probably a combination."
Duke nods. "Did you see the expression on Grandma's face?"
"I don't have eyes in the back of my head."
"She was smiling while I was talking. Full out beaming." He glances at me briefly before turning his attention back to the road. "Isn't that weird?"
"Actually, no. Last night I told you that I think she wants us to deal with our shit. Not just get along."
"It makes more sense than anything else," he says. "Why would she want to spend what she knows is the final portion of her life with family who refuse to be functional?"
"I think she knew if she forced us together, not only in physical proximity to one another but ample amounts of time, everything would eventually come to a boil.
" I look back at my dad, where he sits in the chair next to Kerrigan with his chin propped on his hand as he stares out the window. "The jury is out on Dad."
"I'm sorry I told Mom and Dad about your state of intoxication when you got married."
"In the interest of honesty, Dom and I originally planned to get it annulled right away.
Then Grandma summoned us to her house, and Dad did that blustery thing where he tries to force me to do something for reasons that aren't even good, and then I did that thing where I get stubborn for no good reason other than I don't like being told what to do, and well"—I shrug—"here we are. "
"You're staying married?"
My gaze flickers backward again, this time to my husband.
He has his laptop out, and he's typing away.
I hope coming on this road trip with me hasn't set him back too much at work.
"We are. We're going to date. We went on a date once, when he was in town visiting his cousin.
It was actually really nice, and we had a good time.
" No need to mention the miscommunication that occurred that evening.
That can be an anecdote for later, sometime down the road.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry, too. I had no idea you felt that way about me moving to Phoenix.
This whole time I thought you wanted to be where you are. Working for the family business."
"I do like working for the family business, but siblings who have parents like ours need to stick together, if only for the purpose of having another soul in the world who understands. I don't begrudge you leaving, but it sucked being left. If that makes sense."
Tears sting the backs of my eyes. "It does. I didn't think about you when I was leaving, and I'm sorry for that. All I could see was getting the hell out. Dad was so controlling. And his way of trying to control me was to make me feel bad about myself."
Duke nods knowingly. "One of many tactics he deploys. He tailors them to each one of his children. For me, it's been something along the lines of you weren't good enough, but you could be. The carrot he dangled in front of me was the possibility of greatness, which in turn led to his approval."
How did I never see that growing up? To me, Duke was the golden child. That made him easy to love. It was shortsighted of me, and very one-note. I missed the detail, the nuance, the subtext.
"What do you think Kerrigan's damage is?"
Duke chuckles. "I think she's good at hiding it, but offhand, I'd say she's a helicopter mom to a dog, enjoys shrooms more than she should, and pretends she's not as smart as she is."
It's hard to believe we started this trip in a dry, cacti-filled desert, full of hidden resentments and festering wounds. Look at us now, talking through our issues and driving through a world that looks like it has been dusted in powdered sugar.
I touch Duke's shoulder, lightly prodding him. "They sure did a number on us, didn't they?"