Chapter 18 Sebastian
He’d been prepared to feel text regret the moment he sent it, but so far he was okay. Truthfully, he did regret (some of)
what he’d said. Not because he didn’t stand behind every last word of it, but because it wasn’t Brynn’s fault he had dared
to believe she was more or better than she proclaimed to be.
Sebastian sat outside Cassidy’s in the parked Bronco, glancing back and forth between his phone and the front door. He wasn’t
scheduled to work until that evening, when the adventures and misadventures of the PTA group would await him, but he needed
to stay busy. Cole’s Wrangler was parked in the back, and if Sebastian joined him inside, he would inevitably be given inventory
to stock or vegetables to prep or glasses to clean. That all sounded great. Mindless work that would require focus but not
intense concentration.
On the other hand, he owed his mother a phone call. If he didn’t return her call soon, she would contact the Bureau of Land Management or the National Park Service or ski patrol—she really had no concept of his life in Colorado—and have them begin searching the peaks and canyons for him.
His choice was clear.
“Sebastian?” She squealed his name in her unique I-love-you-and-I-want-to-kill-you high-pitched mom voice. “I was beginning
to worry. Are you okay? Why haven’t you called me?”
He smiled in spite of himself. “Hi, Mom. I’m fine. I texted you on Saturday—”
“Oh.” The word was long and drawn out and filled with impatience and disapproval. “You know I don’t look at my texts. What’s
wrong with a good old-fashioned phone call every now and then?”
“You mean like we had last Wednesday?” Her end of the call went silent for a little too long, and he found himself hoping
his dad wasn’t listening. If so, a lecture about respect would be imminent. Dial it back. We’re clearly not in a teasing mood. “Sorry, Mom. It’s been busy.”
“Tell me again, what is it they have you doing out there?”
It had been six years. Six years. And still, no one in his family understood what he was doing in Adelaide Springs. They didn’t understand what had taken him
there, and they certainly didn’t understand what had kept him there. At least his mother tried to understand. The woman was brilliant. High performing. A Rhodes scholar who had spent a few years clerking for Sandra Day
O’Connor. Clearly she didn’t put too much effort into understanding—otherwise she would have understood. But she pretended
to try. She pretended to care. That was more than he could say about his father and brothers.
“What is it that who has me doing out here, Mom?”
“The newspaper you’re working for.”
Sure. No problem. We can go through this again.
“I’m not really working for a newspaper. I bought the newspaper.”
“Which one?”
“The one here in Adelaide Springs. It’s just a little local paper that had sort of fizzled out, and I’m trying to give it
some new life. That’s all. I probably won’t even launch the first issue for several months still, and then my readership will
max out at about two hundred people.” He was being generous. “It’s really just a passion project more than anything else.”
He held his breath and anticipated her next question. At least she’d led up to it. It was always the one his dad started with.
“Well, that can’t pay very much, surely. What are you doing for money?”
Sebastian switched his phone to his right ear and used his left hand to grab the lever and recline his seat. He might as well
settle in. “I’m fine, Mom. I work odd jobs. Remember? I told you about the bartending job and the driver job?” And, technically,
his local government job, though the $150-a-month stipend and up to two free movie rentals a week from Video Palace probably
wouldn’t ease the worried mind of Dr. Elizabeth Haney-Sudworth, JD, MBA.
“Do you work for Uber? I don’t feel comfortable having you work for Uber. There was a woman in McLean last year who reserved
an Uber driver to take her to an event in Arlington, and they found her two days later in Silver Spring, disheveled and unsure
as to her whereabouts.”
“It’s DC, Mom. People show up disheveled and unsure of their whereabouts all the time.”
Again, silence.
“Look, I don’t work for Uber. This is a really small town, and everything is privately owned. We don’t even have an app, okay?
You have to pick up the phone and talk to a person in order to get a ride.”
“Well, that’s something.”
Besides, don’t you remember? I got a huge payout from the network when I went off the deep end and they wanted out of my contract.
And Erin only got about half of that. I could have a high six-figure deal tomorrow if I would agree to write my memoir, yet I choose to borrow a 1974 Ford Bronco, I live essentially in a yurt, and on PTA Night I make a killing in tips. I’m good.
Of course they didn’t know any of that. Or who knows? Maybe they did. Sebastian always figured his dad would have had to go
out of his way not to learn the truth with the circles he ran in. And there was a very real possibility that he had done exactly that. It wasn’t difficult to imagine he continually went out of his way to avoid learning something about his son he would
consider humiliating. Regardless, the Sudworths were experts at being a loving, caring family who stayed in regular contact
with each other and never actually talked about anything.
“How are you? How’s Dad? You guys staying put for a bit?”
She sighed so melodramatically that it wouldn’t have been surprising to hear her say the word sigh in a very onomatopoeia sort of way. “You know your father.”
Sure. He supposed he did. As much as anyone could. “So where is he now?”
“Turkey. He wants me to join him there next week, but Betsy Marsh has her annual fundraiser for the Bethesda animal shelter,
and she’s counting on me being there.”
“Well, you certainly wouldn’t want to miss that.”
“Seb, are you sassing me?”
No, actually. That time he wasn’t.
“No, ma’am. I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Okay... that time he was.
It had to have been difficult for her, being married to a man who claimed he needed only his copy of the US Constitution and his passport in order to be fulfilled in life, plus raising three sons who had spent so much time trying to become who they believed their dad wanted them to be that they tended to overlook the strong, brilliant, accomplished woman who folded their laundry and cooked their meals.
Or who at least had daily household meetings to determine what meals the housekeeper would cook for them.
“Oh!” Her voice had risen about three octaves. “I almost forgot the reason I called.”
“ I called you .”
“You called me back . Finally. And the reason I called was to tell you I ran into Paul and Becky at the Mediterranean Way.”
“What were they doing there?”
“It’s the only place you can find decent grocer’s goose liver paté, Sebastian. You know that. They also have a truffle oil
that—”
“Mom!” He squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “I meant what were they doing in Dupont Circle?”
“That’s what I called to tell you. They aren’t in Chicago anymore. Becky started teaching foreign policy at Georgetown this
semester, which makes no sense to your father and me. She was head of the department and had tenure at Northwestern, but of
course Paul can be a surgeon anywhere.”
Paul and Becky Whitford. Adventurous, hilarious intellectuals who didn’t come across as intellectuals. Becky had been his
favorite poli-sci professor at Northwestern, and when one of her student research assistant positions opened up sophomore
year, he’d jumped at it. Within six months he’d fallen in love with her daughter. While he and Erin were together, Paul and
Becky had been his mentors, his friends, and the parents he’d secretly wished he had. And when Erin left him, Paul and Becky
were added to the very long list of important people in his life who no longer seemed to care if he was dead or alive.
He couldn’t blame them. Not really. They may have claimed to love him like a son, but she was their actual daughter.
And, as it all became clear in the end, he hadn’t been a very good husband to her.
Besides, Sebastian got to keep the London apartment in the divorce.
He couldn’t have expected to get to keep his in-laws too.
He raised his seat back to a sitting position. “So how was that? Seeing them, I mean. Was it awkward?”
“Why would it be awkward? Paul and Becky and I weren’t the ones who made a mess of things.”
He exhaled. “Thanks for that, Mom.”
She gasped softly. “I’m sorry, Seb. I don’t know why I said that. Truly.”
Because that’s probably what Dad’s been saying, verbatim. Because it’s how you secretly feel. Because it’s true.
“It’s fine. Well, look, Mom... I need to—”
“Erin’s pregnant, Sebastian. That’s why they moved to DC.”
The floor dropped out from under him, and he grabbed on to the steering wheel to stabilize himself. He took a deep breath
and let it out. And then again. His eyes began to sting, and he raised them up to focus on the visor and began chewing on
his lip. “I see,” he muttered through his nearly closed mouth.
“Her husband is investigative counsel for the Office of Congressional Ethics, or something pretentious like that. I mean,
seriously, Sebastian. Have you ever heard anything so pretentious in your life?”
No. No, I haven’t. At least not since the uttering of the words “decent grocer’s goose liver paté.”
“I didn’t even know she was married.” He did say that, right? Had the words actually made their way out of his mouth, or had
they gotten caught up in his teeth, which were clamping down tighter and tighter by the moment?
“Mom, I really have to go. Tell Dad hi for me. I love you.”
“I love you, too, dear—”
He hit the End button on his phone before she could ask if he had messages to pass along to Darius or Xavier or their wives or his nieces and nephews or, most likely, her pet cockatiel, Edna.
He pulled the keys out of the ignition as quickly as he could—which wasn’t nearly quick enough, with the way his hands were
shaking—and opened the door. He slammed it behind him and then ignored the instant guilt he felt for treating Andi’s classic
Bronco with so little regard, stomped the ten yards to the forest of pines that surrounded the perimeter of Cassidy’s, and
screamed as loud and as long as his lungs would allow.