Chapter 11 Red, White & Blue #2
He pretended to be interested in Wimbledon highlights for all of two minutes before deciding to call his brother, as anything tennis automatically invoked thoughts of Casey, who used to refer to himself as a “Serena Williams stan,” whatever that meant.
“Now what are you doing up at midnight?” Casey answered the phone in his honey-laced Tennessee twang.
“It’s eleven here,” Jamie reminded him. He set his plate on the nearest end table and sat up straighter. “I’m surprised you’re not at a party in some speakeasy in an underground bunker.”
“I’m afraid I’ve become as boring as you in my old age.”
“I’m sure your aching joints appreciate it,” Jamie joked. “How’s Jelani?”
“Snoring. Loudly.”
Jamie halfway wished he were doing the same. “Well, I didn’t mean to bother you,” he said. “I’ve just had a lot on my mind the last few days…you know I’m supposed to be in Rachael and Nick’s wedding soon, and…I guess it’s got me thinking about Dad.”
Casey exhaled sharply into the phone. “That’s never good.”
“I just wonder…” Jamie absently scratched his beard as he tried to find a diplomatic way to talk shit about their father. “Why do you think he never dated anyone after Mom?”
“Have you met our dad? Who would want him?” The two of them laughed for several beats before Casey soberly continued, “If I had to guess, he was probably too afraid to put himself out there. Easier to just focus on us.”
Jamie bridled at the idea that he was some walking cliché, reliving his own father’s hellish story, thirty years later. “I can relate.”
“Well no shit, Jameson,” Casey said. “You were blessed with Dad’s tender heart. But it means you also got stuck with his unabating martyr complex.”
“It’s actually annoying how smug you are sometimes,” Jamie said, chuckling. “Guess you got that from Mom.”
“Oh, absolutely. Her flightiness, too.”
Shaking his head, Jamie traded the comfort of his couch for the warmth of his terrace, overlooking his trendy Nashville suburb.
Despite mostly quitting years ago, back when Lucy was pregnant, something about standing out there made him ache for the gratifying buzz of a cigarette.
A bad habit he’d picked up from Diane Gallagher.
“Well. Despite inheriting her worst traits, I’d say you turned out okay,” he told Casey.
“We both did.”
“I guess.”
“Why’d Rachael’s wedding make you think about Dad anyway?”
“I don’t know.” Jamie yawned, leaning against the railing to view the fireworks that started to flash in the air above him.
Of course, people had been setting them off throughout the city since sunset, but he never tired of watching those blasts of color fill the sky.
“After the last year, I thought I’d feel relieved to be out of this fight,” he said.
“But I feel like I’m still struggling with something.
I don’t know if it’s listlessness, depression, or just plain old heartbreak… but I don’t wanna be like Dad.”
Casey chuckled in a way that sounded dismissive. “You should move to New York. That inexplicable ennui would be like catnip here.”
“Jesus, you really are like Mom,” Jamie said.
“Listen, just because Dad is back with her doesn’t mean you’re gonna end up with Lucy again. Or at least, it doesn’t have to.”
Jamie felt his face contorting to a scowl. “What…?”
“You’re not deterministically fated to end up just like your father. You get to do whatever you want, you know.”
“No. What do you mean ‘Dad is back with her’?” he demanded. “You’re not talking about Mom, are you?”
“Shit.”
“Spit it out, Case.”
“I thought you knew,” Casey said. “I thought that’s why you were brooding. Trust me, I had no plans on being the one to break this news to you.”
Jamie exhaled, feeling something like a headache forming. His mother was probably the worst person he knew, which was saying a lot considering how he felt about Lucy during the last year. “How long has this been goin’ on?”
Casey hemmed and hawed before giving a noncommittal “A while, I guess?”
“What’s ‘a while’?”
“Since Easter?”
“For months? Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” Jamie was shouting, and while he would’ve liked to pretend it was because of the fireworks, he was simply irate.
“Yes, you’re taking it so well, and don’t seem unhinged at all. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“You’re an ass.”
“You’ve had so much going on,” Casey said, the sarcasm gone from his voice. “I genuinely didn’t think it would help to add this.”
Jamie let out a low grumble, unable to argue with that. “Jesus,” he said, sighing again. “Why would Dad do this?”
“Maybe because being alone sucks. Weren’t you just lamenting him spending the last two decades without someone?”
“Yeah, but not her.”
“Maybe he loves her, Jamie.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Yeah, well, you spent ten years with Maleficent, so I’m not sure you should be judging Dad for anything.”
“Why…do I talk to you?”
“Because you know I’m right. And honestly, it’s time to get over this feud with Mom,” he added pointedly.
“She didn’t ruin your life. You chose to stay.
” Jamie opened his mouth to protest, but Casey beat him to the punch.
“And I know you did it for me. Lord knows I love you for that more than words will ever be adequate enough to express. But, Jamie, you chose that. And you chose Lucy.”
“I don’t blame her for me choosing Lucy.”
Casey laughed as he replied, “Yes, you do. But at the end of the day, let’s be real. You are loved. You are successful. You have an awesome kid, which basically eclipses everything else. What are you so mad at our mother for?”
Jamie couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Her lies, selfishness, and unwillingness to be their mother wasn’t enough? “She destroyed our family,” Jamie said. He stated it as a fact, impossible for Casey to dispute.
“And yet, here you are.”
“You were too young. You wouldn’t understand.”
“I understand, Jamie. I carried that grudge right along with you for more than half my life. Which is how I know…You’ve gotta let some things go, bro. That shit you’re holding on to will swallow you whole.”