Will
Chapter Eight
Damn, did I hate Friday nights.
What should have been the one night a week where I kicked back with a beer and let myself unwind after another mind-numbingly long week, always turned into a weekly obligatory appointment where I had to discuss the highs, lows and in-betweens of life with my family.
Every. Fucking. Week.
At first, it started as a way to help each other cope. After Matthew passed, we all sort of fell apart in different ways.
Mom? She lost it completely.
Dad? He put all his focus on trying to keep Mom afloat.
And Ava? Jesus, I’d never been able to get a full read on her, but she played her part well enough, considering both of my parents assumed she was taking his loss the hardest of us all.
Maybe she was. I didn’t know and, frankly, didn’t care. She’d already shown me her character once before, and I wouldn’t forget it.
The only reason I tolerated her presence is because I knew it’s what Matthew would want. Even if he had known everything that went down five years ago, he still would’ve wanted me to watch out for her.
He loved that girl, in the big, grand way I figured only existed in movies. Flowers and gestures and the rearranging of the stars and planets. He would’ve done it all for her.
And she didn’t even appreciate it.
For me? Matthew’s death crushed me. He was my little brother. And despite us only being a year apart, I’d taken that role very seriously our entire lives.
The fact that I hadn’t been there the moment he needed me? It was something I’d never get over. Not for as long as I lived.
And despite the fact that grieving around other people had never been, and never would be me—I knew my parents needed me, so I attended their weekly dinners, thinking they would eventually taper off as we all found our footing again.
But somehow, three years later, we were still going. With no end in sight.
Trying to compose myself for the hour ahead, I sucked in a breath and lifted my fist to knock on the door of the house I grew up in.
“Will.” Ava appeared in the doorway before my knuckles even made contact. “Come in.”
That was Ava, ever the hostess of the Hughes family. Every week, she was here early, helping with dinner and setting up the table, and staying late to clean. It’s as if she were trying to solidify her place in the family, now that Matthew wasn’t here to secure it for her.
Little did she know, my parents were probably more attached to her than they were to me, viewing her as the daughter they never had. She was set for life.
I stepped past her into the house, trying to look anywhere but at her.
“Is that Will?” my mother’s voice called from the kitchen straight ahead.
“Who else would it be, Mom?” I threw out, walking down the hallway with Ava lingering close behind.
“I didn’t see you at the café at all today,” Ava asked, thinking she wasn’t utterly transparent as she fished for information.
“I was busy.”
“So were we.”
“You were fully staffed,” I told her, feeling a twinge of guilt. “I had Theo there helping out.”
I usually spent a good part of the day at the café, only running out during the slow points, but Elsie had taken up more of the day than I was anticipating.
“Yes, but—” Ava started, until Mom’s voice cut through the second I stepped over the threshold into the kitchen.
“There’s my handsome son!” She set aside her task of tossing the salad to come embrace me as if she saw me once a year, rather than the reality of once a week—and quite usually more.
“Hi, Mom,” I said, shaking out of her reach.
Yeah, I really wasn’t much of a hugger.
Stepping around her, I bee-lined for the fridge, pulling out a beer and leaning back against the counter.
“Henry!” My mother’s voice rose a few decibels as she hollered my father’s name. “Will’s here. Come down for dinner!”
And then, the next twenty minutes were spent the same way they’d been spent every Friday night for the last three years.
My father came down the stairs. Exchanged the same dialogue I’d heard my whole life, centered on the meal we were about to eat, how good it smelled, and how grateful he was to my mother for cooking it. We brought the food to the table, made a few more pointless remarks, and then dug in.
My mother would ask how the café was going, Ava would answer for us both, finding some sick sense of satisfaction that we were always lumped together as a duo.
My father would inquire about profits and sales.
And everyone would avoid the topic of Matthew, despite him being the sole reason any of us were here in the first place.
I loved my family, but sometimes it was exhausting.
If someone was on the outside looking in, they’d think we were all following some type of script with how predictable the conversation went.
Which is why it didn’t surprise me at all when my mother asked, “Have you two heard that old Mr. Briggs’s place has a new tenant? ”
I took a swig of beer.
“Oh, we know,” Ava said, eyeing me conspiratorially. “Your son here almost ran her out of town her first day.”
“William Hughes!” My mother threw her napkin down on the table.
“It was a misunderstanding,” I said, shooting a glare in Ava’s direction.
“Well, you be nice to the girl. God knows this town needs a few more young people to liven up the crowd.”
“Do we?” I asked, not particularly eager to sit around talking about Elsie with my family.
“Well, it certainly wouldn’t hurt.” My mother huffed. “Now, tell me about the girl. Is she pretty?”
“Why does that matter?” I asked.
“I just think there’s a few men in this town who would do good to settle down with a nice, pretty girl.”
“You haven’t met her yet, and you’re trying to marry her off to a townie?”
My father chuckled at the other end of the table.
“I think that’s a wonderful idea, Rose.” Ava beamed at my mother. “Maybe I could introduce her to Tim. Or maybe Colin?”
“What?” I reeled, gaping at Ava. “Why would you set her up with anyone?”
“Oh, Will.” My mother tsked with a frown. “I think it would be nice. We aren’t arranging the girl’s marriage. It would just be a nice welcome to town, introduce her to some people around her age.”
The idea rubbed me the wrong way instantly.
“Just leave her alone,” I told them. “She’s only here for a few months to write, and then she’ll be gone. I doubt she’ll want to spend her time mingling with people like Colin.”
“A writer! How exciting!” my mother chirped.
“How do you know how long she’s here for?” Ava turned toward me, those lines of displeasure creasing her forehead.
“What?”
“And how do you know she’s here to write? She didn’t mention that to us.”
“She told me,” I said, stabbing a piece of broccoli on my plate.
“When?” Ava pressed. “I don’t remember her mentioning that.”
“Today,” I admitted, irritated beyond all reason that no one ever taught Ava how to mind her own business.
“Today?” my mother and Ava asked in unison, one with considerably more excitement than the other.
“So you’re friendly with the girl, then?” my mother asked, leaning forward as if afraid to miss a single breath of a detail. “That’s wonderful, Will.”
“Where did you see her today?” Ava continued.
If we were alone, I would’ve ignored the question, taking smug satisfaction in Ava’s displeasure over being denied information about my personal life.
As it was, with my mother on the edge of her seat, waiting eagerly for my response, I was trapped.
“I stopped by her house to fix the broken lock on the back door. That’s all.”
“That’s nice,” my mother started, but Ava was louder.
“I just don’t understand how you went from hating her guts to fixing her lock.”
“I don’t hate her guts.”
“It didn’t look that way a few days ago. You practically ran her out of the café.”
“Charming, Will.” My mother frowned again.
“Hang on, kids,” my father said, finally deeming to provide us a word, now that he’d finished eating. “What’s all this fuss about?”
“Well,” my mother said, “I suspect Ava is upset that Will might be jeopardizing her chance at a new friendship. Is that right?”
Ava’s pale face reddened, and I once again had the chance to see how wildly off the money my family was in dissecting her intentions.
“Right,” Ava said anyway. “I could use a new friend.”
I snorted. “You don’t have friends, Ava. You have people you try to control. And I doubt she’s going to be one of them.”
“Will!” My mother gasped. “How could you be so rude to Ava? If Matthew were here, he’d be ashamed of the way you were acting.”
“If Matthew were here, we wouldn’t be having these weekly dinners,” I said, standing from my seat.
“And you’d be off by yourself, living a life of total isolation out there in the cabin of yours.”
“Isolation?” I laughed. “I’m an eight-minute walk from the town square. There is no such thing as isolation in Colbridge.”
“You know what I mean. You’re content to push everyone away, holding us all at arm’s length,” my mother said, emotion pooling in her eyes.
“Give the boy a break.” My father sighed. “Everyone handles grief differently.”
“It’s not grief,” I told them. “I just like being alone. What the hell is wrong with that?”
“You never used to be like this. You, Ava, and Matthew used to be the best of friends. You were never without each other, don’t you remember?”
I felt Ava’s gaze on me, desperate to hear my answer. After all, it was the question she’d harassed me with ever since she married my brother.
We used to be friends before everything happened. Don’t you remember? Can’t we be friends again?
“Things change,” I told them.
And sometimes, what’s broken can’t be fixed.