Four
Hudson
I’m eleven minutes late, which, in my mother’s kitchen, is the equivalent of missing the birth of a child.
I know this because she texted me at minute six.
Mom: Are you alive?
At minute eight:
Mom: Your father is ruining the eggs.
And at minute ten:
Mom: Never mind. We’ve accepted your death.
Some families communicate through quiet affection. Mine uses escalation.
“There he is.” She wheels herself back from the table where she’s been supervising my father while he cooks. “We were about to send out a search party.”
I apologize and kiss her cheek.
Dad slides a plate of eggs onto the table and looks at me. “Tell your mother they’re not burned.”
“They’re not burned,” I say, sliding into the chair next to the empty seat at the end of the table—the spot no one ever claims, though nobody talks about why.
“You didn’t even look at them.”
“I trust you.”
I don’t.
Dad has two egg settings: underdone and overdone. But I’ve been here less than ninety seconds, and I’m not stupid enough to enter that argument.
Mom rolls over to the counter, grabs the coffee pot, and pours it before Dad can get there to do it for her. It’s a small victory she wins about half the time these days.
“I had it,” Dad says.
“I like to keep you on your toes.” She wheels back to the table and sets the mug down at her place with satisfaction.
Fourteen years after her stroke, she still picks small wars and wins them on principle. Dad watches her do it like it’s the first time, which I think might be the secret to how they’ve made this work.
He learned years ago that helping her and taking over aren’t the same thing. It took six months, two arguments loud enough for the neighbors to hear, and a coffee mug thrown at the wall.
The mug missed, but my mother maintains that it was intentional.
Maya hits my leg like a small missile before I’ve even got my jacket off.
“Uncle Hud.” Both arms go up, already certain of the outcome.
“You have a chair.”
“Up.”
I pick her up because I’d do almost anything she asked
“Traitor,” Josh teases Maya, looking up from his coffee. He’s been watching me with that shit-eating grin since I walked in.
I ignore it.
“How’s the research group going?” Mom asks, leaning her elbows on the table. “Still trying to salvage the unsalvageable?”
“Slow,” I tell her, adjusting Maya on my lap. “But nobody has divorced yet, so I’ll take the win.”
It can be exhausting work, watching two people reach the point where they stop choosing each other. Coming here on Sunday mornings to watch my parents bicker over burnt eggs is usually the antidote.
Dad slides the butter to Mom without her asking. She takes it without thanking him. He doesn’t need her to. Thirty-seven years of marriage compressed into one exchange.
I spend a significant portion of my professional life trying to understand what makes relationships survive. Sometimes I think I could save myself the grant funding and just study these two.
Josh’s wife Sophie is cutting a pancake into pieces small enough for Maya to handle, and I’m reaching for the eggs when I notice Josh still watching me over the rim of the mug.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
“You’ve been staring at me since I walked in.”
“I’m admiring my older brother. Is that not allowed?”
Sophie glances between us. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Josh and I say at the same time.
“Okay, now I need to know,” Sophie says, leaning back in her chair.
“There’s nothing to know,” I say at the exact moment Maya—who has apparently been saving this for the right audience—pats my cheek and says, “Ro-an.”
Ah, fuck.
My mother zeroes in on me. “Who’s Ro-an?”
Josh sets his coffee down, delighted to have the opening. “Should I tell them?”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“There’s a lot to tell.”
“Josh,” I warn, glaring at him.
The fucker ignores me.
“I was at his house last Sunday,” he tells the table. “I let myself in with Maya and found a woman standing there, looking sleepy.”
Sleepy is generous. Rowan looked like she’d been resurrected against her will.
Sophie’s fork stops halfway to her mouth.
“A woman,” Mom repeats.
“Ro-an,” Maya offers helpfully, reaching for my toast.
“Rowan,” Josh confirms. “Redhead. Hudson found her sitting on a fire hydrant and brought her home.”
She had also been barefoot and was telling me how bendy she was.
“That is a wildly incomplete summary,” I say. “Nothing happened.”
Josh holds up his hands. “All I’m saying is that her clothes were inside out. Draw your own conclusions.”
“There are no conclusions to draw. I put her in the guestroom. I fell asleep and woke to her screaming.”
“She screamed?” Mom asks, amused. “Well done, son.”
I grimace. “Jesus, Mom.”
“What? I gave birth to three sons. Do you think you were all the Immaculate Conceptions?”
“Yes,” both Josh and I say.
Some things are universal between brothers. Denial of parental sexuality is one of them.
Dad, who has been quietly enjoying his eggs through all of this, finally looks up. “Sounds like a fun morning for everyone.”
Maya twists around to look at me. “Ro-an pretty.”
I ruffle her hair. “Yeah, I know, kid.”
Josh makes a sound into his coffee.
Fuck.
“Not one word, Josh. I swear to God.”
“When do we get to meet her?”
“You don’t.”
“Why not? You already brought her home.”
“She was drunk and stranded.”
“She slept in your bed.”
“Accidentally.”
“Bullshit. Besides, Maya likes her.”
I look down at my niece, who is nodding solemnly up at me.
Great.
Finished with my toast, Maya squirms to get down. I stand to follow her into the living room before anyone else at the table can say another word.
“Convenient timing,” Josh calls after me.
“Isn’t it.”
I find Maya by the bookshelf, already pulling something off the bottom.
In the kitchen, I hear Josh telling Sophie some detail he’s invented.
I should go back and correct him, but I don’t.
Instead, my mind supplies Rowan sitting on that fire hydrant. Copper hair everywhere. Bare feet on cold pavement.
Do you know how bendy I am, Shrink Wrap?
Christ.
I really should’ve left her on the fire hydrant.