Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 98048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Dad wraps an arm around my shoulder and kisses the side of my head. “Thanks, kiddo. You’re really helping me out of a jam.”
I can’t ever say no to him, even when I know I’m getting hosed. Ronan West might come off as a hard-ass, but he’s always been a good father. Gave us enough freedom to get in trouble but was always there to bail us out. Even when he was pissed at us, we knew he cared.
“Grab your brothers, will ya? We gotta talk about a couple things.”
He sends me off with foreboding and a pat on the back. Past experience has taught me that family meetings are never a positive affair. Family meetings mean more upheaval. Which is terrifying, because wasn’t getting me to uproot my life to temporarily move back home already the big ask? I’m running through things in my head like breaking my lease or getting a subletter, quitting my job or pleading for a sabbatical, and my dad’s still got more on the docket?
“Hey, shithead.” Jay, who’s sitting on the arm of the sofa in the living room, kicks my shin as I walk up. “Grab me another beer.”
“Get it yourself, butt sniffer.”
He’s already ditched his jacket and tie, his white dress shirt unbuttoned at the top and sleeves rolled up. The others aren’t much better, all of them in various states of giving up on the whole suit thing since getting back from the cemetery.
“Did you see Miss Grace? From middle school?” Billy, who’s still not old enough to drink, tries to offer me a flask, but I wave it off. Jay snatches it instead. “She showed up a minute ago with Corey Doucette carrying her stupid little purse dog.”
“Moustache Doucette?” I grin at the memory. In freshman year, Corey grew this creepy serial killer strip of hair on his lip and just refused to shave the nasty thing until it escalated to the threat of suspension if he didn’t get rid of it. He was scaring the teachers. “Miss Grace has got to be, what, seventy?”
“I think she was seventy when I had her class in eighth grade,” Shane says, shivering to himself.
“So they’re, like, screwing?” Craig’s face contorts in horror. His was the last class she taught before retiring. My youngest brother is now a high school graduate. “That’s so messed up.”
“Come on,” I tell them. “Dad wants to talk to us in the den.”
Once assembled, Dad starts in again on his tie and shirt collar until Jay hands him the flask and he takes a relieved swig. “So I’m just gonna come out with it: I’m putting the house up for sale.”
“What the hell?” Kellan, the eldest, speaks for all of us when his outburst stunts Dad’s announcement. “Where did this come from?”
“It’s just me and Craig here now,” Dad says, “and with him going off to college in a couple months, it doesn’t make much sense to hang on to this big, empty place. Time to downsize.”
“Dad, come on,” Billy interjects. “Where’s Shane gonna sleep when he forgets where he lives again?”
“One time,” Shane growls, punching him in the arm.
“Yeah, fuck you, one time.” Billy gives him a shove. “What about when you slept on the beach because you couldn’t find your car parked not even fifty yards away?”
“Will y’all knock it off? You’re acting like a bunch of damn idiots. There are people still out there mourning your mother.”
That shuts everyone up real quick. For just a minute or two, we’d forgotten. That’s what keeps happening. We forget, and then the truck slams into us again and we’re snapped back to the present, to this strange reality that doesn’t feel right.
“Like I said, it’s too much house for one person. My mind’s made up.” Dad’s tone is firm. “But before I can put it on the market, we’ve got to fix it up a little. Put a spit shine on it.”
Seems like everything’s changing too fast, and I can’t keep up. I barely had time to get my head around Mom being sick before we were putting her in the ground, and now I’ve got to pick up and move my whole life back home, only to find out home won’t exist much longer either. I’ve got whiplash, but I’m standing still, watching everything swirl around me.
“There’s no sense clearing out until Craig gets settled at school in the fall,” Dad says, “so it’ll be a little while yet. But there it is. Thought y’all should know sooner rather than later.”
With that, he ducks out of the den. Damage done. He leaves us there with the fallout of his announcement, all of us shell-shocked and staggering.
“Shit,” Shane says like he just remembered he left his keys on the beach at high tide. “You know how much porn and old weed is hidden in this house?”