Cathryn Parry - The Long Way Home

“Dunno, Mikhael,” Bruce said. “I haven’t been home in a week.”

“Where’ve you been?” Both twins stared at him. They were always slightly bewildered that Bruce traveled for a living instead of staying put in Fort Lauderdale and enjoying his boat and his motorcycle in the sunshine.

“I’m on a project in D.C. The navy hired me to analyze their procurement systems.”

He earned blank stares from his brothers. But that was good—if they didn’t know what he was talking about, they wouldn’t ask questions, which meant he could bug out of town even sooner.

“Bruce! When did you get here?”

Internally he groaned. Mark’s wife, Desiree, stood on her toes to kiss him on the cheek, and Mike’s wife, Holly, followed suit. A real family reunion. At this rate, he’d never be able to leave.

But he smiled, gave each of them the requisite kiss, went through the motions of being a sociable brother-in-law. “You two are looking better and better. How are the kids?”

“My niece Kristen is watching them upstairs in the room,” Desiree told him. “You should go see them.” She scratched her head, and Bruce noticed she had a new tattoo on her wrist. Some kind of Chinese symbol. “Your mother is up there, too. I swear, she’s in her glory. She loves it when we all get together.”

“She’ll be in heaven when we’re all in Disney World together,” Holly agreed.

It was Bruce’s turn to stare. What was she talking about?

Oh, yeah. The whole clan was going together for the week of Maureen’s honeymoon: his parents, his siblings and their kids, mainly so Maureen and Jimmy’s three wouldn’t be too upset by their parents’ absence. Bruce had covered the airfare, hotel and the car rental with his points, so he’d contributed without having to go with them. “I’m sure you’ll all have a good time.”

“It was so great of you to agree to stay here while we’re gone. We’ve got the house all set for you,” Desiree added.

Wait, what? Warnings went off in his head. “No, I’m leaving,” he stated as calmly as he could. “I’m taking the 6:00 a.m. flight out tomorrow.”

“The fridge is stocked,” Desiree continued rapid-fire. Sometimes he wondered at their habit of talking over everybody. Maybe it was part of being in a big family. “And we changed the sheets on our bed, so you can use our room. There’s a copy of the instructions tacked to the refrigerator. All you have to remember to do is to leave the screen door unlocked for the dog-sitter.”

Mark and Desiree had two yapping dachshunds. “Sorry, you’ve got me mixed up with somebody else.” He didn’t do pets.

Holly shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“You haven’t talked to Moe yet, have you?” Desiree asked.

“Where is she?”

“She’s up in the room with Mom and the kids.”

His mother lived and died for her grandkids. She’d been sixty when Nina was born, and on that day, she had promptly retired from being the dispatcher and chief bookkeeper for the family plumbing business. Holly currently did the honors. Desiree was some kind of nurse.

“Or Jimmy,” Holly added. “He’s the one who organized it all.”

What had Jimmy organized? “I’m not part of this plan, whatever it is,” Bruce said coldly.

Holly and Desiree glanced at each other. He was getting all kinds of bad signals.

“I think,” Holly said slowly, “that you had better talk to Maureen.”

“Isn’t she on her honeymoon as of now?” he demanded.

Mark ambled up beside him. The ball game had cut to commercial.

Bruce pointed to his brother. “Tell your wife I’m flying back to D.C. in the morning. Tell her that I work for a living. I’ve already used my two weeks’ vacation, and I don’t have time for a social call.”

“We’re having a family emergency,” Mark calmly explained. “Everybody’s got to pitch in.”

“What are you talking about?” he demanded.

Everyone went quiet and he realized he’d been shouting. His brothers looked solemn. Their wives just looked sorry for him.

Bruce ground his teeth and got control of his emotions, waiting for them to explain. As a business consultant, he always waited for the people with the problems to speak first. But he suspected his family was all a little bit afraid of him now. He didn’t blame them; he had reached the end of his rope. This trip home had left him edgy, and he didn’t like it. This wasn’t like him. On the job, he was known for being Mr. Cool. He skimmed the surface of life; he didn’t get sucked into the muck. And if they weren’t used to that by now, it was their problem.

“Look, I’ll see you guys next Thanksgiving,” Bruce said quietly. “In Florida, like always.”

“You really need to talk to Maureen,” Mike said.

“And why is that?”

Holly and Desiree snuck a glance at each other. A loaded glance, ripe with meaning. He just didn’t know what it meant. Mark looked at his toes, and Mike was busy peeling the label off his beer bottle.

“If you can’t tell me, then it can’t be that important,” Bruce said. “Now if you’ll excuse me.” He pulled out his phone and pressed the speed dial number for Maureen. Honeymoon or no honeymoon, he was solving this problem before he left.

Desiree put her hand on his arm. “It’s Gramps. He’s sick.”

Everything within Bruce stilled. He should have known something would have been very wrong to keep Gramps from coming to Maureen’s wedding.

“How sick?” he asked.

“They gave him a CAT scan this week,” Holly said. “Gramps has beginning stages Alzheimer’s.”

Bruce felt as if he’d been sucker-punched. He needed to sit.

Leaning against a barstool, he tried to remember his last interaction with Gramps. Thanksgiving, six months ago at his place. Gramps hadn’t been quite as strong as usual, but he’d been riding in Bruce’s boat, for cripe’s sake. And he’d seemed completely lucid.

“He’s frail, Bruce. He’s been going downhill rapidly. You won’t recognize him.”

Bruce turned back to his his phone. He’d have to check flight times for tomorrow afternoon. “I’ll visit him early before I leave.” He’d be flying out on standby, and that meant a middle seat in the rear of the plane beside the bathrooms, but for Gramps, he would do it.

He was glad that nothing had worked out with Natalie after all. He wanted to be alone tonight.

Now he needed a local hotel room, too. There was no way he was staying in Desiree’s house with her dogs and her nosy neighbors.

Scrolling through his phone’s contact list, he strode toward the bellhop stand, typing as he went. By the time he’d retrieved his suitcase, he’d changed his flight and canceled his reservation at the airport hotel in Boston. He went to the front desk to book a room, momentarily confused that there was no frequent-traveler check-in station, and that he had to wait in a long and snaking holiday-weekend line beside people who commandeered the luggage carts and loaded them with mounds of duffel bags, piles of grocery bags and cases of soda, water and beer.

When he finally got to the front of the line, he was incredulous to hear that there were no rooms available.

And he didn’t have status here, because this wasn’t a national chain.

I’m in hell.

“It’s Sandcastle Weekend,” the bubbly clerk explained.

“It’s what?”

“You’ve never heard of it? Sand sculptors come from all over the world to compete for prizes. It’s our second biggest weekend of the summer, after Fourth of July week, of course.”

Great. His sleepy little hometown had turned international on him.

He was contemplating sleeping in his car when he bumped into Maureen. Without a word, just a shake of her head, she tucked a room key into his hand.

He opened his palm and looked at it. “How did you get this?”

“I reserved a room for you months ago, Bruce. It was booked for last night, too, in case you’d changed your mind about attending the rehearsal dinner.”

He suddenly felt ashamed of himself. Moe rarely asked him for anything. She’d just wanted him to come to her wedding like a normal brother.

A tear had leaked out and was running down her cheek. “Aw, honey.” With nothing else to say, he put an arm around her shoulder.

“We need you to stay for the week, Bruce.”

“You know I can’t.” He suddenly felt tired.

“If you don’t, then I have to stay home from my honeymoon.” “

“That’s...blackmail.”

She pushed her hair out of her eyes. “No, it’s life, Bruce. We have to take care of each other. And frankly, you’ve been doing a piss-poor job.”

“That is not fair,” he said.

“Isn’t it? How is it fair that we’ve all been taking turns visiting Gramps every day, making sure he sees a familiar face because he’s terrified about what’s happening to him, and yet, you’re not a part of it? And you’ll never be a part of it, because you never come home. If he’s lucky, you might show up for his funeral after he’s gone, but we can’t even count on that.”

She was referring to him missing Nana’s funeral a year ago. Well, he’d been in China then. He’d had no choice. “Do not go there,” he said coldly.

“Why not, Bruce? It’s true. You’ve cut yourself off from everyone. No one knows you anymore. The only reason Nina recognizes you is that she sees your photo on the bureau when we visit Gramps every day. He can’t remember me, he can’t remember Nina, but he remembers you. The guy has one son, one daughter-in-law, four grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren and of all of us, you’re the only one whose picture he displays. You’re his favorite, and you can’t even see fit to visit him for one week. To support us for one week.”

“I support you plenty.”

Maureen paused, and in her silence, Bruce knew exactly what she was thinking. “We’re all tired of this, Bruce,” she said quietly. “Get over it.”

“I am over it.” It was the nonfamily members who weren’t. Natalie, for one. “I stayed away to make it easier for you and the rest of the family. I still do.”

“You know, I used to think it was best you stayed away, too, Bruce. You’re right...sometimes it’s hard being here. But lately I’ve been changing my mind. Family is important.” Her voice broke. “I waited until you got here to tell you, but if you really want to make it easier for me, then you’ll step up and help me while I’m gone. Visit Gramps for the week. You’re the only person left for him, and he needs you. Don’t you understand?”

He did. And he couldn’t even spin it anymore, not even to himself.

That was the worst part about it.

CHAPTER FOUR

SOMEONE WAS JUMPING on him.

“Wake up, Uncle Bruce!” Nina screamed in his ear. “We’re going to Disney World!”

Bruce opened one eye. Sunlight streamed in through wide-open curtains. His head ached. For a moment he struggled to remember where he was, a definite drawback to the traveling lifestyle.

Nina smacked him on the temple with a plastic magic wand. “Your hair looks funny. You have bedhead,” she announced.

That was amusing, coming from a six-year-old who wore Mickey Mouse ears and a sparkly princess costume, complete with wig and plastic purse.

His raised a brow at her and propped himself up on one elbow, but his stomach seemed to turn over. Last night Mark and Mike had followed him up here—to this room Moe had reserved for him at the Grand Beachfront Hotel. They’d carried a case of beer with them. Bruce knew the only reason they had made the effort was that a woman in the bar—he thought she might have been one of Bunny Faulkner’s former cleaning maids—had made a comment about him.