“Right, yeah, I’ve got them right here.”
“I guess that’s what I get for putting my sixteen-year-old brother in charge of FedEx-ing my shit to me.”
“Why didn’t you let me handle that? I could have done it from the office.”
“I don’t know.” Honestly, I don’t want him to know exactly how many bills I have. I don’t think Max has any reference point, which is why I asked him.
“Here you go,” Jon says, producing an unsealed manila envelope and pushing it across the table to me.
I take a peek inside. When I see that everything has already been opened, I pull out all of the unfolded and neatly-organized statements. Standing them upright, I continue to stack them on the table, creating a tiny barrier between my brother and me. “Do you have any idea why everything’s been opened?”
“Yeah,” he says simply. I glance up at him and blush, embarrassed that he’s seen the mess that I’ve gotten myself into, and set the pages face down on the table.
“Why?” I try to temper my frustration and building anger.
He picks up the stack and starts to go through them. I tug at my hair, unwilling to see his reaction to the amounts I owe on each of them. “I spent my afternoon here in the hotel paying off your credit cards.” It takes me a second to process what he said. When I look up, he’s setting the pages down, one by one. “Paid off, zero balance. Zero balance. This one, too. Zero balance. You owe nothing. You were so close to having this one paid off on your own, but it’s all gone now, too. Zero balance. Zero balance. And that one, as well. Even this one. Zero balance.”
“What?” I ask him, looking at him like he’s lost his mind.
“Yeah,” he says.
“Why would you do that?”
He takes a drink of his beer and signals for the waitress to bring him another. “Hmmm… do you want the long version or the short version?”
“Short, please,” I tell him, my heart pounding.
“Long it is,” he says.
I roll my eyes, then scan all the bills in front of me, quickly calculating how much money he just gave me today. About twenty-three-thousand dollars. “Holy shit,” I mutter. “Go on.”
“So last week, I was asleep on the couch. I’d been watching the History Channel–something interesting about President Truman–but I couldn’t keep my eyes open, like most nights. All of a sudden, Liv woke me up.
“My first instinct was that something was wrong with Edie, but no, the baby was fine. She told me that Max was on the phone. It appeared that he and Callen and Trey and Zaina had all gone to a party, and Callen and Trey were wasted. The four of them needed a ride home since Trey had taken them all there.”
“Again?” I ask.
“Apparently, this is the second time that Trey and Callen have gotten drunk at a party, so this is Trey’s third time… which is why Livvy wanted me to bring him back to our place instead of sending him home, where he’d be grounded indefinitely. She thought we might be able to talk some sense into him.
“Anyway, I took a cab all the way out to White Plains, which was where this party was, so I could drive Trey’s SUV back to the city. Poor Zaina was so pissed off that she was crying. Max was trying to calm her down. And Trey was just worrying about what Jack was going to do to him. I didn’t bother to tell him he was getting a free pass from his sister.
“But oddly enough, Callen started mouthing off, saying shit like, ‘If this was Max’s dad, you wouldn’t have to worry. He’d be buying us the beer. William bought me beer all the time when I was there. Said it was the closest he’d ever get to having a beer with his sons.’”
I maintain a straight face while he searches it for clues. He’s not getting any from me.
“And then Max started freaking out.” Jon’s voice softens as his speech gets more animated. “He was yelling, ‘Callen, shut the fuck up! What are you talking about? You’re not making any sense! Don’t listen to him, Jon! He’s drunk. Callen, shut up!’ But I could tell by how agitated he was that he was hiding something. So instead of taking him home, after I dropped off Callen and Zaina, I took both of the brothers back to the loft with me.”
“Weird,” I say.
“Isn’t it?” Jon says with a smirk. “So after Trey was passed out on my bed, Livvy and I confronted Max about Callen’s drunken confession. He didn’t want to betray you, Will. He was in tears.” Jon’s eyes are watering as he tells me this. “But he told me what you did for Callen. What you did for Max. Anything for your brothers. You weren’t kidding, were you?”
I still admit nothing.
“I know you know how much you risked in sending Callen away. Right under our noses, too. I still can’t believe you pulled it off–but then again, I can. It just shows the lengths you’d go to in order to protect the people you love, Will, and I had no idea. No fucking idea. Looking back at all the shadiness going on back then, I was making all of these assumptions about you, and here you were, performing heroic acts for a kid you hardly knew because Max cared about him, and he cared about Max. You did it for love. I mean…”
The words get caught in his throat.
“The money you had Max steal from me?” he asks.
I swallow before finally coming clean. “Bus fare. A little spending money.”
“So I was an unwitting accomplice?”
“Well, yeah. I wasn’t going down alone,” I joke with him. “The night Callen ran off, and Max stayed at your place, Callen stayed with me. I had to talk him down. He was in a really bad place. But I couldn’t convince him not to run. He was adamant. He just didn’t have a place to go. I called the one person I knew that owed me something, and I knew he wouldn’t ask any questions.”
“I’m guessing Jack and Emi know?”
“Yeah, and the McNares know.”
He shakes his head at me. “I don’t think I could have done that for him,” Jon tells me. “I don’t think I would have been that brave.”
“You have a lot more at stake, Jon. A wife and a kid… I just had me to think about.”
“You and your whole future… which is vast and promising, Will. It’s something you’ve worked so hard to attain.”
“I believed I was doing the right thing. And I knew Callen would speak on my behalf. I felt like that would count for something, if the whole plan were discovered before we came clean on our own.”
“I just want you to know that the tables have turned. I know you used to look up to me, but I want to be able to say ‘anything for my brothers’ and mean it. I’m not sure I can right now.”
“Sure you can, Jon,” I tell him. “I know you’d do anything for us. Don’t overthink this… or blow it out of proportion. In the heat of the moment, I bet you would have acted in the same way. And I still look up to you. You have flaws, yeah. You’ve judged me for stupid things, in my opinion, but we’re trying to move past that. We’ll be okay.”
“Stupid?” he asks.
“They’re just choices that were different than yours. I can’t change them, and they’ve made me into the person I am. I’m not going to live my life feeling like shit for being that guy. And I’m not going to let you make me feel like shit, either.”
“I’m not trying to, Will. I’m sorry, but that’s not at all what I’m trying to do. You’re right. You seem like you’re doing really well right now. I don’t want to impede that progress.”
I want to tell him about Shea, but I’m not sure now’s the right time.
“Jon, I appreciate that you like what I did for Callen, but I don’t think you needed to pay off my bills for doing that. A simple ‘thank you’ would suffice. Maybe helping me out with a bill or two every now and again would have been cool.”
“I wanted to do something that would take some of the burdens off of you. I know that will. I know that will eliminate a ton of stress from your life and leave you to focus on more important things. Music, writing, work… a woman, whatever,” he says, speeding over the last option.
“About that–”
“I’m not done yet,” he says. He picks up a baseball cap that had been sitting next to him and sets it on the table. WORLD’S BEST UNCLE, it announces. I smile, pick it up, and put it on, even though I know better than to wear hats in nice restaurants. “I’m sorry for focusing on this one negative aspect of you and creating this rift in our relationship. We’ve been close all our lives. You’ve been the closest blood relative I’ve had. I want that back. I need my brother back.”
“Thank you, Jon. I need you back, too.”
“Now take off that cap,” he instructs me. I laugh and remove it, setting it down with the superlative title facing me. He picks it up and flips it over, showing me something on the inside. There’s more embroidery there. EDIE SIENNA on one side and WILLOW SKYE on the other.
“Willow Skye?”
“Yeah… Livvy’s going to have another baby girl in April, and we can’t think of a better way to honor you than to name her after you. We obviously can’t name her William, so we’re going with Willow… and Skye, because you’ve always been fascinated with the sun and the stars.”
“Oh, man, Jon,” I say, biting my lip as a tear drops from each of my eyes. “Fuck, really? I’m sorry. Really?”
“Yeah,” he says with a laugh. We both get up at the same time and hug one another tightly. “You’re the first person we’ve told.”
“Oh, my God, thank you, Jon. Willow Skye. So pretty.”
I put the cap back on when I take a seat again. It’s now my favorite article of clothing.
“And it’s just an honorary title, but we want you to be her Godfather. The tour should be over before she’s born… we’ll have a little ceremony and stuff. Anyone who would go to those lengths for his brother, we would want that kind of influence on our little girl. So I hope you’ll say yes.”
“Of course I will. Absolutely. I’ll even wear this fucking tie,” I tell him, lifting the tie off the table and making him laugh. “Do you have a Godmother in mind yet?”
“Not yet, no.”
“So I met this woman…” I segue. The waitress interrupts us with our food and compliments me on my cap. I start to take it off, but she tells me not to worry about it.
“Tell me about her,” Jon says.
“You know the girl who gave Livvy the baby food recipes?”
“Yeah, of course. She’s a life saver.”
I smile and nod my head. “Yeah, I think she is, too.”
Jon’s smile matches mine. “What was her name?”
“Shea Livingston. I met her in Minneapolis when we were stuck in the blizzard. She owned a restaurant there, but she’s since lost it. The landowner increased her rent so she had to sell the place to cut her losses. Anyway.
“I had to get out of the hotel to get away from the guys, and her place was the only one that was open. The whole city was pretty much shut down, so I was her only customer that day. She’s funny and nurturing and beautiful in every way… and she accepts me and my past.”
“So you just saw her that one day?” Jon asks.
“No, I kept going back. I had to see her again… and again and again. And it’s not what you probably think of me. It wasn’t just, like, the typical hookup. There was no test or anything.”
“Good, because I hated your ‘test.’” I’m still embarrassed that I told my brother about my method of weeding out drunk girls after gigs.
“I know… but the first day, she made me a frozen pot pie–she didn’t have all the ingredients to make one from scratch because of the storm–and we just talked about stuff. She didn’t believe I was an astrophysicist, so I showed her a few problems. It was fun, and revealing, and I left at the end of the day with nothing but the intention to return the next.”
“You have a picture?”
“Of course,” I tell him, pulling out my phone and finding one of the photos I’d taken of her while I was there.
“She is beautiful.” I lean over the table and flick to the next picture of the two of us. It’s a photo Damon took of us in LA. I want him to see it because I swear I feel love every time I look at that one. “Wow,” he says. “I’ve never seen a picture of you with a woman before. And I’ve never seen you look so happy, either.”
“That was last week. I feel like I have a lot of reasons to be happy right now.”
Jon nods, understanding. “So how does it work, with you on tour?”
“Well, she came out to LA for a night. Other than that, I haven’t seen her since.”
“…and… other girls?”
“I haven’t hooked up with any other girls–really–since we started the tour. And I haven’t looked twice at another woman since I met Shea. I thought it would be hard. I thought I’d still number the girls in the audience for the hell of it, like I’ve always done, but I haven’t. I don’t think of it like that anymore.”
“Wow,” he says again. “Is this, like… love?”
“We haven’t said that,” I tell him. “But I almost feel like it’s ubiquitous in everything we say and do anyway. Everything I do for her comes from somewhere deep within me.” I watch his eyes as I say this, hoping he understands what I mean. His smile is subtle, but reaches his eyes.
“I get it. But tell her when you feel it, Will. Don’t be afraid to say it. Even if you think she feels it. Even if you think she knows already. There’s nothing quite like hearing someone say it out loud.”
“Okay,” I agree.
“You think we’ll ever meet her?” he asks.
“Sooner or later.”
“What does that mean?” He looks at me sideways.
“I want to spend Christmas with her.”
My brother’s face falls, but he tries to hide his true feelings. “Mascot’s going to be really disappointed… and what about your court date?”
“Oh, no,” I say. “I want her to come home with me. I wanted your opinion on that… because she’d have to stay with me… at Mom’s…”
“Oh! Oh, thank God. We all wanted you to come home so badly.”
“And I want to go home. I need to give Liv a big hug and congratulate her and buy things for the Godchild I’m going to have.”
“No one knows yet… you can’t tell. We’ll tell everyone at Christmas.”
“All right.”
“Back to bringing someone home with you… hmmm… that’s a tough one.”
“I want to spend as much time with her as possible, and I’d really like for everyone to get to know her.”
“You sure you’re ready for that?” he asks. “It’s not too soon?”
“Pretty sure.”
“All right then. First, you need to ask Max if you can use your old room, because he’s moved in there.”
“I can do that. I’m sure he won’t mind.”
“If this happens, you need to use the front door at all times,” he lectures, letting me know that it’s not okay to use the private door to my old room like I’ve done all my life, which my mother hates.
“Okay…”
“And before she catches wind of anything, you need to call Mom and ask if it’s okay with her. She’s not going to say no, but it’s the polite thing to do. She’ll appreciate it.”
I sigh heavily, but nod my head, agreeing that it’s what needs to happen. I have other things to discuss with my mom when I’m there, so extending the olive branch now is a good start.
After I call Livvy to congratulate her the next morning, I stare at my phone, trying to figure out not even what to say to my mom, but how to talk to her. I haven’t talked to her once since I left to go on tour, even though she’s left me messages.
And now I’m going to call her and ask if I can bring a woman home to stay in her house. I know Jon said she wouldn’t say no, but he probably doesn’t realize I’ve been avoiding her for months.
Backup plan: if she says no, I now have plenty of empty credit cards, and we can stay somewhere nice over the holidays. In fact, maybe we should just do that anyway.
Grow some balls
, Will, and call your mother. Don’t get back into debt after your brother just gave you twenty-three-thousand-dollars because you’re afraid to talk to your mommy.
I check the time on my phone. She should be home from church by now.
It rings four times before she answers.
“Will?”
“Hey, Mom.”
“Is everything all right? Is Jon okay?”
“We’re both fine. I mean, I’m sure he’s fine. I haven’t seen him this morning, but yeah. He’s fine. I’m fine.”
“Well… what’s… why are–”
“How are you?” I interrupt her.
“Uhhh. Shocked, honestly. Surprised to hear from you. That’s how I am.”
“Aside from that. How’s everything else going?”
“Really good. Work’s fine. Max is enjoying his new school. He’s doing great on the swim team. I’ve been to some meets. I sit by Callen and we cheer him on together,” she says.
“That’s awesome. Seeing a little more of him around?”
“Yes. He’s very smart. A good kid, really. I can see what Max sees in him… and they laugh a lot together. We all watch some TV shows when he comes over. They sit on the couch next to each other,” she informs me.
“Well, I would expect that. They are dating.”
“I know,” she says softly.
“Sounds like you’re handling things well. I’m glad, Mom.”
“How are you? Is your phone working? I’ve left you some messages.”
“Yeah, Mom. It’s working. We’ve been busy, and I’m sorry I haven’t called you.” I squeeze my eyes shut and berate myself at the lie. I should have been calling her the whole time, just to check in. I’m a horrible person. “I guess we have a lot to catch up on when I come home.”
“You’ll be home for Christmas?” she asks me.
“The band’s flying home on the twenty-third. Ben’s spending his Christmas in Vegas with his girlfriend and they’re driving the bus back. We have a show on the twenty-ninth in Manhattan, and the tour starts back up again in Hartford on the first.”
“Wow. You’ll be in the city for more than week?”
“If I don’t wear out my welcome there, yeah, that’s the plan,” I tell her.