I thought about letting the call go to voicemail, but I'd done that to him too many times already. Two missed calls was reasonable. Three was avoidance. Four was the silent treatment.
At least as it pertained to him.
I pushed my glasses up to rest on my head and rubbed my eyes as I answered. "Hey," I said.
"Hey," he replied. He sounded surprised that I answered, and that was fair. I hadn't been terribly communicative recently. "How are you, Skip?"
Oh, but I'd missed him. I loved the weight of his voice, the heavy tumble of his words with just enough of that Texas accent to call up memories of Dallas and Dynasty. I streamed the old reruns of both—the ones that originally aired before I was born—when I needed a taste of home, and of him. I was well aware that the land of the oil-rich and heavily shoulder-padded wasn't my home, but after nine years away from mainland America, I didn't discriminate over regional variations. When I craved New England, I hit up Jessica Fletcher and Murder, She Wrote.
Glancing around my laboratory and the knee-high pile of sea level readouts in need of analysis, I said, "Not to end this conversation before it starts, but…I'm kinda busy."
"With?"
I glanced to the columns of data on my laptop screen. The details were irrelevant, and would only lead to more questions than answers. "Lab stuff."
He cleared his throat and paused, and I could almost see his head tilted to the side and his eyes staring into the distance as he thought. Probably dragging his thumb down his jaw, too.
"Shannon's having the baby tonight," he said. "Come home."
This was a request I'd long expected, and one I'd wrestled with since hearing that my sister was pregnant. Chewing my lower lip, I cut a glance at my notebook, and the detailed list of hand-drawn checkboxes with tasks beside them.
"Who's asking?" It was easier to default to defense mode than deal with the fact I hadn't spoken to my sister in nearly nine years, and coming home for the purpose of celebrating the arrival of her baby meant stopping the clock on our war of silence.
It also meant a tacit acknowledgement that this wasn't our war. No, it was all mine.
"Because I'm comfortable stating that I'm neither pivotal in the childbirth proceedings nor am I useful. I know all about things that explode, but not as it pertains to amniotic sacs, or vaginas," I continued. "Hell, me showing up would probably make the experience worse for her, and that would only add another crime to my tab. If anything, it will make this all about me and Shannon, and not Shannon and Will and Froggie. I don't want to force an awkward scene. Don't you think she has enough to worry about right now?"
"And I'm comfortable stating that vaginas do not explode during childbirth," he said.
"But if Patrick's asking," I continued, thinking of my checklist-loving older brother, "it's because he thinks he's going to reenact the Christmas Truce of 1914, and that is ludicrous—"
"I love when you force obscure bits of history to fit your arguments," he murmured. "Missed this so much."
"And this isn't the trenches of Saint-Yves," I said, ignoring his commentary. I missed him, and he missed me, and all of that was too big to get my arms around tonight. "If Matt's asking, please tell him that he's been formally relieved of his official role as Walsh Family Arbitrator."
"But he really likes it," he said. "Don't rob him of that joy."
"I know Sam isn't asking because he sent me an email two hours ago," I said, ticking off my siblings from oldest to youngest on my hand. "He and Tiel, they're having a boy, by the way."
He laughed. "Trust me, I've heard, and I believe he's buying the Green Monster at Fenway Park so he can have it painted with that news, too."
"It's not Riley. He texts me whenever he has something worth sharing," I said. "So, tell me. Who's asking?"
He sighed, and the noise started as a laugh but then twisted into a rough, snarling sound. The kind I loved. The kind I'd been aching for since walking away from him.
"Your husband," he said finally.
I looked down at the slim platinum band on my ring finger, the one I wasn't even sure why I was wearing.
"Your husband is asking because nine years is nine too many."
"Nick, you're—"
"I'm not having it, lovely. It's time for this to end, and it ends here."