They decided to go minigolfing. Spencer and JJ had convinced the rest of the family that it was important, while they were declining to comment publicly on the matter of their father’s sexual affairs, to make a show of family unity. The entire plan was premised on the assumption that someone would recognize them, take a picture and post it on social media. Then that picture would circulate on the internet and offer proof of their strong family values and John Bright’s electability. It seemed far-fetched to Ian, until it happened.
They were still picking out their little clubs when the young man at the soft-serve window on the other side of the green spotted them. By the time they were teeing up at the mini windmill, he’d posted the picture online.
“Mom, you’re up next,” Philip said, and Patty stepped ahead of them to tap her ball under a small bridge.
John Bright put a gentle hand on her arm, and she leaned in to receive his cheek kiss.
Charlie and Philip smiled hopefully, children desperate to believe.
The soft-serve-stand guy took another shot from afar.
It seemed a little over the top to Ian, too obvious a rebuttal for the world to buy it. Their public affection couldn’t possibly be an effective counterweight to the ceaseless buzz of John Senior’s multiple affairs. But its obviousness, he suspected, would be the reason it would work and he would be wrong. Spencer told him it would work, and Ian had to admit that his husband was very good at this campaign business. It was always assumed that JJ was the political brother, the one most likely to turn into their father. But Spencer was at least as comfortable with it as JJ was, and possibly hungrier.
The most remarkable thing about this campaign arrangement was how well the brothers were working together. It wasn’t just JJ and Spencer; it was all of the Bright men. Even Philip, who was usually a reluctant tagalong on this strange summer adventure, was no longer an object of their teasing. It was as if the revelation of their father’s impropriety had galvanized all that long-suppressed Bright brothers energy toward the campaign. They wanted to win for themselves, together, but not for John Senior.
Mary-Beth came up behind Ian and whispered in his ear. “Just one big happy family.”
He rolled his eyes. “It’s unbelievable.”
“Like nothing ever happened.”
“Is this what going crazy feels like?”
“I believe it is.”
Patty Bright turned back at that moment, and her eyes locked on Ian. He stopped laughing. Even as the Brights did this happy-family show, Patty seemed especially stiff. Something had hardened in her over the past few days. And although Ian wanted to stay sympathetic, all the things about his mother-in-law that had long bothered him were now on display. The calculating way she moved through the world, the unvarnished self-interest. Was it possible to behave like a good mother while still being a bad person? Was it possible for morally compromised people to raise good offspring? Of course it was. It had to be. Ian had married one of the good ones.
Ian and Mary-Beth let the group go up ahead as Cameron sent his ball into the mouth of a painted moose. JJ said something funny to Spencer, and Farah directed her camera at the laughing brothers. It looked particularly artificial from that distance.
“What do you think is going on with Patty?” Ian said.
Mary-Beth shook her head. “Who knows. I’m running low on empathy, though. She wants this campaign as much as John does, so why should we care? It seems kind of ridiculous now that we all tried to step in on her behalf. I’m done trying to protect her.”
Ian looked up at the high sun. “I have to admit, Mary-Beth... I hope they lose. I know I shouldn’t, but I do. I hope Spencer at least gets to stay involved with this campaign from New York, stay occupied while he’s in between books, and then I hope they lose and we all go back to our lives.”
“Me, too. I’m nervous about what all this is doing to the boys, being in the spotlight. I want them to have a normal life.”
Ian didn’t say anything more about that. He thought Lucas and Cameron were becoming spoiled with all the public attention. He’d heard Lucas describe their newfound popularity as our brand—not a good look for two well-connected white boys on the fringes of a family sex scandal.
Ian watched Mary-Beth as she watched her sons goof around. She probably saw something different when she looked at them, he thought, and who could blame her. They were hers, and she was probably blind to their flaws.
John Senior took his turn with the pink golf ball. They watched him swing his club gently as the ball rolled forward and fell with a plop into the hole.
The group cheered self-consciously and the soft-serve-stand guy took another picture.
John Senior picked the ball out of the hole. “Now, who’s up for oysters next?”
They were only midway through the short minigolf round, but nobody expected to finish. They’d already been spotted and photographed doing happy-family things, and so the purpose of the outing had been realized.
Mary-Beth and Ian applied smiles to their faces and joined the rest of the group.
Oysters at The Huckleberry Inn were always a grand affair: sitting outside, looking out at the horses grazing in the rolling hills. It was easy to forget about the ills of the modern world and just bask in a sort of antiquarian memory of American greatness.
But the ills were still out there, and on that clear day, the Brights were plowing through chilled rosé at an accelerated pace to forget them.
“To family,” John said, raising a stemmed glass.
They clinked and drank. “To family.”
The waitress came to replace a platter of empty Wellfleet shells on ice with fresh ones. She adjusted the umbrella above them, just so, to account for the shifting sun. A woman approached from a nearby table and asked to have her picture taken with John Bright, which he glowingly obliged to. (If she knew of the affairs, she didn’t seem to care.) Farah was there, holding a camera with one arm and propping that arm up with the other. She looked tired.
None of the Brights, or their extras, said anything about anything throughout lunch. They spoke of the lovely weather and the verdant pastures. They tried to remember the last time they’d been horseback riding, and JJ reminded them of the Montana vacation from ten years before. That had been a nice trip, everyone agreed. We should get out the old photo album from that trip. And maybe we need to plan another vacation out West. It went around and around like that for a long time. It was perfectly fine for Ian, but at a certain point, it becomes more exhausting to avoid a topic of conversation than to simply sit in silence. He would have been fine with silence.
“I have a toast,” Patty finally announced. “I’d like to toast to Philip.”
Everyone turned to Philip, who looked the most surprised of them all.
“In all this campaign activity, I don’t think we’ve properly congratulated you on your upcoming...studies. We’re proud of you, Phil. It’s good to have something you care about.”
With some hesitation, the table nodded and brought their glasses together. No one made any jokes. They just toasted.
“Thank you, Mom. That means a lot.”
“So when does school start?” JJ asked. “Is that what we call it? Graduate school?”
“Sure, or seminary. I start the first week of September. I’ll head to Boston the week before that to move in.”
“I’m so glad you’ll be close,” Patty said.
And Philip’s face lit up. His chin lifted slightly and his eyes sparkled. Why Patty was giving him this gift of her blessing now was entirely unclear to them, but it was apparent that he’d been desperately awaiting it.
“Yeah, it’s cool, Phil,” Spencer said. He looked to Ian, who smiled in assent.
The rest of them all agreed. It was cool enough for Philip to become a priest. Not entirely understandable, but cool enough.
Their father’s face, however, was blank. “I support whatever you want to do, son. We’re certainly glad to have you back in the area. But tell me again, why the priesthood?”
Philip straightened in his chair. “I’m happy to tell you. In fact, I don’t think I’ve had the opportunity to explain any of this to you guys.”
Everyone waited.
Philip set his water glass down slowly and looked up at them. “I’ve come to realize that the things I’ve been doing all this time have one thing in common—trying to get closer to our shared humanity.”
No one budged. Patty blinked twice. Farah moved closer with her camera.
“Let me be more specific. I wanted to help people, so I joined humanitarian missions. While I was traveling with those folks, I learned about Mandela, Gandhi, Mother Teresa. I also learned about Doris Day and the Catholic Worker Movement, which affected me the most. I started looking at the teachings that had inspired her, and I kind of fell in love. From that angle, the church felt like the culmination of all the disjointed turns I’ve taken in my life. It felt like I had been walking toward this one thing all along.”
The table listened intently as he struggled to find the right sequence of words to explain this meaningful, intangible desire inside him. He was straining.
Philip took another sip of water and wiped his brow with his hand. “Look, I don’t think I have many talents. I know I don’t—not compared to you guys. But I have this one gift that it seems most people don’t have—the ability to listen well. I can pretty much listen to people forever. I like listening. And I can listen in a way that allows me to almost feel what another person is feeling as acutely as they do. I don’t know that this is exactly true, but I feel it is... It’s not, like, magic. It’s just an ability to focus my energy on making people feel seen and heard and understood. It might be my only talent.”
Philip waited for their reaction, but nobody recognized this as his final point. This was his argument for becoming a priest: he wanted to be a listener in a sea of talkers.
To Ian, it was exquisite and important. It was the best argument, perhaps, for doing anything in life. But it also seemed painfully misplaced in this world. It was certainly misplaced in this family. He was speaking a language that no one among them understood, defending a talent that no one appreciated. With or without the blessing of these Brights, Philip was a marvel.
Mary-Beth fought back tears.
Philip’s brothers exchanged glances and smiled.
And Ian noticed that Farah, who’d been recording this exchange from several feet back, had a pained look in her eyes and two worry lines across her forehead.
“I think it’s great, Phil,” Spencer finally said. “It’s great.”
“I agree,” Mary-Beth said.
But John Senior seemed unmoved. Philip’s plan made no sense to his worldview. Perhaps Philip made no sense to him.
The waitress returned and asked if they’d like another bottle of Cinsaut, and John Senior nodded enthusiastically, for the wine and the distraction.
Cameron announced that he was going inside to pee.
JJ clapped a hand on Philip’s shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze.
Beneath the table, Ian put his own hand on Spencer’s knee, and he held it there. He was proud of Spencer for seeing Philip as he deserved to be seen. Spencer was not his father, no matter how much time he spent with his family. Maybe none of them were.
Patty drank from her glass and smiled sadly at her boys.
Something was ending.