Graham stared at the bamboo fly rod in his hands. Blinking, he transferred his gaze to his elder brother.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Fish with it.” Lloyd’s sarcastic comment bit through the haze that had wrapped around Graham ever since he arrived at his father’s house.
Dead. The old man was really gone. Realistically, Graham knew it had to happen, but Maddox Evans was more than his father. The man was a monument. More than human. That he had just quietly slipped away yesterday in his sleep was more than Graham could contemplate.
“I’m aware that’s what it’s for. But I haven’t been fishing since I was eighteen. Why would he give this to me?” The rod was a Phillipson, the pride and joy of his father’s extensive collection. And yet he’d left it to Graham, the only one of his three sons who had given up the sport. Dropped it like a hot rock the moment he had moved out of the family home, in fact. Graham swallowed around the tight knot in his throat. “It doesn’t make any sense.” His voice rasped in his throat. But none of it made any sense. His dad being gone didn’t make sense either.
“I’m sorry, Gray.” His brother’s hand clapped his shoulder, a rough comfort. “The old man going so suddenly…” Lloyd’s jaw tightened. “The kids took it hard.”
Graham gave himself a mental shake. Of course his niece and nephew were broken up. To them, their grandfather was Santa Claus personified.
Maddox and Celia Evans had been the strictest of parents. But the birth of Lloyd’s kids had turned Maddox into the giver of gifts, the dispenser of hugs, and the best storyteller in the whole world—and he had played it to the hilt.
Celia, who had died when Graham was in his teens, hadn’t had the same chance. Somehow, the grief of his mother not having the opportunity to be Mrs. Claus to Maddox’s Santa hit Graham harder than the more recent loss of his father, a surge of loss and loneliness pressing behind his eyes.
Lloyd took the fly rod out of Graham’s hands, set it in a corner of the library and looked out the diamond-paned windows to the lawn stretching down to the woods. “The old man always did want us to become the second coming of A River Runs Through It.”
“Does that make me Brad Pitt?” Graham’s stiff mouth stretched into an unconvincing smile.
“You wish.” The corner of Lloyd’s mouth kicked up, but sorrow still shaded his eyes. “At any rate, don’t get into bad company and get yourself killed.”
Graham snorted. “That seems like it would be Ian’s role, not mine.” If Graham was known as “the quiet one” of the Evans siblings, Ian was the indulged baby of the family, charming and glib enough to get away with just about anything. And he’d gotten away with a lot.
“Yeah, but you know what they say about still waters.” Lloyd glanced at the fly rod in the corner, his mouth tightening. “You could be a criminal mastermind in your spare time and which of us would know?”
“That would be a thing. I can see the headlines. ‘Librarian Runs with Bad Crowd…’”
“…Embezzles Overdue Fines,” Lloyd finished.
“Oh, that would get me far. I might even be able to buy lunch before they caught up with me. At a fast food joint. Maybe. If they had a dollar menu.”
Lloyd’s gaze slid sideways at Graham. “Right. No money in college libraries.”
“Not all of us can be bigshot lawyers. Or sales wizards like Ian. And I’m serious. If you’re worried about anyone, worry about him.”
Lloyd waved a hand. “You should cut him some slack. Ian’s settling down. Finally. Amanda’s been really good for him. And you not having kids—yet—means you don’t have to worry about much. Though…” Lloyd glanced around the dark-paneled room with its furniture upholstered in softly rubbed leather. “…You’re not going to have to worry about much when the house sells. This place is going to go for a lot—” He broke off, pale cheeks reddening.
Graham swallowed around the mass in his throat again and tried to ease the tension his brother’s words had created. Lloyd wasn’t wrong. Just…
“Tactless. Sorry.” Lloyd’s face was the picture of contrition.
“No, it’s…it’s a fact.”
“A tactless fact.”
“You’re the big shot attorney. You can afford to be tactless. I’m the guy who has to deal with temperamental professors and sobbing students.”
Lloyd gave him that older brother, Okay, that’s enough look. It wasn’t the time for either of them to be joking. But what else were they going to do? The idea of diving into a bottomless hole of grief had its appeal, but Graham’s relationship with his father—with his father’s memory, now—wasn’t uncomplicated. In fact, it might be the most complicated thing he had ever experienced.
And it wasn’t going to get any simpler now that the old man was gone.
“So. Ian’s got enough on his plate right now with the wedding planning and everything.” The constant, simmering bitterness he felt toward his younger brother twisted his stomach. Of course Ian would get out of having to handle any work surrounding the funeral. “What do we have to do?” Graham asked.
Lloyd sighed and scrubbed his fingers through his thinning, reddish hair. “Well, the first thing is a meeting with the funeral director.”
Graham brushed dirt from his hands as he turned away from the grave, and Lloyd nodded as he returned to stand with the rest of the family. Ian let go of his fiancée’s hand and approached the grave to scoop up a handful of dirt and drop it on their father’s coffin. He looked stricken, an expression Graham didn’t recognize on his little brother.
Graham looked sideways at Lloyd, but his older brother’s face was frozen and stoic, his fingers engulfing his son’s and daughter’s tiny hands. Constance and David’s little faces were schooled into serious masks, copying their father. Graham sighed and turned back to the minister, who was saying the final words of the service.
“Amen,” Graham murmured automatically. The group at the graveside turned and trudged to the cars that waited on the meandering road through the cemetery, friends pausing to rest hands on the brothers’ shoulders and murmur comforting words. Lloyd ushered his family into the limousine they had hired for the day, the special care he gave to his wife making Graham’s jaw tighten. Ian, copying their eldest brother, made the solicitous gesture of holding the door open for his fiancée, but fumbled by not offering a hand to steady her as she stepped into the low car, instead turning to say something to Lloyd. Amanda’s ankle wobbled and Graham dove forward, catching her clutching hand.
She shot him a grateful glance. “Thanks, Gray.” He released her hand as she stepped into the limo. Ian turned a blank look on Graham.
“What?”
Lloyd cuffed their little brother on the shoulder. “Gray just kept your fiancée from breaking her ankle, doofus.”
Ian grinned at Graham, slate blue eyes unrepentant. “Thanks, bro.”
Lloyd rolled his eyes at Graham as Ian dove into the limousine. “How is it that Mom’s etiquette lessons bypassed him? Entirely?”
Graham settled his shoulders. “He’s the baby.” The eternal excuse, the role Ian would play forever. Just as Graham was “the quiet one” and Lloyd was “the overachiever.”
“Spoiled brat, more like,” Lloyd grumbled.
“You know you’re not going to get an argument from me.” Graham gestured at the limousine door and Lloyd bent to get in, his long limbs spidering into the vehicle. Suppressing a sigh, Graham followed, sliding onto the bench seat at the back next to his sister-in-law. Little David was on her lap, thumb plugged into his mouth, eyelids sagging.
“You okay?” Zoe’s face was a mask of concern as she rocked David from side to side.
“Yeah.”
“You sure about that? You’re on your own an awful lot.”
Graham suppressed a surge of annoyance. “Yes. I’m fine.”
Zoe didn’t so much roll her eyes as flick them upward in irritation. “Sure, Gray. You don’t need anyone else. You’re fine. You’re always fine. Let’s cut the…” She looked down at David, whose eyes had widened at the hint of adult conversation, “…Nonsense. It’s time to get back in the saddle.”
Graham, bearing in mind why they were in the limo, suppressed a smile at Zoe’s near faux pas. She swore like a sailor before having the kids and sometimes had a hard time suppressing the urge to curse a blue streak.
He laid a hand on her shoulder. “I am fine. Really. Save your worry for Connie and David. They’re the ones who thought the old man was the second coming.”
Zoe fixed Graham with a steely gaze. “I’m perfectly capable of worrying about more than one person at a time.”
Frightening, but true. “And you think I need it?”
“I do. You’re lonely, Gray. But you shouldn’t be. You’re a great guy and you should be with a great woman.”
Graham nodded. He didn’t want Zoe worried about him.
Problem was, he agreed with her.
Graham’s father’s living room was full of people in black, all speaking in hushed, respectful tones. The air felt stifling. Sinking into the flowered armchair that had been his mother’s favorite, Graham removed his glasses and scrubbed a hand across his face. Ian wandered over and pulled something out of the inside pocket of his suit jacket. Graham pushed his glasses back up his nose and peered at the object. Great. A flask. Just what today needed. Ian unscrewed it and tipped a small measure down his throat.
“Want some?” Ian extended the flask at Graham.
“No, thanks.” Graham shook his head.
“You need to rethink this ‘I’m a librarian, I’m no fun’ thing.” Ian waggled the flask.
“And you need to remember the fact that we’re at our father’s wake. Fun isn’t exactly what we’re here for.”
Ian darted a glance around the room and capped the flask, tucking it back into his jacket. “Nothing wrong with…”
“…I’m not judging. I’m just not interested.” Graham levered himself to his feet, the soft chair turning the simple act of standing into a struggle.
“Fine. Lloyd told me the old man left you his Phillipson rod.” Ian was trying for his usual freewheeling smile, but Graham could see it was false. His little brother, never outwardly bothered by anything, was not happy.
“Yeah. Didn’t he leave you and Lloyd his pair of Grangers?”
Ian’s mouth tightened. “It’s not fair.”
“Why? Just because I was never as good at fishing as you and Lloyd?”
“Because you didn’t love it the way we did. The way we do. You quit.”
“Ian, you have no idea how I feel about anything.” The truth was, his relationship with fishing was almost as complicated as his relationship with his father had been. The old man had loved it so much, felt so strongly that all three of his sons had to love it too, that some ornery impulse in Graham had made him turn away from it. He had participated, growing up. He’d had to. There was no refusing Maddox Evans. But Graham could and did put forth minimal effort on their trips, not bothering to perfect his casting technique and stealing away to read instead of talking over the day’s doings after dinner.
Ian crossed his arms over his chest. “That rod is wasted on you. You’ll never use it.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You won’t even come on my bachelor party fishing trip. I get why Lloyd can’t, but you—”
That he wouldn’t go was true. But it wasn’t because Graham didn’t want to fish. In fact, ever since taking the rod home with him last week, he had felt the tug of the river.
“That doesn’t have anything to do with fishing. I told you—I have to work.” This was a half-truth that made him cringe internally. He would go into the library that Saturday. He just didn’t have to. Anything to not have to spend even a minute with the gang of idiots his brother called friends. And if he was going to start fishing again, he wanted that to be a private, quiet thing. He wasn’t going to get anything like quiet with the cretins his brother hung out with.
Ian shook his head. “You work too much. And for what?”
Graham sighed. “I like what I do.”
“But you don’t make any money at it.”
This old argument again, only highlighting how different they had become. Graham could barely remember the time when he and Ian were closer to each other than anyone and something in him still ached for the kind, funny little boy his brother had been. “There’s more to life than making money, Ian.”
Amanda approached then, laying a gentle hand on Ian’s sleeve. The giant diamond engagement ring on her left hand flashed in the weak April sunlight filtering through the windows. As different as Lloyd and Ian were, they were alike in their ability and desire for money, status, and luxury. And the women they had both chosen could have been sisters. While Graham liked Zoe and Amanda, they also terrified him a little.
Maddox had been proud of Lloyd and Ian. And he had likewise been baffled by Graham. But Graham’s mother had understood, at least a little. Despite the fact that they were gathered to say goodbye to Maddox, Graham felt another stab of longing for his mother. He stared at the chair he just vacated. He could see her there in his mind’s eye, her embroidery hoop in her hands, plump fingers pulling the colorful silk floss through the fabric in a quiet, steady rhythm. She was the one person who hadn’t found Graham’s bookish inwardness baffling at all.
“He’s restful to be around, dear,” she would say to Maddox. “Leave the boy be. He’s fine.” Graham would curl up on the nearby sofa with a thick volume of Greek or Roman or Norse mythology and the two of them would spend hours in the quiet room, with his mother periodically putting her work down and requesting he read something aloud to her.
“Tell me a story, Gray.” He would flip to the beginning of whatever tale he had been reading and read it aloud to her. She would sit, back straight and eyes closed, drinking in the words.
“You all right?” Amanda’s soft voice penetrated the haze of memory.
Graham inhaled, flashed what he hoped was a reassuring smile at his sister-in-law-to-be and shrugged. “As okay as anyone is today.”
And it was almost true.