GUS

IF LIFE WERE a movie, Grandpa would sit in the back of a limo, hidden by tinted windows. As it is, he smiles and waves for us to follow like he’s any other man in town, not the man who owns half of it.

Police are calling for order. The fuss is dying down. I’m dying down, too.

“Did that boy hurt you?” Mom searches my face.

I don’t answer.

Her eyes are exhausted. “I know you’re furious with me. I’m furious with me, too. But we have to go with him, Gus. Not a choice.”

Suddenly I can’t believe I marched all that way. I can’t believe I thought I could keep up with Kalyn. I know that’s the fatigue talking, but it’s louder than anything. I want to run back to my friends. I don’t want to move. As usual, I’m split in half.

Mom takes my arm—I can’t even look at her—and leads me to Grandpa’s Land Rover. He opens the door for us before heading around to the other side. Mom gives my hand a squeeze. It unlocks me, just a little.

“Gus. The abyss? Sometimes you have to face it.”

“You aren’t my abyss,” I whisper. “You never were.”

My body won’t cooperate. My brain won’t, either. If I went to Kalyn now, I’d be dead weight. But maybe if I give my brain a minute, I can stare down the abyss who’s starting the engine, adjusting his lapels.

The Land Rover takes us beyond the outskirts of Samsboro. It’s too dark to see much, but my stomach feels the moment we start going uphill. Houses grow larger as we ascend. This is where CEOs live, where wealthy people vacation.

We drive through a familiar wrought iron gate I thought we’d never see again. It takes a full minute to reach the end of the driveway and park in front of the quadruple garage. The air smells less like sugar here.

Grandpa’s house is a rustic dream on steroids. It’s too imposing to feel like a cabin at all. How many trees died to make this monster look quaint? The shiny grill on the deck, the Adirondack chairs overlooking the forest and lake—they scream money. Maybe they just scream. Motion-sensor lights glare at us, detecting our approach.

These polished wooden steps were always too high for me, but I don’t let it show. Grandpa isn’t a super-villain, but there’s a lot of gray area between that and being the sort of person you’d ever want to show weakness in front of.

He leads us into his living room, complete with a taxidermy grizzly bear and a fireplace big enough to swallow us. It’s a kiln no one could bond beside. Mom and I sit on one side of an oak coffee table. Grandpa’s on the other. Behind him is a trophy case filled with family accomplishments.

“Coffee? Tea? Whiskey?”

Mom shakes her head. I’d rather meet the grizzly’s marble eyes than Grandpa’s.

“Well, let me know. Got a dumbwaiter, if you can believe that.”

He must have help hidden under our feet. Grandpa thinks relying on others makes you less of a person. I rely on Tam and Mom, and they rely on each other. I rely on my doctors and my friends, and they rely on me, too. I know that makes us all bigger people.

I can meet Grandpa’s eyes.

“These aren’t the best circumstances for a reunion,” he grumbles. “I should be angry about that stunt, Gus. But it’s nice, getting the whole family together.”

“Tam’s not here,” I say. Mom glances at me.

“I should be angry,” Grandpa repeats, like I never spoke. “It’s appalling that you’d disparage your father’s memory like this. Right when his name’s at stake.”

“I think . . . ​it’s easy to be confused about all this,” Mom says.

“Oh, I’m confused, Beth.” His tone is as level as his stare. “You come to me begging for help, asking about lawyers, saying you’re sorry for shacking up with that woman. Guess you’ve been confused for decades, eh?”

I can see anger in Mom’s eyes, but her expression is neutral as water. No matter what brought her here, she’s always been allergic to this house.

“Gus. I understand how you might be confused about what’s right and wrong. Brain’s a bit soft. That’s not your fault.” He taps his head. “You’re following your mom’s example. But come on, son. That Spence girl’s not even much of a looker.”

I imagine Kalyn’s reaction. She’d punch him once for me, and twice for herself. What she looks like has nothing to do with it. The thought almost makes me smile.

“We’ll all have to get along to make sure Spence stays behind bars. We’ll have to play ball in court. But since when do you have sympathy for the devil?”

“Since always.” “Devil” may as well mean “lesbian” or “disabled” to Grandpa.

His eyes bore into me. “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t have a little fight in you. Guess that’s why you marched. It’s in the family. Rebellious, like me.”

“Like my moms.” I say the easiest words I’ve ever said: “You aren’t my family.”

“The hell I’m not. Who do you think pays for your health care? All those endless surgeries and appointments? That pediatrician from Pakistan, or what have you?”

My heart stutters. I don’t have to look at Mom. I know he’s telling the truth.

And it all makes sense. This is the reason Mom agreed to visit a man and a home she’s allergic to. She isn’t choosing a monster over Tam. She’s choosing me. Again.

All this time, she’s been locked in another tomb I never even noticed.

I have to break us both out.

I sit up straighter. “Gary Spence and Dad were close, weren’t they?”

Grandpa stills. “There are school records that’ll put you straight on that front, boy.”

“Records about Dad bullying Gary Spence. Probably because you thought, um, you w-wanted Dad to. And they still ended up friends. You must have hated that. You must have hated Gary Spence.”

“Hate’s too strong a word. There’s just a hierarchy. A food chain.” Grandpa gestures at the grizzly. “That family’s trash. Don’t need more why than that.”

Maybe Grandpa has another motive. Maybe decades ago, Kalyn’s grandpa gave mine a bad deal on car repair. Maybe Grandpa fought with him in high school. But maybe nothing happened, beyond people pretending to be worth more than others.

“You do need more why. But you don’t feel, I mean, you don’t have it. Dad knew it. I bet he became friends with Gary because you bullied him not to.”

“You don’t know anything.”

“Grandpa, did Dad even like you?”

I can read the answer in his face.

“He was, I mean, probably dying to know Gary Spence. At least Gary Spence wasn’t you.”

Grandpa places the full weight of his stare on Mom. “I never spared those rednecks a thought, until they killed my son.”

“Unless they didn’t.”

“Gus,” Mom warns, but I’m not finished.

“Unless DNA proves Gary Spence is innocent.”

I half expect Grandpa to overturn the table, to come around and grab me.

I don’t expect him to shrug. “You’re right. The DNA would prove Gary Spence didn’t do it. But we won’t let them get that far.”

I’m on my feet, thoughtless about getting there, but Grandpa doesn’t seem to care.

“Listen here, son,” Grandpa says, pouring himself a whiskey. “Best let this one go, now. Ain’t that right, Beth?”

Mom’s mouth is a firm line.

“Mom?”

She won’t look at me.

“Your father was my only son.” Grandpa shakes the glass in his hand. “My name died with him. He can’t carry on a legacy. Can’t keep up the house once I’m gone. He isn’t here to inherit. In life, James was a failure in many ways. In death, at least he’s a martyr.”

“Mom.”

Tears slide down her cheeks.

“The hero, the widow, the son. Things are complicated enough, with the widow being a dyke and the son being damaged. Leave the rest alone, for god’s sake.”

Somewhere in there, Grandpa crossed a line. Mom stands. “Jimmy wasn’t a hero. He was a screwed-up teenager, just like I was. I was wrong, Gus, to let you think he was anything else. Our home was supposed to be an apology, never an altar.”

I think of the faces on the wall, the tomb’s icy chill.

“But I’m done with that. And we’re done here. You called that march a rebellion, Mortimer? Like any rebellion worth its salt, it did its job. It woke people up. It woke me up. I won’t let you insult my son, my wife, or our intelligence anymore.”

“And the consequences?” Grandpa sets his glass down. “You’re fine letting the truth come out?”

Mom laughs. “I haven’t had trouble coming out for years. These aren’t my skeletons. When I testify in court, I’ll say what I never could. And maybe, finally, I’ll sleep through the night.” Mom looks at me. “We’re leaving, Gus. Okay?”

“The hell you are,” Grandpa snarls. “The hell you’re going anywhere until we come to an agreement!”

“Go on, then. Hit me like you used to hit James. You think I never saw the bruises? We were madly in love, remember. Isn’t that how you testified? ‘Madly in love.’ So hit me, old man, but know I’ll hit back.”

Grandpa tries to stand, maybe to hurt her after all, but his leg locks up.

By the time Mom and I reach the foyer, he’s wheezing to keep up, and by the time I get down those deck steps and meet Mom at the bottom, he’s fallen behind.

“Have fun with those medical bills!” he hollers. “Have fun in prison!”

“I could call Tam for a ride,” Mom rasps as we walk down the driveway. When I look back, Grandpa’s bracing himself in the door frame, backlit by amber light.

“It’s not Tam’s job to come, um. To save us.”

“You’re right.” Her pace slows. “You’re right. I wonder why. I wonder if I’ve been waiting for someone to stop bullets, ever since.”

“Ever since what, Mom?”

She’s not crying. She’s not anything. “Ever since I watched your father die.”

A gust of frigid wind blows hard, rising from the bottom of the driveway or beyond. Maybe it’s come all the way here from Samsboro. Back in town, the homecoming game is probably starting, just like it started eighteen years ago. Maybe this is the same breeze Dad—and Mom?—felt that night at Spence Salvage, recycled around the world for two decades. I wonder if Kalyn feels it, and whether it smells as clean to her as it does to me.