The Good Son by Carolyn Mills (free e reader txt) 📗

I remember my brother telling me that he’d known right after meeting her that he was going to marry her.

“Really?” I asked. “How did you know she was the one?”

“I just did,” he said. “But I needed to wait for a bit to make double sure. You know, in case something better came along!” He laughed then, and I probably smiled, even though his words didn’t strike me as particularly funny. But I said nothing.

A FEW WEEKS LATER, RICKY came down to Dunford and took me out for lunch. It was weird, him inviting me out like that. He didn’t want Mom to come, just me, so I had my hackles up as we slid into a booth. I couldn’t figure out what he wanted with me. After we’d ordered, and our drinks had been delivered, he lifted his beer to toast my glass.

“Here’s to getting married,” he said. “The reason I wanted to talk to you is because Lauren and I aren’t going all traditional with the wedding. Well, mostly we are, but she wants her brother to stand up with her. Like, she’s not having any bridesmaids. Just her brother.”

I knew where he was going with this and suddenly it made sense, him asking me to have lunch with him, making nice.

“I know we’re not, like, real close, but I wanted to ask if you’d stand up for me. On my side.”

“You want me to be your bridesmaid?”

“We’re not calling it that. We’re not having bridesmaids and groomsmen and all that, just you and her brother, as our — I don’t know — as our people.”

I wasn’t sure what to feel. I mean, I was surprised, and even touched, but part of me wanted nothing to do with standing up beside my brother, championing him in any way. At the same time, this was his wedding and I was his sister. I couldn’t exactly refuse.

He must have sensed my hesitation, because he quickly added, “Think how happy it would make Mom. Well, me too, but Mom would really love it.”

“Of course,” I said. “What do you need me to do?”

“Show up.” He laughed.

I’M SURE RICKY BELIEVED HE was truly in love when he got married that first time. The wedding was actually nice. Ricky — Richard — was making good money and his whole lifestyle had shifted into new territory. I was surprised at his success. I sort of assumed other people could see through him the way I could, but people seemed to trust him and he was never short on clients.

When he met Lauren, he was still hosting his own open houses — now he pawns them off on rookie agents, because he has better things to do with his weekends, like sneak around with women named Dee Dee — and Lauren happened to stop by, alone, to see the house he was showing. I don’t know exactly how things went from there, but somehow or other Richard ended up with her number and they met for drinks.

Lauren was, and still is, a graphic designer. She was smart, pretty, and single enough for my brother. I’m pretty sure she had a boyfriend at the time, but it wasn’t serious or it wasn’t going well or something that made it easy enough for Richard to step in, probably looking like a hero in the process. There are multiple versions of how they hooked up, so I’m hazy on the particulars. On the day of their wedding, though, even I was convinced that Richard had done it: gone and found true love.

“I’ll have to sell at least three houses, just to pay for your drinks,” Ricky told me, clinking his whiskey against my glass of wine. It wasn’t the first time he’d mentioned the cost of people’s drinks or how many houses he’d need to sell to cover the open bar. I think he wanted everyone to know he was the one paying for it.

“It’s not me you should be worried about,” I told him. “Your friends are the ones pounding back the hard liquor.” I gestured around the reception hall.

Ricky laughed. “Take it easy. I was only joking. Trust me, I can afford this.”

Mom was sipping white wine, making polite conversation with Lauren’s parents, who were both downing gin and tonics like they might never see another one. I wonder if they already had a foreboding sense that Ricky wasn’t going to be the best thing that happened to their daughter. I’ll confess that I didn’t. And if anyone should have guessed, it was me.

That night, watching Ricky and Lauren holding hands and laughing while they made the rounds of the banquet hall, I truly wished them well. I believed, in spite of everything, that Ricky had finally found a path to happiness. Which meant that it might also be possible for me.

CHAPTER SEVEN

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AT SOME POINT IN THE night, I get up to take a Sudafed, desperate for some relief from the pain in my sinuses, but also because I’ve been lying in bed for what feels like hours and I can’t sleep. Is Mom lying awake right now too, in the hospital, all alone? I should have gone to see her. Linda said she was talking up a storm, so at the very least I could have spoken to her on the phone. Unless, that is, she didn’t want to talk to me. That possibility slices through my heart as I swallow what turns out to be my last Sudafed.

I wish Jason was here right now. Anybody. Someone to tell me everything’s going to be okay. But after Jason’s strange pause at the end of our phone conversation, I feel like things are weird, even with him. And I don’t have anyone else to talk to, anyone else I can lean on.

Pulling my coat on over my pyjamas, I slip out the front door to breathe in the cold night air. Right away, I’m shivering, but I don’t go back in. Instead, I shuffle