A Toast to the Good Times (10 page)

I nod, because I know exactly how he feels. The insecurity about your own future, and trying to reconcile what you want with what everyone else wants from you, the feeling that nothing is going to be quite right, and that you have an equal chance of fucking anything and everything up.

“Hey, Landry?”

I cringe, waiting for the tone of the conversation to turn way too serious for ten in the morning.

“If you hurry, you might catch the tail-end of breakfast. Mom made crepes and omelets.” Henry grins like an ass.

The son of a bitch knows I can’t pass up the official Murphy family Christmas Eve breakfast. It’s the same damn breakfast we’ve had every single Christmas Eve since the birth of the Christ child. My stomach grumbles, and my taste buds perk up at the mention of Mom’s crepes. I know they’ll be filled with Nutella and banana slices and covered in a mountain of powdered sugar. Still, my movements toward the kitchen are sluggish.

“Worried about seeing Dad?” Henry mocks with vicious glee.

“Already had the pleasure last night.” I grind my teeth at the memory.

“And you’re going back for seconds?” Henry chuckles.

“No, I’m going in for
breakfast
,” I say as I pause at the
glass door that leads into the kitchen
.

I’m trying to be nonchalant, but I’m scared as hell to see my parents sitting at the breakfast table.

But they are.

Mom is wearing her red flannel pajamas with the snowflakes embroidered on the collar. Dad is in running shorts and a t-shirt, despite the fact that it’s freezing. They clink their steaming mugs together and smile at each other. It’s warm and sappy, and I wonder what the hell I’m even doing here.

On zero sleep, hung-over, feeling like an asshole that I’m here crashing this Norman Rockwell moment.

My hand twitches over the doorknob, and I contemplate bolting. Especially when it dawns on me that, from the looks of things, Dad hasn’t told Mom I’m here, so he really must think I bailed after seeing him last night.

He’s mid-sip of his coffee when he sees me over his mug. The lines in the corners of his eyes from smiling disappear, and his grin goes taut. My mom glances in the direction of his grimace.

My direction.

“Good luck,” Henry whispers, then leaves me standing in the doorway.

Alone.

“Landry!” Mom rushes toward me and pulls me into her arms.

Hugging my mom as an adult has felt strange since I grew two inches taller than her, back in eighth grade. This woman who picked me up countless times as a kid, now all but disappears in my arms. She’s still the same tiny thing, still wearing that same perfume Henry and I picked out for her one year for Christmas because it was on sale and the bottle was shaped like a seashell, which Henry thought was super fancy. I don’t know if she even likes the perfume, but it’s been the one she’s bought since.

The rawness of this whole scene, from smelling that familiar scent, to Mom hugging me so tightly her arms are shaking, and Dad staring at me with his eyes full of disappointment and anger, transports me right back to that night outside the law offices where the ancient family lawyer had drawn up my grandfather’s will, just a few days after I got out of jail.

“Landry, I don’t think you should go now. Not like this,” Mom had pleaded.

I couldn’t look at her. Instead, I stared down at the icy steps outside of the lawyer’s office. The last time I saw her was the night she bailed my ass out of jail, and I still had intense guilt over that.

I may have been a punk, but I never imagined I’d actually have to spend a night in the poky.

“I’ll pay you back for bail once the money clears.” I motioned toward the sad, grey building where Granddad’s old-as-dirt lawyer was slowly drawing up the paperwork.

“It’s not about the money, Landry. I don’t care about the money.”

Her words were sincere, but I couldn’t help scoffing. Because over her shoulder was my dad, sitting in the car, eyes boring into me, with the bruise on his face
from
my
fist.

“Tell
him
that.” I jerked my thumb in the direction of the car. “Seems the only thing that’s mattered lately at all is money. It’s not my fault he couldn’t figure out how to keep a business running. Ever since Granddad died
—
”

“Landry.” My mom grabbed my cheeks between her palms and squeezed them together like I was five years old again and refusing to go into my kindergarten class because it wasn’t art day, and I didn’t wanna go if I couldn’t get my
finger-paint
on. “That man is your father. He kept that business running the best he could. It put food in front of you. It put this coat on your back.”

Mom flicked at my wool collar. “You’re right, money has been important lately. Because everything your dad and his dad put into that business was for you and Henry and Paisley. And it’s all going to go away. So you storm out of town with your pockets full of gold, but don’t you think for a second that just because your grandfather left you that money it meant that he didn’t love and respect your father
—
”

“Then why did he, Mom? Why’d he leave me ninety-percent of his dough if just he wanted me to end up stuck in this shit hole town, bailing my own dad out of a mess he created?”

My mom stepped back from me and shook her head. I knew I’d gone too far, that I was saying things I couldn’t ever take back, but I couldn’t stop.

The day my grandfather died, I felt like I lost the single most important thing in the world.

Granddad listened to me talk about opening up my own bar for years. I’d show him sketches of the layout I’d worked up. I had clippings of what types of glasses I wanted to have in the place. He always said that I made the best old fashioned he’d ever tasted, and he told me stories about the old-school gin joints he used to hang out at before opening his own.

I miss him every single day, and it still blows my mind to know I’ll never hear one of his crazy-ass stories or get to bounce ideas back and forth while he and I dry glasses behind the bar.

Some days it hurts like hell.

And even though I never expected him to leave me his money, I sure as shit wasn’t going to turn away from the opportunity he dropped in my lap.

Granddad had only been in the ground for a week when we found out that he had left me the majority of his money.

And it was only two
days
after that that Dad dropped the bomb that the business his dad had built was low on funds and needed a quick bailout.

And then everyone looked at me.

I was supposed to put my dreams aside and be the
savior
.

But Dad didn’t even
ask
.

He just expected my help. He demanded it. He wanted me to give up the funds to save the family bar and then run the thing, rather than starting up my own like I’d always planned. Earlier that night, I told him once and for all that it wasn’t happening.

“If your grandfather would have known how serious the situation was with the business, he never would have left you all of that money, Landry. You remember that,” Mom said. She talked tough, but the quiver in her voice gave away how torn between me and Dad she was.

“Then Dad should have spoken up, and not been such a proud, stubborn ass.”

“He
did
speak up, Landry. To you. Do you realize how humbling it was for your father, who’s supported an entire family his whole life, to have to go to his son for help?”

“Mom, I’m sorry. But it’s my money now.”

It’s exactly the thing I had repeated over and over again to Dad the night before. He decided he’d heard enough of it and told me that I was a selfish little shit, and a few other choice things and it worked up from there. That’s how we ended up with the cops called on us, and I wound up in jail, gritting my teeth while my mom paid my bail.

“He’s not pressing charges, you know,” Mom said.

I nodded.

“I know. And I’m going to do what he asked and never step foot in his house again. Which is why I’m leaving. Tonight.”

But I broke that promise.

Because here I stand, in the middle of my Dad’s kitchen. He tosses his newspaper down onto the table and stomps away.

“Tommy!” Mom calls after him, but he doesn’t acknowledge her. He just keeps on walking. Just like I did. “Landry, why didn’t you call first?”

“It was a last minute thing. Anyway, who has to call before they come to see their family on Christmas? That’s just fucked up.” I shrug. “ Look, I see I’m still not welcome, though, so I’ll get my coat from downstairs.”

Mom waves her hand around like it’s nonsense, like she somehow missed my Dad throwing daggers at me with his eyes just now.

“
Never mind
all the dramatics, Landry. You’re always welcome in this house, always. No question. It would just be nice to know when you’re on the way back so you don’t give everyone a damn heart attack. Now, sit, there’s still some breakfast.”

I hesitate, but Mom gives me a shove towards the table. “Sit,” she repeats.

I slide into the yellow plastic-covered chair as she scoops what seems like an entire orchard of fruit onto my plate, slides a ham and cheese omelet next to it, and pushes the platter of crepes in my direction. It’s so much food, I don’t know where to start.

“What about Dad? Do you think I should try to talk to him?”

Mom’s dark hair swishes back and forth as she shakes her head.

“Let him come to you. And eat. You look like you just got sprung from a POW camp, Landry. Do they not have food in Boston?”

I shovel a heaping bite of eggs into my mouth and avoid Mom’s eyes. I can feel her watching me, taking me in; my unshaven face, my wrinkled undershirt, the heavy bags that I know must be under my eyes.

“I knew you’d come. I just knew it,” Mom says with a small smile, wrapping an arm around my shoulder and kissing me on the top of the head. “I couldn’t stand the thought of another holiday without you here.”

“I came because Paisley called
—
” I try to stop the words from falling out of my mouth, but it’s too late. Mom’s smile has morphed from something radiant to something sad and embarrassed.

Goddamnit.

“Oh, I see.” She wrings out a dishcloth that’s dry and puts the coffee mugs she just washed back i
nto the sudsy water in the sink
.

“No, Ma, listen, I didn’t mean it like that. You know I wanted to see you, too. It’s just, Paisley called. Said it was important that I haul ass-”

“Language,” Mom stops me with the stern look that only a former Catholic school teacher could give, but she moves away from the sink and sits across from me to listen more
closely
to what I have to say.

Shit. I feel nervous now. When my mom gets all serious like this, it’s almost never a good thing.

“Haul
butt
out here for some big announcement.”

Mom looks puzzled, and I realize I may have blown it for Paisley.

I reach across the table and cover Mom’s hand with mine. “I’m glad I’m here, though,” I lie.

I’m not.

I want to leave.

I’d rather be back in my bar, or even avoiding Mila in our apartment than here with Dad.

But I did miss seeing my mother. Of course. I’m not a completely heartless bastard. “I missed you, Ma.”

“Paisley!” Mom calls, apparently not distracted by my heartfelt declarations.

“Shit,” I mumble.

“Landry,
language
.”

Chapter 8
 

Paisley rounds the corner into the kitchen looking half-asleep.

“Mom? Is everything okay?” She pauses when she sees me sitting at the kitchen table. “Oh, hey. Um, so, Landry is here.”

I’m stuck between wanting to scarf down the last of my Nutella-coated breakfast deliciousness and just bolting like the sad sack of crap I’m turning out to be.

“Yes. Landry is here.” Mom looks back and forth between the two of us while we avoid eye contact at all costs. “He’s here because you asked him to come here?”

“I did!” Paisley’s big green eyes get all luminous, like one of those scarily eager anime kid’s. “I just...I was so sick of all of us being apart for every single holiday! I wanted us together. For once. Finally.”

Perfect. It’s selfless and fits the season and would probably have flown if I never opened my big mouth before and screwed everything up.

“Landry says you’ve got something to tell him. To tell
us.
” And by
us
my mother means
why didn’t you tell me first, I’m only your mother for God’s sake
.

Paisley does this nervous tick thing where she grabs her hands and squeezes them together like she’s going to rip them off of her wrists.