Four Weddings and a Break Up (9 page)

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said.

And she would, because there was no way she would ever let herself fall for him.

W
es left
Ginny’s place and headed to the doctor’s to pick up Dad and his youngest brother, TJ. He had given Dad and TJ a ride to the doctor’s earlier—TJ had to take his Harley in to get the annual state inspection.

His conversation with Ginny bothered him—things felt unsettled. But, he reasoned to himself, their agreement was still new. Things would smooth out in time. At least Ginny knew where he stood, and he knew where she did, too.

She wanted a forever . . . eventually.

He didn’t want that, didn’t think he was capable of it. Not that he had ever cheated on his ex-girlfriend, Megan, or any past girlfriend. But he didn’t want to enter into any serious commitment like marriage. When Megan had pushed for something more—like an engagement ring—had he broken up with her. His dad had cheated on his mom and hadn’t really been a presence in Wes’ life. As a kid, Wes swore he’d be nothing like his dad—that he’d be the man his father never was to him. Except Wes feared he was exactly like his dad.

He never dated anyone for long, and he’d never let himself get too involved. He was shocked to realize that he had his own rules—at the first sign of clinginess, he was out of there. And usually if he knew a girl wanted marriage, even down the line, he’d be out of there fast.

Except it wasn’t real with Ginny. There was no danger—no risk. They were just helping each other out. They were friends. And if she met someone else and wanted to go with that guy then—

It was like a lasso caught around his chest, pulling and tugging him toward an unseen force. His grip tightened around the wheel so much that his knuckles turned white. Wes frowned and loosened his hold. Lasso? He snorted as he quickly discarded the simile from his thoughts.

Either way, Ginny wasn’t going to find anyone like that anytime soon. It just wasn’t going to happen. If she wanted a real relationship so bad, she would never have agreed to fake date him. She might say she wanted a commitment down the line, but so far her actions belied her statements. She didn’t want to deal with the forced set ups or bad dates any more than he did. This was a perfectly safe arrangement.

He pulled his car into an empty space in front of the doctor’s office, a lemon-colored, two-story building. He approached the receptionist’s desk, where the elderly receptionist told him his dad and TJ were still with the doctor.

She pointed down the hall. “First door on your right.”

Wes walked to the door and knocked.

TJ poked his head out, his blond hair disheveled, his dark blue eyes worried. “Oh, hey. It’s you. Doc was running late. Come in.”

Wes entered the small office and felt a brief moment of claustrophobia. True, he’d never been comfortable in a doctor’s office, or liked the smell of one—the slight medicinal aroma clung to the air. At least it wasn’t a hospital or a funeral home. He hated those. His mom had been so lifeless in her coffin, a shell of her former self, and her death had been so sudden—an aortic dissection that no one had seen coming. Wes had been powerless to get his mom help. With his dad, he had a second chance to make things right—to heal the rift and to make sure Dad got the best medical treatment, and that things were caught early as opposed to later.

As TJ liked to brag, he had the worst reputation of all the brothers. Though, one would never think it since TJ had graduated from college with an English Lit degree and had a love for romanticism poetry. Which Wes thought was rather funny since TJ rode a Harley.

And then there was how TJ looked. His youngest brother had taken after the mom he shared with Jake and Seth; Nancy had blond wavy hair and deep blue eyes that she’d passed onto TJ. But TJ’s height and ruggedness came from their dad. In November, TJ would turn thirty.

Despite being the youngest brother, TJ had never been babied. If anything, his status had earned him more beat ups from Jake and Seth. When Wes had visited, he had found a partner in crime and had been somewhat close to TJ, as much as one could get with a four-year age difference. (Really, when you were sixteen and forced to spend a summer with your absentee dad and had been grounded the first day into your visit for “borrowing” your dad’s ‘69 Mustang, there weren’t really many options but to hang with your younger brothers.) Jake and Wes had always crossed words and fought—and, Wes thought, much hadn’t changed there; Seth had always been the peacemaker but he could erupt like a dormant volcano at times; TJ had been someone to get in trouble with and to entice the others to make trouble, too.

Something had happened ten years ago that caused a rift between Wes and TJ—and this was way before Dad got sick or Wes’ mom had passed away. Wes had been so busy with the start-up of D&A; at twenty-three, D&A had only been a few months old when summer had rolled around. Wes had been determined to make sure D&A was going to be a success, and TJ had called a couple of times needing to talk. Wes had kept putting it off, so focused, until TJ had shown up out of the blue at Wes’ apartment in Vegas. The TJ that had appeared on his doorstep had not been the same TJ.

His brother’s eyes had been haunted, the life almost drained out of him, and his whole expression defeated and pained. TJ had refused to talk about what had bothered him, and Wes had indulged him and proceeded to help his brother get drunk over the next few days. Then TJ returned to Cape Hope, and Wes had concentrated on D&A. Their somewhat close relationship started fraying until it had snapped and became as distant as the one Wes shared with Jake and Seth.

Wes should have pushed TJ to tell him what was wrong that night. He shouldn’t have ignored his brother’s phone calls, and he shouldn’t have let things fall apart as they did. He should have put more of an effort into his relationship with all of his brothers. He was at fault.

And that’s why he was here—to right past wrongs. If it was possible. And to regain something of what had once been with TJ and Seth. Jake was probably a lost cause, Wes reflected ruefully.

But seeing TJ now, after all these years, there was no trace of the hurt nineteen-year-old who had appeared in Vegas. Laugh lines were etched onto TJ’s face, around the corners of his eyes, as if his youngest brother had really enjoyed life. And from the stories Wes had heard in the last couple of days, it seemed like his brother had enjoyed it with a lot of women. But Wes could also see that shadows and danger clung to TJ, from the restless way TJ paced the doctor’s office after TJ had introduced Wes to the doctor, to just the familiarity of it all. Why did it feel so déjà vu-ish?

Wes sat down in a chair on one side of his father, and TJ took the other. Dad was twisting his Phillies cap in his hands, his head bowed, his thick, silver hair brushing the collar of his blue t-shirt.

The doctor sat behind his desk. Wes had expected an older doctor, not one that looked like he was in his late thirties. Doc Thomas looked like a young Denzel Washington. His eyes were kind, and his face softened, as if preparing to deliver bad news.

Wes braced himself.

Doc Thomas leaned forward. “I have good news and bad.”

“Bad news first,” TJ said.

“As you know, TJ, each year we give your dad an X-ray, to make sure that Nick’s lungs are still clear—and that no other tumors have developed anywhere in his body.” Doc Thomas studied them. “There’s been a change. I noticed a mass on his right lung.”

“I thought that if you’re clear for five years, the cancer’s gone,” Wes said. “I don’t understand. Are you saying it’s back?”

“I’m not saying that.” Doc Thomas paused. “We’re going to have to run tests. It might not be anything, but—”

“It might be cancer,” Wes finished.

Doc nodded.

All Wes could do was sit there. He felt like he was sliding down an icy mountain, grappling for purchase.
It wasn’t definite
, he reminded himself. But the possibility of cancer and Dad’s Alzheimer’s . . . What did that mean for Dad? Wes glanced at his father. His dad’s head was still bent, his shoulders hunched. Wes wasn’t even sure Dad knew what was going on.

Cancer
. The word rang like a death knell in his head.

TJ leaned over, remove the cap from Dad’s hold, and grab his father’s hand, squeezing it. Offering comfort.

Wes’ own hands were clenched around the arms of the chair. Digging in, finding the purchase he needed. All he wanted to do was follow TJ’s lead and grab Dad’s other hand. But he wasn’t sure how it would be received, or how to breach the distance. As small as it was, less than a foot, it felt like he may as well have been Columbus setting to cross the Atlantic Ocean for the Far East, but landing in an unknown world instead.

This faded office—the well-worn carpet and the sterile white walls—closed in, like a prison cell being slammed shut. Trapping Wes in a moment of indecision of not knowing what to do, or how to even comfort his own father. Not knowing if it would even be welcomed.

Or if Dad would even know who he was.

Who’s Wes?
That question still echoed in his head. And he couldn’t forget how there weren’t any photos of him on the walls. As Doc Thomas explained what the next course of action would be, Wes’ hands remained exactly where they were. On the armrests.

“And the good news would be?” TJ drawled in a sardonic manner after Doc Thomas finished.

Doc Thomas was silent for a while, so long that Wes began to wonder if there had even been any good news to begin with.

“The good news,” the doctor finally said, “is that your dad’s condition is staying the same. It hasn’t worsened.”

“Forgetting where you live isn’t an improvement,” TJ pointed out archly.

“No, it’s not.” Doc Thomas stood. “But sometimes things remaining the same is all what we can hope for.”

Wes wondered if what the doctor said was true.

Was this all what he could hope for? Things remaining the same? No change? No improvements?

It felt hollow. Unsatisfactory. This wasn’t how life was supposed to be. Because how could anything get better if the main person he needed to forgive and to forgive him in return, didn’t even know him?

W
es brought
TJ to the shop to pick up his Harley, and then they were on the way back to Dad’s house. TJ was the one to break the news, as Seth and Jake sat solemnly at the round kitchen table, coffee cups in their hands, Dad sitting between them.

He stood in the threshold, between the kitchen and living room, looking in. Like an observer. The tiled floor stretched before him, and the distance had grown ever since leaving the doctor’s office.

Wes didn’t know what to say. What to do. Or how to make this all right. He couldn’t throw his money around and buy Dad’s health. Or love, for that matter. And it wasn’t like he even knew how to start to talk to his father or his brothers. He was met with hostility from Jake; Seth just wanted everyone to get along; TJ had grown distant, and Dad . . .

Well, Dad didn’t even remember him.

But he watched, almost with a morbid sense of curiosity. Here, Dad sat between Jake and Seth, in the waning light of the summer day, the golden rays becoming a soft rose. The aroma of coffee faded in the air until all was left was the faint traces of nutmeg and coffee beans. Muted colors, muted voices. Everything about the situation screamed defeat and loss of hope.

Seth and Jake were like two pillars that had started to lean toward Dad, their shoulders brushing his, as if to assure themselves that their main pillar still stood and would continue to do so, even if Dad’s memory wasn’t as sharp and a possibly cancerous tumor kept growing. Falling quiet, TJ was opposite Dad. Even though TJ’s back was to Wes, he could still see how TJ’s posture was a mirror of Jake and Seth’s. All of them pretended to be strong and confident, yet drifting into silence, further and further away from each other.

There was no one around to make sure they stuck together as a family. Even though Seth was the designated peacekeeper, it wasn’t like he was the glue. Who was?

His brothers wouldn’t look to him to take that role. Wes was a stranger. An outsider. Not even their full brother according to the law. He wasn’t one of them.

He’d been on his own for the last five years, after Mom had died. He had thought he was fine with no one. He didn’t need family, or love, or anything but his work. But one day he’d been on his way to a meeting about a complex near a local park in L.A. that D&A had been hired to build. While Wes had met with the clients and toured the area, his gaze had drifted to the meadow. There had been a man, probably around Wes’ age, with four small boys, playing ball. One of the kids—a little thing that looked to be three or four—had swung and missed and landed hard on his butt. The father had run over and picked the kid up in his arms, the other brothers drawing near, and something had twisted in Wes’ chest. Something sharp and painful, a longing for something he’d never really had. Then his attention had been called away by the clients, and Wes had shoved the thought away, chalking it up to foolishness.

Except it hadn’t been so easily dismissed. The thought kept circling his mind that his life was missing
something
, and that something wasn’t work. It had to be his brothers and Dad because he had everything else.

Wes had the need and desire to have a relationship with his family, but he didn’t know how to go about it. This wasn’t as easy as some might think. It wasn’t like he could apply the tactics of the boardroom here. He didn’t want any games. He wanted real.

How to get there was a question he had no answer to right now.

Perhaps he should just go over to that table and join them. Offer comfort. Or, better yet, make a joke to take their mind off this. That seemed to be what he was good at—using his humor to lighten a situation.

He took a step forward, his boot making a sharp sound against the tiled floor.

Jake’s head shot up.

Wes halted.

His brother’s eyes narrowed, growing cold. His mouth flattened, almost pulling back into a snarl. The look on his face couldn’t be any clearer: Don’t approach, you’re not wanted, and you should just leave.

There was that twist again—just as sharp and painful as ever.