Page 16 of Whatever Will Be

I stifle a yawn. I’ve probably managed to get six hours of sleep in the last three days. “Mom was Mom. She complained about the food and the funeral service and said she had a long drive back to Rochester.”

He grunts. “Was she pissed that Jules didn’t want her to have the girls?”

“I’m sure she was pissed but only because of the optics.”

She shouldn’t have expected any different. Our mother didn’t even feel like finishing the job of raising her own kids. She handed us over to Jules and checked out.

“And what about him?”

“Dad? He was allowed to make a phone call this morning but I could only deal with him for a minute. He wanted to be reassured that Jules was laid to rest beside his parents.”

Danny nods. “I guess that was supposed to be his plot.”

“Well, I don’t think it matters much where your body ends up once you’re not in it anymore.”

I wish I hadn’t said that. Danny grimaces over my bitterness.

He moves closer to the antique end table that belonged to our great grandmother. There’s a framed picture sitting in the middle. I have a wallet sized shot of that same photo. Jules with the girls. Lake Stuart in the background.

Danny’s face sags as he stares at our sister’s vanished smile. “Do you have any idea who their father is, Gretch?”

I shake my head. “None.”

“But she told you everything.”

“She never told me that.”

“You think she knew who he was?”

I want to slap him for asking that question. “Jules didn’t sleep around!”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“She must have had her reasons for keeping his identity a secret. Maybe he was one of the summer people. Maybe he was a jerk. It doesn’t matter.”

He rakes a hand through the thick brown hair that could use an appointment with a pair of scissors. “What the hell are we going to do?”

“I don’t know but we’ll have to figure it out. Mara and Caitlin don’t have anyone else.”

“Maybe you should think about taking them back to the city.”

“A Brooklyn studio apartment isn’t a fantastic place to raise two kids.”

“Well, neither are second rate ballparks and cheap motels. I can’t very well bring them on the road.”

“And I’ve got another three semesters of law school,” I snap. “But I think it’s fair to say we’ll both have to make some changes.”

He crosses his arms and snaps back. “Right. I’ll just play baseball online.”

We’re falling back into our old bickering ways and there’s no Jules here to get in the middle and make us behave.

There’s no Jules.

That sentence will never stop being a kick to the chest.

I see a brand new wet splash of soda on the beige area rug and I feel a surge of intense annoyance for whoever carelessly spilled it today.

“The girls can’t hear us arguing about this,” I warn Danny. “We’re all they’ve got.”

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