Page 80 of Just My Ex

I breathe out a hot breath. Okay. I take in another breath, this one more steadying than the last.

“Even so, I’m sorry. For all of it. For being absent these last several years. For not being there for you when I was in high school.”

Alec nods. “You went dark on us pretty fast back then, Henry.”

He’s right. But again, I’m asking myself why. And better yet, how can I stop doing that to the people I love? If I can’t figure this out, I’ll lose them all, maybe slowly, but sooner than later, I’ll lose them.

“I’m sorry,” I say again.

Oakley, sitting next to Alec at the computer, nudges him in the ribs with her elbow.

“Sorry,” Alec offers, with a grunt.

Oakley rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “Okay then.Good talk. Henry—” she leans over the table and grabs a manila envelope. “Can you go over this stack please? Put them in roughly the correct chronological order?”

I gather the photos in my hand. “Sure.” I return to the sofa, next to Navie and Quinn.

I shuffle through the photographs from the year I was turning nine, trying to look at them with a non-sentimental perspective. Some of them I’m certain aren’t from that year, so I find the correct envelope and continue on.

I’m mostly successful at taking the sentiment out and trying to put them in the right order. I don’t miss how the ones from the summers in Longdale with Aunt Stella feel different, how most of them are of us in swimming trunks, looking bronzed in the sun, no shoes or shirts. And how in all of them, we’re smiling the most.

Gabriel joins us for dinner and so, even though Dad shows up, it’s not as bad as it could have been. Gabriel is an excellent communicator, good at directing the conversation to anything and everything that engages people just enough, but not so much that they leave angry. Always the diplomat. The bridge between the oldest set of three brothers, Sebastian, Oliver, and me, and the two youngest, Alec and Milo.

Gabriel and I shared the title of “middle child” jointly, technically. I always thought it was interesting that for all my middle childness, the angst, the feeling separated from and forgotten about by the family, in many ways the black sheep, Gabriel made up for it in spades. The golden boy.

As we all take our first bites of the steak and salad, Oakley inhales suddenly. “I almost forgot.” She leans away from her chair to reach a small bag under the table. Unzipping it, she grins. “Look what I found in the photos.” She produces a print and hands it to Quinn. “I can’t stand the cuteness.”

It’s Gabriel and me, sitting on my bed, both looking down at a picture book. I’m about six, wearing the cowboy outfit Navie wore earlier. Behind me are the brackets holding up bookshelves above the bed. The bedspread is green and has brightly colored cars zigzagging racetracks.

Quinn hands it to me. “You said you wished there was a photo of your old bedroom.”

“Thank you.” I take it in to try to memorize the details from back then.

During dessert, my father is uncharacteristically inquisitive. “How are Oliver and Sophie? Enjoying married life?”

Oakley claps her hands together. “They’re happy. And their new house is great.”

“I want to come by for a visit. As soon as I get cleared by my doctor,” Celine says.

“And how about you two?” Quinn asks. “I’ve been sorta dying all weekend to ask you about your wedding plans.”

“We’re still shooting for early August,” Oakley tosses a grin at Alec.

My father smiles and it seems genuine, like he really does care.

He looks at his watch, and the joy goes away. And now he looks old and tired. And alarmed. His gaze flicks at me, once. But it’s enough. I think I know what’s going on. His watch pings again.

“Is that the security system?” Mom asks. “Since you had the new one installed, it’s been beeping like crazy all the time.”

Dad doesn’t say anything but stands. “I need to answer the door.”

The look he gives me saysStay here.

But I’m not going to be a sitting duck. That’s what I was during Oliver’s wedding, and I’m not going to do that again.

I follow him out of the dining room, but instead of going to the front door, he finds the kitchen. He’s heading past the double refrigerators when he senses me behind him and whirls around.

“I was hoping you’d stay in the dining room with your mother.”

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