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  By Monday morning, enough time had passed, and he brought up the subject again. Caleb woke early and suggested a walk to the farmer's market to buy fresh eggs to cook omelets. Olivia's eyes shined for the first time since she'd arrived, which encouraged him to move forward with his plan. They took a long walk down the hill, arriving at a few produce stands near the valley. Her ability to keep pace surprised him, but Caleb knew she might struggle on the way back up.

  “Can we talk now, Mom?”

  “Talk about what, sweetheart?” Olivia perused the cartons of brown and white eggs. “Do you have a preference?”

  Caleb was tempted to respond he preferred Midwestern men with cute dimples and accents, but he convinced himself it might be too soon to inject humor into the situation. “Brown eggs create better omelets. I want to talk about Jake.”

  “Jake's nice. I don't know him, so I can't say much. Those piercings must hurt. I've never seen one up close before. What are you putting in the omelet? Do we need any cheese? I haven't had brie in a long time.” While her eyes focused on the farm stand, her words seemed less than committed to the conversation.

  “Fine. Get some brie. They don't hurt. They feel good. But I don't want to talk about Jake's piercings. I want to talk about Jake.” Caleb walked closer to her and placed his hand on her shoulder. “Mom, please. You came all this way to spend time with me. Shouldn't we talk about this?” His eyes relaxed and silently pleaded with her to listen to him.

  “Caleb, I'm not ready.” She tossed a bunch of tomatoes back into the bin, not having enough focus to find the right ones. “I came here with plans to ask you to move back home. To ask you to spend the summer with me and figure out my future. Your father died. I thought I still had you. But I don't have you. I probably haven't had you for years. I'm scared, Caleb. I don't want to live alone.” Her eyes welled.

  Caleb pulled her aside and hugged her. He hadn't thought about her grief. After she found him with Jake, all he could focus on was coming out to her, telling her the truth, and finally freeing himself to avoid the divisive trap that hovered between necessary seclusion and inherent honesty. But he'd forgotten she lost her husband, and he'd lost his father.

  “You haven't lost me. And you haven't lost anyone else. That's what you're afraid of? Don't forget you have Aunt Diane, too. She called yesterday to check on how you were doing. She wants to be here for you.”

  Olivia held her son's arm for a minute, her eyes fixated on the landscape surrounding them. “I'm afraid of all these secrets.” She stopped herself before saying anything else.

  “Mom, it's one secret. I'm gay. It doesn't change anything for you. It's my life. How does this impact you?” Caleb pushed back with rigid force. He stepped to the side to let a young girl pay for the items in her basket.

  Olivia grew silent for a minute listening to the chatter of the market around her. “You're right, Caleb. I know this is about you. I have my own life to manage. Give me a little more time, and we can talk about getting to know Jake. Will that be okay?”

  Caleb shrugged his shoulders and stepped to the register, recognizing the cashier had listened to their entire conversation. “Sure. I can give you more time, but since we've opened this door, we can't ignore it. If you want me to spend time back home, you have to accept this part of me… you have to accept Jake as part of my life.” Strength settled in Caleb as he said those words. He missed his family, but the battle lines had been drawn over who controlled him. Jake would always win.

  Caleb paid for their groceries, ignored the odd looks he received from the farmers, and walked back toward the road, hugging his arm around his mom's shoulder. It had been a long time since they'd shared a realistic and honest conversation.

  * * *

  Caleb left the next day for a meeting with a client he couldn't reschedule, as he was close to securing work for the next six months for his entire office. While boarding the plane, he texted Teddy.

  Caleb: Ethan and I are planning a fishing trip. Interested?

  Teddy: When?

  Caleb: This summer.

  Teddy: I'll think about it.

  Caleb: Come on. Dad's gone. We can't drift apart.

  Teddy: I know he's gone. I have the firm to protect. Remember?

  Caleb: Isn't Matt helping?

  Teddy: Not his job.

  Caleb: We should all go.

  Teddy: I told you I'd consider it.

  Caleb: It's important. Ethan wants you to go.

  Teddy: And you don't?

  Caleb: I didn't say that. Just meant all five of us need to go.

  Teddy: I'm busy. Another time.

  Caleb: You can't ignore us.

  Teddy: And you're one to talk? Haven't you been gone for a decade?

  Caleb: That's not fair.

  Teddy: Oh, poor Caleb says it's not fair. Try sticking around to support the family before bitching.

  Caleb: Why are you starting something with me?

  Teddy: I'm tired of you getting away with leaving reality for the rest of us to deal with.

  Caleb: Fine. Don't go. I don't care.

  Teddy: Go crawl back in your security blanket, baby brother.

  As Caleb idled in his seat aboard the puddle-jumper, he turned his phone off and let his mind drift to a conversation with his father years earlier…

  “Are you sure you cannot stay another few days, Caleb? Your grandmother just passed away, and your mother could use your shoulders to lean on now that the funeral is over,” Ben said.

  “I wish I could, Dad. I loved Grandma a lot, and I wish I could stay longer, but I've got a complex deal brewing back home, and no one else can handle it,” Caleb said.

  “Ah, you don't understand the problem. You disappeared. Always have something else going on. You're alone up in Maine. No one to help you with the business. No special someone at home to keep you warm at night. I worry about you, son.”

  “I'm fine, Dad. Really… I'm super busy. I don't have time for a social life or a wife.”

  “I never said wife. I meant someone you could lean on, someone to encourage a smile after a long day of work. We all need love in our lives.”

  “I should go, Dad.”

  “I know when my son has no more use for his meddling father… just know this, Caleb… I love you no matter what happens. You'll always be my strong, intelligent, bold, and brave son. Whatever you choose.”

  The pilot's voice on the speaker startled Caleb from his memory, and he pulled his seat back into the upright position realizing the plane neared the landing strip.

  What were you trying to tell me, Dad? Did you know all along? Damn, I miss you.

  * * *

  Olivia stayed behind at Caleb's house keeping busy by tending to the garden and cooking dessert for when he arrived home. She would be leaving the next day and wanted to do something special for him to show her gratitude for spending the week with her. They'd spent a few nights talking about his father recalling the weekends camping at Lake Wokagee and the family football games in their backyard. She grew stronger even if each memory made accepting Ben's death more difficult than the last.

  While Olivia sliced apples for a pie, the house phone rang. She expected a machine to answer it, but it kept ringing. On the tenth ring, she walked to the table in the hall, wiped the sugary fruit juices off her palms, and cradled the receiver to her ear. Caleb had an old-fashioned rotary-dial phone connected on the console table by the stairs. “Hello.”

  “Hello, is Mr. Glass available?” an excited voice said.

  Olivia at once thought of Ben, raising her hand to her heart. It was the first call she'd received that produced a direct reminder of her late husband. “Um, no…”

  “Neither of the two Mr. Glass are available? Caleb or Jake Glass?”

  Olivia nearly dropped the phone at the question. She focused on the grandfather clock in the corner watching the second hand slowly tick by for an eternity. “I'm sorry, did you say Jake Glass?”

  “Yes, Caleb's husband.
I need to speak with him.”

  “No, Jake left. May I take a message?” Olivia's heart pounded in her chest. Husband. Caleb is married to Jake. He never told me he was married. Olivia momentarily forgot someone else dangled on the phone until the voice spoke again.

  “Yes, please. Tell them to call Chester at the adoption agency as soon as possible. I may have great news for them.”

  Olivia dropped the phone receiver to the base without even acknowledging Chester's request. She stared at the clock, her heart beating in unison with its chimes pounding in full force around her.

  My son is adopting a baby?

  Olivia raced toward the vintage liquor cabinet in the living room and grabbed a glass from the second shelf. She lifted the bottle of scotch from the tray, her hands quivering as she clinked the rim of the bottle against the crystal snifter. Finishing off the first one with a single swallow, she poured a second, willing the slow burn to creep throughout her insides.

  Why do you all keep so many secrets from me?

  Chapter 11 – Zach & Olivia

  Bright light cascaded across Zach's hazel eyes as he tossed to his left side summoning instant regret over not shutting the curtains when he'd arrived home. The morning sun drenched the room as Zach yawned and pushed the clingy cotton sheets away from his body. He'd only strolled in from work a few hours earlier and had barely slept given the bed no longer offered him the same comforts it once did in youth.

  Whenever he'd stayed in Brandywine, he slept in his childhood bedroom on the third floor. Since Zach was the noisiest of their boys, his parents had given him the attic which meant he was the last one awake in the morning. He'd divided the space into his sleeping area, tucked into the roof peaks, leaving the rest of the room for his music, keyboards, and drums.

  Stepping over last night's jeans and black tank top, he rubbed his eyes and looked toward the wall clock for the time. He reached for clothes, inhaled a tequila-and-cigarette odor, and threw them in the corner with the rest of the pile. The downside to his job, besides the late hours, was the permanent filth of ashtrays and saturated liquor bottles. He located a fresh pair of Nike running shorts and a V-neck t-shirt in his duffel bag and checked his phone.

  No messages. Good, no drama today.

  Anastasia sat at the kitchen table watching a Dora the Explorer video on her iPad. Diane and Olivia stood nearby flipping buttermilk pancakes and scrambling eggs on the griddle.

  “What time did Zachary get in last night?” Olivia's lips squeezed together, her mind still processing the trip to visit Caleb.

  “I'm not sure. I tucked Anastasia in around nine and fell asleep soon after. I didn't hear him get in.”

  “I need to talk to him about these late nights. It's not good to keep carting her back and forth between here and Brooklyn. Anastasia never knows where she's sleeping each night.”

  “Zach's schedule hasn't had an impact on her. She loves her time with Grandma and Auntie D,” Diane cooed as she tickled Anastasia's belly.

  “It's unhealthy. She's a five-year-old impressionable child who starts school this fall. She needs a routine. And a mother. Since Katerina's worthless, it's up to me to provide the maternal connections. Zachary should move back home so she can go to the Madison Academy with Melanie in September. I hope he's not planning to send her to some school in Brooklyn.”

  “Liv, don't be too hard on him. He's a good father.” Diane plated three chocolate chip pancakes for Anastasia, poured syrup on top, and refilled her own coffee mug. “You've been ornery ever since returning from your trip to see Caleb. Were you able to convince him to move home?”

  Zach walked the first set of steps and shuffled left checking if Anastasia still slept in the small room next to the library, but she did not. The cicadas buzzed in the trees beyond the house, more active this year than in the past. He laughed remembering the time he dropped hundreds of dead exoskeleton shells in Caleb's backpack one morning before they left for middle school. Unfortunately for Caleb, when he went to open his bag to put his books in the locker, he screeched and drew more attention to himself. When the bag fell to the ground, dozens of dead cicadas poured onto the tiled floors in front of half the school. His friends teased him for weeks after the incident sneaking behind him and buzzing in his ears. Caleb also earned two days' detention for disturbing the hallways, unwilling to rat out his brother for fear of what being a snitch would cause him.

  Zach walked into his father's library where various law reviews and journals filled the chestnut brown shelves as well as collections of encyclopedias and many American classics. Ben also included a special section for his first and second edition mystery novels. Reading was never a passion for Zach, but knowing they were his father's favorites caused him to sample the stories every so often. As he meandered the shelves, he noticed a Sherlock Holmes second edition on the top shelf. It was his favorite book series prompting Zach to recall sneaking into the library to read a few pages late at night when everyone else had slept. The room was usually off limits to the boys when they were still young given the immensity and value of the collection their father had amassed. Not until years later did Zach learn to appreciate their beauty.

  Curiosity over what his mother would do with the room since his father's death crossed Zach's mind. It had been a month, and she still hadn't removed a single item of his in the house. After being sufficiently nostalgic, he continued into the hallway and descended the staircase to the first floor. His pocket vibrated, prompting him to check on the annoyance. It was Sarah, Teddy's wife.

  This can't be good.

  Olivia lifted her head from the stove and shot her sister a sideways glance from across the room. “No, Caleb's not going to come home. I don't want to talk about it.”

  “You don't want to talk about a lot these days, Liv.” Diane pressed her sister attempting to get her to crack and to refrain from being so stubborn.

  Ignoring Diane's comments, Olivia plated the eggs and set the dishes on the breakfast nook. “How are your pancakes, Anastasia?”

  Anastasia grinned. “Yummmy.”

  “Please put away the iPad while you have breakfast, sweetheart.” Olivia directed her granddaughter who pressed the pause button and put it on the bench to her right.

  Diane swallowed a swig of coffee, thanked her sister for the eggs, and ate her meal. Olivia excused herself indicating she planned to wake Zachary.

  Zach pressed accept on the keypad. “Sarah, haven't I already done enough for you? To what do I owe this… pleasure?”

  “You're ever the charmer, Zach. I reckon I owed you news.”

  Zach considered his response. He'd recently been caught off guard by Sarah and found himself in the middle of quite a situation. “You certainly owe me something, but we agreed never to talk about it again.”

  “We did agree, hence why I'm calling you. Don't fly off the handle now. I will never mention it again after today.”

  “Fine. What do you want, Sarah?”

  “It worked. I'm pregnant.”

  Zach choked on his own spit and repeated “You're pregnant?” As he balanced his feet against the cold floor, Zach saw his mother standing nearby.

  Shit.

  Olivia rushed back to the kitchen tripping over her own feet at the speed she'd undertaken. A dangerous curiosity lurked in her mind over whom Zachary had been speaking with, but she also knew it was uncouth to eavesdrop. She thought he'd said someone was pregnant, growing angry that he'd knocked up another girl.

  “Is Zach awake?” Diane wiped the syrup dripping from Anastasia's fingers.

  “Yes, he's on the phone in the hall. I'm going to fix him eggs.” Olivia contemplated the mess he'd gotten himself into this time.

  Diane stood and put the plates in the dishwasher. “I'm going to see Margaret and the girls. I'll call you later about lunch. Be kind to Zach, Liv.”

  Diane left the kitchen as Zach wandered in. She raised her eyes and cocked her head in Olivia's direction, then pointed her thumb toward the grou
nd before heading up the stairs.

  Zach took it as a warning for him to beware of his on-edge mother behind the doorway. The family had developed a code for interpreting Olivia's passive-aggressive behavior.

  “Good morning,” he grunted. “Where's the coffee?”

  “Did you have a rough night, Zachary?”

  Zach crossed the tiled floor, kissed his daughter's forehead, and slumped in the chair across from her. “No. Please don't start with me this early.”

  Olivia fussed with her right earring, a diamond hoop Ben had given her for her birthday several years ago. Her face flushed. “Zachary, I'm not starting trouble with you, but we do need to talk. That's why you agreed to stay here for a few days, right? Anastasia turns six years old tomorrow and starts school in two months. You can't keep bringing her back and forth between here and Brooklyn. How are you planning to give her more stability when you don't come home until six in the morning?” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “I'm not trying to be difficult. I want to help.”

  Zach swallowed the pile of eggs he'd put in his mouth. He considered for a moment blasting her with anger over her constant judgment, recalling Tressa's advice to tell his mother what was going on. When Anastasia giggled, he began gesticulating his arms and hands in an erratic beat. “Mom, I get you don't agree with how I live my life. We've talked tons of times before. What do you expect I'm doing when I leave here?”

  “I hope you're not still on drugs. Are you still on drugs?”

  “No. I haven't been on drugs for two years. I'm working.”

  “What kind of job could you perform at three in the morning?”

  “Tell me, Mom. Tell me one passion I've loved my whole life that maybe I might want to turn into a career?” His ears flushed as his voice grew enraged.