“What do you mean ‘do my thing’?” I say, stuck on that part. “I have a thing?”
“And you know what else?” he says. “When I was so eager to tell you about Michael and drag you over to the park to look at him, I forgot that you’d been trying to have to another baby and you can’t and here one just falls in my lap and I’m rubbing him in your face.”
“You’ve been away,” I say, trying to take the blame off him. “It wasn’t part of your world.”
“No, it wasn’t,” he says, and thumps himself on the chest. “Now bless me out about that. I wasn’t here. It wasn’t part of my world. The only way I even know about any of this is through the family grapevine at Dad’s freaking funeral. You weren’t part of my world. But you should have been.”
“Is that really my thing?” I ask, focusing now on his comment. “To bless people out?”
“Yes,” he says, pumping his fist up like I should be glad of it. “That’s how you do it. That’s how you remember.”
“By being a jerk?” I ask disheartened. “Really?”
“By being real,” he says, his voice calm and steady. “You don’t let anyone get away with anything. You’re the voice in my head, you know.”
“Don’t blame your insanity on me.”
“You think it’s Lola,” he says, looking me in the eye. “You think she’s what keeps me straight. She is, in a way. But you—you follow me around like one of those devil and angel things on my shoulder. I hear you all the time. You’re all I heard when I was locked up. ‘I told you so,’ you said. ‘You better cut the crap when you get out and do better than this,’ you said.” He mocks my voice and facial expressions. It’s actually sort of funny.
“I would never say ‘cut the crap.’”
“Maybe you should.” He smiles at me. “You’re funnier than you think you are. At least in my head, anyway.”
I’m so taken aback by this revelation I could cry. I had no idea Ray felt that way. I knew I was hard on him. I just didn’t know that he needed me to be.
“I didn’t stay just because of Michael,” Ray says and looks toward the window. “I stayed because of you. Because your voice in my head if I had run off from my kid? It would have destroyed me.” He looks at me, and his eyes are moist. Mine start to sting, too.
“I don’t know him yet,” he says. “But now that I’m here and I see what could be, I’m ashamed at not having listened to you all those times before. What else could have been different? Everything.”
I can’t speak. Forcing sound from my throat right now would cut the threads between us.
He leans forward and brushes a tear off my cheek, like we might survive this after all. I take a couple of sips of my beer to try to wash the lump down my throat.
After a while I’m able to talk.
“Have you heard from Nicole?” I ask.
Ray picks up his beer and leans back in his chair. “We went out to dinner last night,” he says. “She hasn’t told him yet, though. Who I am, I mean.”
“Give it time.”
“I will,” he says. “I’m used to doing time.”
I chuckle and then look at him to check his reaction. He’s smiling at me so I know it’s ok. I’m giddy with this new closeness to Ray. I feel included in Lola’s secret world with him. I’m not going to push buttons today—not about all those years ago, not about his drinking and self-destruction, not even about this reckless attempt to be close to the son he didn’t even know he had. Today, I’m going to enjoy what I’ve missed all these years. My brother. Today I’m going to see what might have been.
“At work, I see how all the other men have framed photos of their family on their desks. I want that. I think I might have a shot at it,” Ray says, talking more than I’ve ever known him to.
“I think you do.”
“I don’t want to be the screwup,” he says. “It’s just that I’m good at it, and hey, people like to do what they do well.”
“Tell me about dinner,” I say.
“I remembered she likes Indian food, so I suggested we meet at Chai Pani,” he says.
“I thought you hated spicy food.”
“I do. But that was part of the point. She knows I don’t like it, so she knew I was there for her.”
“What did you guys talk about?”
“I asked her why she told me about Michael,” Ray says. “She said he’d started asking about his dad, and she thought she would give me a chance to be the person he’s asking about. I told her she might be making a leap of faith there.”
“Is there any other kind?” I ask. “Was Michael there?”
“No,” Ray says. “But she’s going to bring him by.”
“That’s great, when?”
“In about five minutes,” Ray says, sitting up like he’s ready to grab me when I try to flee. “Please stay. I need you here.”
“Are you kidding me?” I ask.
There’s a knock on the door.
“They’re early,” Ray says, his eyes widening as my mouth gaps open.
Ray opens the door and lets them in, and it’s the most awkward hello I can imagine. Nicole nods to me. Ray moves to hug her, but she steps back. She steps forward again to receive the hug, but Ray steps back. They dance around again, and I finally stand up.
“Come in,” I say, not sure if I should greet Michael or let Nicole introduce him.
Ray and I move aside to let them in, and they stand in the middle of the living room like people who have found
