“Is Aunt Clara mad at you?” Maisie asked.
“Who, me? Noooooo.”
“Is she mad at uth?”
Patrick stopped and put his hand on Grant’s head, leaned against him as he lifted one leg off the ground to adjust his Prada slide. “Absolutely not. She loves you guys. Your aunt Clara and I . . . Well, she’s my sister, your dad’s sister. There’s a lot to unpack there. You know how you guys are brother and sister? Sometimes you annoy one another, but you’re not mad at each other. Frustrated, maybe. But not mad.”
“I’m mad,” Grant said.
“Then stomp your feet.”
Grant stomped and growled and was instantly agreeable again. Marlene swerved back and forth as they turned onto the main road, hot on the scent of something. It looked like she was navigating an obstacle course set up with invisible traffic cones.
“Can I hold the leash?”
Patrick handed the retractable leash to Maisie. “Don’t let her get too far ahead.” Patrick closed his eyes for their next ten steps, enjoying the momentary silence.
“I want a turn!” Grant grabbed for the leash.
“Hey, hey. Cool your jets, you’ll get a turn.” He stepped between the two kids. “Having a brother or a sister. That’s something really special. I want you guys to remember that. You two to remember that. Aunt Clara wouldn’t want me to say ‘guys,’ as that’s the language of the patriarchy.” Patrick picked up several stones in the road and skipped one across the asphalt like it was a pond.
“Can we do that?” Grant asked, excited.
“You can’t really skip stones on the road. You need a pond.”
“We have a pool!”
“I have a pool and you’re not skipping stones in it.”
“Why not?”
“Because they’ll sink to the bottom or clog my filter, and guess who has to dive in to get them.” He pointed at himself with both thumbs. “But listen to me. The sibling relationship. Brother and sister. That’s special. Especially for you. With your mom gone. You need to be there for one another. Hear me? Don’t let stupid shit get between you. You’ll end up regretting it.”
Patrick jumped ahead to grab the leash from Maisie; Marlene was out sniffing something suspicious in the adjacent vacant lot. The last thing Patrick needed was for her to lunge for a dead animal or something equally horrific. He reeled Marlene in and locked the retracting mechanism so Grant could walk her with a shorter lead on his turn.
“Don’t make our mistake.” Patrick had fresh determination to make things right with Clara. He would lead by example. Be the bigger man.
Person.
Man.
Patrick and the girls sat on the floor around the tree, while Grant settled himself on the couch like a little gentleman, propped up by a navy throw cushion with an embroidered yellow Xanax that was meant to be whimsical—a pill-ow, it was called. He’d been meaning to tuck it away since the kids’ arrival, given their father’s addiction, but he always seemed to forget. Clara noticed, and she was not amused.
“Really?” She pointed directly at it.
Patrick waved it off. “Grant, come sit on the floor with the rest of us.”
“I want to sit here.”
“If I have to sit on the floor, then we all do. Look at your aunt Clara. She can sit Indian-style and she’s old as the mountains.”
“They don’t say Indian-style anymore,” Clara corrected.
“What do they say instead?” Patrick wasn’t sure who she meant by they.
“Criss-cross applesauce,” Maisie offered, always ready to help.
“Criss-cross . . . what?”
“Applesauce.”
“What does that even mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Patrick scoffed. “I’ve heard of jelly legs, but applesauce legs? Your legs are just blobs of applesauce and pulpy bits of skin?”
Grant laughed as if it didn’t make much sense to him either.
“It’s just a fun little rhyme,” Clara implored. And then she dropped her voice to a whisper. “Indian-style is racist.”
“Sorry. Native American–style. It’s okay. This is Native American land we’re on.”
Clara raised her hackles, ready to push back. “What do you mean, Native American land?”
“My property belongs to the Agua Caliente Indians. I own the house, but this is tribal land, and I lease it from them. That’s true for a lot of Palm Springs.”
Clara was instantly fascinated; the idea of Native Americans retaining land—something they were historically (and horrifically) stripped of—and charging rich white people to use it was of great interest. Maybe this was Christmas, and a merry one at that. “How much do you pay?” she asked with delight, as if she secretly hoped it was through the nose.
Patrick didn’t answer. “Grant! Hand out some gifts.”
Grant scrambled down from the couch and crawled straight for the tree. Patrick had given the kids two twenties each to find gifts for him and Clara at the souvenir store. The kids had been very secretive about their purchases, and Grant passed out their presents with a giggle.
“For me?” Clara asked, feigning surprise in that exact, predictable way adults do when handed a gift. She neatly picked at the corner of the wrapping paper and slid her fingers under the tape.
“C’mon, Aunt Clara!” Maisie implored.
“But you decorated this paper so beautifully. I want to keep that, too.” She pulled apart the wrapping to reveal a jigsaw puzzle that said Greetings from PALM SPRINGS; each bubble letter in Palm Springs contained a different desert landscape.
“For when you get up firtht, you’ll have something to work on!”
“One thousand pieces,” Clara read from the box. “You must be planning on sleeping awfully late.”
Patrick chewed on his lip to keep quiet.
“GUP, do yours next!” Maisie exclaimed.
“It’s about time.” Patrick locked eyes with Grant and tore his present open, both to destroy (finally) that hideous paper and earn the respect of his nephew. Clara protested, but it was over in
