We all went toward the house and I prayed that I wouldn’t screw anything else up.
“I’m really very sorry about that,” I said as Lucah closed the door behind me.
“It’s not your fault, I assure you. Both of them are overdue for their naps, but they wanted to stay up and see Unkie Lu.” Unkie Lu? I gave him a look and he shrugged.
“It’s hard to say Uncle Lucah.”
The house was gorgeous, and it was clear whoever had decorated it liked the finer things. Or at least they had, but then children had taken over. The banister was covered in fingerprints and what looked like paint, there were toys and clothing items and more socks than I could count strewn about as if someone had taken them and thrown them into the air.
“Uh yeah. Sorry about the mess. It was clean five minutes ago,” April said sheepishly.
“No, no. Your house is lovely.”
“It used to be. But that’s what happens when these little monsters come along. They kind of take over your life and your space and your sanity.” April grinned at me. I laughed nervously. I hoped she was joking.
The sounds of crying stopped and Tate brought both the girls back out. To the left of the entry was the living room, and on the right was a formal dining room with a table covered in coloring books and stuffed animals.
“See? No permanent damage done. Can we get you something? Water? Glass of wine?” Dear God, could I use a glass of wine. But I didn’t want to look like a lush, so I asked for water with ice. Lucah had the same.
“Lucah’s told us so much about you, I feel like we’ve already met,” April said as she set the girls up on the floor with a box of crayons and two coloring books.
Well, I couldn’t really say the same. Lucah was very close-mouthed about his family.
“Good things, I hope.” I looked at Lucah and he gave me a face of feigned innocence. “They better be good things.” I glared at him, and he put his arm around me and kissed the side of my face.
“Don’t be so paranoid.”
I couldn’t help it. I sipped my water and prayed for someone to say something else that would start a conversation I could excel at.
“Well, you seem to know about me, but Lucah hasn’t been as forthcoming about you. Except for the girls. He talks about them all the time.” Said girls were wrestling each other over a crayon. April broke up the fight by taking the crayon and breaking it in half, giving one to each. Like King Solomon, only in this case she’d actually cut the baby in half. Or the crayon.
Tate and April both laughed. I was missing the joke. I glanced at Lucah and his ears were getting red.
“We’re just surprised he told you anything at all. He’s not exactly forthcoming with anyone,” Tate said. “Not an open book, are you?” He slapped Lucah on the knee. “He’s always been like that, though. Even when we were kids.”
I couldn’t really imagine Lucah as a child. I was kind of hoping that childhood photos would make an appearance sometime during this visit.
“Well, he put up quite a fight,” I said.
“I had to. It was my job.” That made Tate laugh again.
“He used to pretend to be a spy growing up. He would invent an alias and a personality and refuse to answer to anything else. I think a lot of parents would have told him to stop pretending, but Mom and Dad always went along with it. Even that time when you were a doctor. What was your name again?”
“Dr. Harold Oglethorpe,” Lucah said. His arm tensed around my shoulder. Now he was the one stressing.
Tate shook his head, smiling. There was definitely an older brother/younger brother dynamic going on here.
“So, Tate, in the interest of disclosure, what do you do?” It was a terrible transition, and made it very clear that I was changing the subject.
“I’m a corporate attorney at a firm in Cambridge.”
“Impressive. I thought about going to law school, but I always knew I wanted to work for my father. Still, I guess I could always go back.”
“How are things going with the company? You’ve had some . . . difficulties recently, or so I’ve heard,” Tate said. At least he’d tried to put it delicately.
I sighed.
“That’s a bit of an understatement. Things are . . . we’re doing the best we can, but reassuring our clients is a full-time job right now, and we’ve been struggling to fill the positions that are now vacant while at the same time doing enough background checks to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen again.”