THE DAY AFTER HE SAW BRYCE AT O’ROURKE’S LUCAS PULLED UP to Joe and Didi’s house in his rental car, turned off the engine and sat for a moment.
In the fourteen years since he’d left for college, Lucas had been back to Manningsport only a handful of times, and only once since he’d gotten married.
Here was the thing about Didi Nesbith Campbell, Lucas’s aunt by marriage. She had a vision of how life was supposed to be, goddamn it, and when life didn’t obey, she got mad. Was still mad, in fact.
She’d married Joe just after he’d sold the rights to a video game for a million bucks when he was twenty-four years old. Rat-Whacker got picked up by Nintendo, and Joe seemed on track to billionaire status, joining the whiz kids of that era who made their first million before they were twenty-five.
And, like most of them, Joe was a flash in the pan.
That first million turned out to be the last million, but by then, they had a big house in the suburbs and a baby boy. Much to her supreme dissatisfaction, Didi had to get a job. She found her niche at an insurance company, denying claims of horribly injured people. Even as she rose through the ranks, she never got over the bitterness of having married the guy who failed to become the next Bill Gates.
The other great inconvenience of Didi’s life was inheriting Lucas. She already had her only begotten son; she certainly didn’t want the silent child of her slacker husband’s criminal brother.
Well. Time to see Joe. Lucas took off his sunglasses and headed toward the house.
It was beautiful up here, that was certain. The leaves were fresh and green, glowing with good health, unlike Chicago, which was currently baking in a heat wave. But here, where the landscape was dotted with deep glacier lakes and waterfalls by the dozens, where green farmland spread out on the hills and the forests were thick and deep, it was cooler and more lush than the flat Midwest and its punishing summers. The air was heavy with the smell of lilacs, so painstakingly trimmed along the border of Didi’s perfectly landscaped (and somewhat soulless) yard.
Lucas would be in Manningsport for a month, maybe two. He wouldn’t be staying at Didi’s, that was certain, no matter that the house had five bedrooms and a basement apartment. No, he’d rather amputate his own foot and eat it than do that. For the moment, he was staying at the Black Swan B and B.
He knocked on the front door. Nephew or not, Didi wouldn’t like him coming in unannounced.
Sure enough, she opened the door. “Oh. It’s you.”
“Hello, Didi,” he said. “How are you?”
“I’m quite well,” she said, her lips tight. “You may as well come in.”
“Is Bryce here?”
“No, he’s at the gym.”
Bryce still lived at home, though he’d bounced around a little bit after dropping out of college. He’d tried to live in Chicago for a short time, and Lucas had even gotten him a job with Forbes Properties, which lasted five days before Bryce quit. Bryce had also tried Manhattan, San Francisco and Atlanta, but all roads led him back to Manningsport, specifically, to the basement apartment that Didi had made for her baby boy, giving him the illusion of adulthood while remaining clamped under her thumb.
“How’s Ellen?” Didi asked.
“Good,” he answered. She waited for more. He didn’t offer it.
The one thing Lucas had ever done that won approval from Didi was to marry Ellen Forbes. “Any relation to Malcolm?” Didi had immediately asked when he’d told them. No curiosity about why he was marrying someone he’d never mentioned, or what had happened with his longtime girlfriend, or why he wasn’t going to law school. Just “Any relation?” Her eyes alight with a sudden, keen interest.
The answer, of course, was, yes.
And suddenly, Lucas was a beloved nephew. Didi wanted to help plan the wedding, just loved Ellen to death within seconds of meeting her, thought of Lucas like a son, wanted so much to have holidays together, one big happy family, the Forbeses and the Campbells, wasn’t it wonderful?
Granted, Ellen and her parents saw right through her, but Didi was too busy trying to pretend she was completely at home with their vast wealth, the penthouse overlooking Lake Michigan, the maid who served dinner, the sailboat and cars and drivers and wine.
Once, Lucas had come upon her in Frank’s study, where she was slipping a little glass statue in her purse. “Please don’t steal from my in-laws,” he’d said mildly, and she’d flashed him a glare of such hatred, he’d actually smiled. She might want to kiss up to his in-laws, but it was almost reassuring to see that she still couldn’t stand the sight of him.
When informed about his divorce, Didi’s first question had been, “What about the holidays?” After all, if Lucas wasn’t a son-in-law anymore, odds were low that his aunt and uncle would get an invitation to the famous Forbes New Year’s Eve party, the amazing Thanksgiving dinner for thirty of their closest friends.
Frank and Grace Forbes—and Ellen—had stayed close with his sister, Steph, and her girls since the divorce, because they were really wonderful, not about to cut off five people—six, counting him—they loved. His divorce was more than amicable, not to mention Ellen’s idea.
“How’s Joe today?” Lucas asked Didi.
“See for yourself,” she said, turning away. “Take off your shoes first.”
He obeyed, then started upstairs.
“He’s in your—the room off the kitchen,” she said. “It was easier that way.”
Of course. Joe was weak, that was true. Also, Didi was a bitch.
Lucas went through the vast chef’s kitchen to the small hallway that led to the laundry room and his old room. Knocked gently on the door, which was open a crack.
The room was crowded: the hospital bed, a night table covered with the detritus of sickness—pill bottles, a half-filled glass of water, tissues, a magazine and Joe’s silver pocket watch, which had been handed from father to son since the Civil War. A desk with a large-screened computer was wedged against one wall. The room didn’t have windows, and Lucas remembered how dark it was in here. Like a grave, he’d often thought, and now more than ever.
His uncle was sleeping. Lucas hadn’t seen him for a few months. The kidney disease made Joe appear tan, and he was thinner than he’d ever been, though a little puffy from fluid retention.
But now, even asleep, he looked old. And tired.
A lot like Lucas’s father the last time he’d seen him. The family resemblance was strong.
Joe was dying. The reality hit Lucas like a tanker, and his eyes stung all of a sudden. Despite Didi’s ceaseless resentment, Joe had always been a good uncle.
Joe stirred, then opened his eyes. “Hey,” he said, struggling to sit up. “How are you, buddy?”
Lucas gave
