“Say whatever you think you need to say to convince me that Finn didn’t mean any of this. That neither of them did.”
I looked up at him, feeling the weight of his stare. He didn’t want me to try to make things okay between them. He didn’t want things to be okay between them.
“Where is she?”
He reached for his thermos, poured the rest of his juice inside. “She’s taking the twins to see a friend of ours in Healdsburg.”
“She’s missing the harvest party?”
“No, they’re coming back tonight, but I can’t handle her being in the house today more than she has to be. I thought it was a good idea for us to have a little space.”
“What does Margaret think?” I said.
“What does it matter what she thinks?”
“You need to talk to her, Bobby. Shutting her out isn’t going to do what you think it’s going to do. Margaret would never do anything to hurt you.”
“Do you think that makes this better or worse?” He shook his head. “I knew that things weren’t great between us. I’m not an idiot. But knowing things aren’t great and finding out your wife is in love with your brother? Those are two different things.”
“That isn’t what this is about, Bobby,” I said.
“You sure about that?”
He paused, biting his thumbnail. Bruised hand meeting bruised mouth.
“Do you know she’s been talking about having another kid? Why would she talk about having another kid if she was feeling as badly as this? Maybe she thought that would fill it, what she was missing with me . . .”
“I think that you and Margaret need to sit down and deal with this.”
He drilled me with a look. “I think you should have told me. That’s what I think.”
“Bobby, I didn’t know.”
“I’m not talking about Margaret. I’m talking about Ben. He has a kid?”
I nodded, unsure how to read my brother’s expression. “Does that make you hate him?”
He shook his head, surprising me. “No, not at all. It makes me sad for him.”
He started walking toward the door. Then he turned back.
“People screw up, you know. You shouldn’t hold it against them. You shouldn’t expect everyone to know everything you’re thinking about or not getting from them. It doesn’t mean they don’t love you. They screw up.”
I nodded, even though Bobby wasn’t talking about Ben—the kindest thing I could do for him was pretend that he was. I realized that was what was so hard for him. Bobby wanted to be the one who never screwed up, who we all looked up to, Margaret especially. He confused that with love. He confused how she saw him with how she needed him to see her.
Bobby sat back down. “I don’t want your sympathy,” he said.
“You don’t have it,” I said.
Then I took his hand.
High Yields
After Bobby left for San Francisco—for work, for a Margaret- and Finn-free day—I headed into Santa Rosa. I drove to the courthouse in the center of Santa Rosa—a small courthouse where the biggest business was traffic tickets. I had two enormous files in my hand, files I had found online that backed up my case. The case I was about to make to someone behind the small courthouse desk.
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As it turned out, I knew the person I was making the case to. Kirby, from high school, was standing behind the desk.