Kat
Part of me felt like I had crossed over into the Twilight Zone. I was standing in the Morgan’s dining room trying to decide where to sit. Growing up, I sat next to Billy. And considering he just spoke to me and handed me a beer, I didn’t want to offend by not sitting next to him, but then again, I wasn’t sure I could handle being that close to him all through dinner. Also, was it weird that a part of me wondered if he poisoned my beer? I mean, a few hours ago, the guy didn’t even acknowledge I was in the room and now he was gifting me things? Seemed suspect, don’t ya think? So yeah, I just stood there, stymied.
Duke saved me from my own tribulations. “Kit-Kat, come sit next to me.”
No one had called me Kit-Kat in a long time. I was always Kit-Kat in this house and being her again felt like Goldilocks in baby bear’s chair—just right. I followed Duke’s lead and sat to his left. Sarah was on his right. Wyatt next to me and Cody next to her. Billy sat at the opposite end of the table across from Duke. When I was a kid, we needed the leaf in the dining table, but with Molly gone and my family in New York, the table was smaller. If Luke, the second oldest Morgan boy, had been there, we would have had to add a chair.
“Where’s Luke?” I asked. Luke was by far the brother I was closest to besides Billy. We had kept in touch for a while after I left but talking to him reminded me too much of Billy, so we agreed to talk less and eventually not at all.
Sarah answered, “Got an apartment in town. Doesn’t come for dinner most of the time because he’s engaged now.” She passed a platter of mashed potatoes as she spoke. “Her name is Maddie. We hardly recognize him. He’s so happy all the time.”
“Was he not happy?” I asked.
“Noooooo... apparently, we were too hard on the big softy,” Wyatt ribbed. “Well, there was never any comparison to Ol’ giggly Bill over here.” He swung his thumbs at Billy. “But Luke was feeling kinda closeted by our roasting of his artistic talents. He’s an artist, ya know?”
“He was always an artist,” I said. “Remember when we missed our school photos? Luke drew our class pictures, and they were so good that they printed them in the yearbook.”
Duke smiled.
Cody snickered, then added, “Luke’s fine. He’s head over heels. These fools are just too much up in everyone’s business.”
“I’d love to see him,” I offered.
“Well, maybe if we knew you were coming,” Sarah needled.
Duke squelched the banter. “Okay, enough sibling smack talk. We haven’t seen this beauty in a while, and I don’t know if you all realized, but girl done good. Tell us about being a big-time rock ‘n roller, Kat. Your tour’s going to Australia this spring, right?”
I knew right away that Duke’s knowledge of my upcoming tour was going to trip alarms for the boys, but for a split second, I hoped it might go unnoticed. It didn’t.
Wyatt guffawed, “Dad, are you following Kat on the internet?”
Duke looked a little flustered for a second. And then the man in him got centered. He looked down at his plate and worked at cutting his chicken when he said, “I’ll let you worry about the internet, Wyatt. Kit-Kat here keeps me up to date about her life in good ol’ fashioned letters, with handwritten addresses and stamps, thank you very much.”
Everyone got real quiet. Billy stopped chewing. He looked at me. “You write dad letters?”
I nodded.
“For how long?” He didn’t think he looked angry. I couldn’t tell. Was he angry?
I took a deep breath. I was an international superstar. I could answer this question. “About ten years. Give or take a few months.”
“Why?” Billy asked.
I didn’t hesitate. “Because they’re my family too.”
Billy looked around the room, not angry but maybe a little accusatory, “All of you?”
The Morgan boys were in the clear and it showed on their faces. Sarah, on the other hand, made a goofy face and then literally started to sink under the table. And by literally, I mean LITERALLY. She hid under the table.
Billy laughed, and then we were all laughing.
Billy broke into the cacophony of giggles, asking, “Hey, y’all remember the time Kat baked dad a birthday cake?”
Sarah and Cody were too young to remember.
Billy continued, “She baked it in the morning. Worked so hard on it, even wrote Happy Birthday Duke out in icing, and then she put the cake in the cupboard so dad wouldn’t see it. She wanted to surprise him.”
Sarah, someone who actually cooked, said, “Dad’s birthday is in August.”
“Sure is,” Billy said.
Duke started chuckling.
I finished the story for him. “It was cake soup.”
Duke added his two cents, “Still delicious.”
I laughed, “That is absolutely not true. It was terrible. And if I remember correctly, Wyatt put his plate on the floor and Cody, you got on all fours and pretended it was dog food.”
Duke tried to control himself, holding his breath and then he laughed again. “It was terrible.”
Billy smiled, “Thought that counts, right, pop?”
Duke smiled at me again. Shook his head, “You were so disappointed. And it was so sweet.”
“You know what wasn’t sweet?” I asked rhetorically. “The time Wyatt put Nair in Billy and Luke’s shampoo.”
Wyatt laughed. “That’s so basic, who still falls for that?”
“Billy and Luke,” I laughed with him.
Billy quipped, “I’ll have you know, I looked very sexy with no hair.”
“You did.” It just sort of popped out.
There was a beat and then Wyatt said, “Luke didn’t.”
And we were all laughing again.
The stories continued. The time Sarah painted the front door pink for breast cancer awareness because the school said students needed to think of a way to support women and she took that very seriously. The time Cody hid what he thought was a little mouse in his bedroom, only turned out that mouse was a legit rat. The time Billy ripped his shorts at the lake and had an impromptu and very public skinny-dipping experience. I laughed so hard my belly ached.
“We have to stop,” I said, trying to catch my breath.
Sarah started to gather the dishes and Wyatt stood up too. “Well,” he said. “Before I get roped into cleaning up. I got a date.”
“A date?” Billy asked skeptically.
“When do you have a date?” Cody echoed.
“When I do. I have dates,” Wyatt said like they were both ridiculous.
“Yeah, and I have wings,” Cody said.
“You have bar hookups,” Billy chided.
“Well, tonight, I got a date.” Wyatt leaned over and kissed the side of my head. “See you in the morning, Kit-Kat.”
And then he was gone, and Billy and I were still with everyone—but also very much alone for the evening.