“We just painted that wall!”
“So? I’ll paint it again. You can’t leave those marks on the wall. They look terrible.”
She shook her head. “Dinner’s ready.”
Sitting at a kitchen table with his sister and her new husband was a lot more intimate than he imagined it would be. It had been years since he ate a home cooked meal like this, with potholders under the Pyrex and paper napkins in a wicker basket beside his plate.
It reminded him of childhood suppers, sort of like the ones he watched on television. Unlike the memories of their past childhood dinners, this food looked edible, and there was no sense of impending doom.
Giovanni passed him a basket and Harrison stared down at the steaming garlic bread swaddled in a checkered dish towel, strangely quaint and unsettling. Who were these people? He selected a warm piece and set it on his plate then passed the basket to Erin.
Her husband had already put a piece of bread on her plate so she set the basket down. Harrison stared as Giovanni also filled her plate with salad. His mother and father never interacted that way at a table. It seemed strange but also incredibly caring.
“So how long are you staying in Jasper Falls?” Giovanni passed him the salad tongs, his easygoing manners shifting to shrewd observation.
Harrison caught the change right away, the contrast so drastic, there was no mistaking the sentiment that went unsaid. Giovanni didn’t like him.
Harrison wasn’t sure he’d interacted with the man enough to warrant his dislike, but he supposed it had something to do with Erin. “Not sure. I guess as long as it takes.”
“It?”
“The store.”
“Well, I’m sure you have pressing business back in New York that requires your presence.”
“Nothing quite as pressing as a comedy show.”
“Harrison.” Erin shot him a warning glance.
Giovanni rested a hand over her hand where she gripped her fork. “It’s okay, babe.”
Harrison popped a cucumber slice in his mouth, disliking the sense that he was being pushed out of his own home. “Maybe I’ll stick around for a while.”
Giovanni chuckled, the sound dry and mocking. “No need to break tradition and let grass grow under your feet.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“If you ever stuck around long enough to find out, you’d know.”
His fork clattered to the table. “I’d rather just cut to the point. What’s your fucking problem, Mosconi?”
“That’s it.” Erin shot to her feet and snatched Harrison’s plate, dumping it right in the sink. “Get out.”
Now it was starting to feel like a family dinner. “He started it!”
“What are you, twelve? This is our home, Harrison.”
“Last I checked, it was my home too.”
“You left. Twice. Don’t even try to rewrite history to suit your mood swings. You can’t burst in here, start changing things without even asking if it’s all right, and disrespect my husband. This might have been your house, but it’s our home.”
“I didn’t know I needed a written invitation to visit my sister.” He tossed his paper napkin on the table and stood. “So much for trying to be a normal family.”
“Shut up!” Despite the hard set of Erin’s jaw and the jut of her chin, a wall of unshed tears trembled in her eyes. “I don’t want that negativity anymore. Go dump your baggage somewhere else.”
Her words stung. He thought they were just communicating, acting like family and arguing as families do. He hadn’t meant to make her cry.
He looked away, his stare falling on the tidy countertops and the matching hand towels hanging off the front of the oven. Little touches to add a homey sense of comfort that never existed in this place before.
He envied how healthy and normal it all appeared and wanted to prove it was fake, because how could Erin have come so far after so much when he still felt so incredibly broken? What was wrong with him?
He needed to get as far away from them as possible. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Why are you even here?” she snapped.
“I don’t know.”
He had to go. His presence only fueled the ugliness they shared. That was their common ground. His absence had broken any sibling bonds, and too much time had passed to bridge the gap.
He pushed in his chair and left, thinking she might try to stop him but not at all surprised when she didn’t.
He tried it Erin’s way, tried to bury the bad memories, but they kept resurfacing like weeds that spoiled a garden when pretty flowers attempted to grow. No matter what he did, he couldn’t stop his crap from resurfacing.
Covering up the resulting damage didn’t erase the experience that left an injury. He absolutely hated that his father still had this much impact on him.
Erin was different. Stronger, maybe. She lived through things he could never tolerate, somehow faced those battered walls every day, passing those marks until they stopped bothering her. She saw Harrison’s attempt to hide the scars more disturbing than the physical reminders of their brutal past.