Scratch the Surface

“That’s it,” my father announced, smiling at me as the rest of us did the dishes. “She’s got him now. You’ll never see him again.”

“Nah,” Cody corrected him, grinning as he dried the plates. “I got Makayla back. Eventually.”

His wife beamed at him and shrugged. “What can I say, people she likes, she wants to know every little thing about.”

“She does,” Seth agreed, smiling as Courtney leaned in and kissed his cheek. “And I loved having all her attention while she drilled into my brain.”

Courtney cackled at that and shook her head.

“You did good, Cam,” Cody declared with a nod. “You finally found somebody we all like. And more importantly, Dad, I watched Jeremiah throw the small football for the dogs yesterday, and I think we got ourselves a ringer.”

“No,” my father gasped.

“Seriously?” Seth asked, stepping in front of my brother, sounding hopeful and scared at the same time. “Are you screwing with us?”

He shook his head slowly.

“This is exciting,” my father announced. “I’m about to be very happy.”

Makayla was shaking her head. “Honestly. It’s a football game.”

“Yes, but they do lose every year,” Courtney reminded her, grimacing. “And last year it was like, what, thirty-five to one?”

“You can’t score just one,” her husband informed her. “Come on!”

The caterers showed up an hour later, but there was still no sign of my mother and Jeremiah. They reappeared not long after, though, laughing and wind-chafed, and I noted that she held on to his arm and didn’t seem to be ready to let go.

She met guests with him, introducing him as my boyfriend, and when I tried to peel him away, she sent me to check on my father. Jeremiah didn’t even look at me, caught completely in my mother’s web.

He spent time with everyone but me, pulled from one parent to the other, then to Seth, who he sat with outside, then to Makayla. They talked in the kitchen, and my sister-in-law’s finger lifted when someone got close enough to interrupt, letting them know she and Jeremiah needed just one more minute. That animated conversation went on for over an hour.

Later in the evening, I went to look for him and found my mother searching for her dogs.

“How do you lose wolfhounds?” I asked her.

“Don’t be snide,” she warned me, joining me on my hunt, thinking Jeremiah might have the dogs with him.

“Why would the dogs be with him?”

“In case you missed it, darling, they’re a bit smitten. As are we all.”

“Oh?” I fished, wanting to hear more. “You’re smitten?”

She cleared her throat but didn’t answer.

It soon became clear that neither Jeremiah nor the dogs were outside or downstairs, or in any of the places, like the library, where I thought maybe he’d holed up. Not that I thought Jeremiah was hiding, but it was a lot of people and a lot of small talk. I was fine, as I was in work mode, standing alternately with my father and my brother, talking money. That was easy to do.

Conversation with Jeremiah about his work would inevitably become an in-depth discussion about the terrible state of health care and the lack of insurance coverage for people with mental health issues, which did not lend itself to idle chitchat. He was passionate, and people got squirmy fast. As a result, I’d seen him withdraw.

“You could call him,” my mother suggested.

“His phone was dead, so we left it at home on the charger,” I told her, “and forwarded his calls to mine in case there was an emergency at either of his jobs.”

“I guess we check upstairs next, then,” she suggested. Once we were on the second floor, we saw Courtney in the TV room.

“Uhm,” she said, smiling as my mother and I joined her, where she was standing at the end of the couch and staring down at Jeremiah, who was passed out cold.

He was lying on his side with his arm draped over my mother’s Irish wolfhound Rick, who was snoring, dead to the world. It looked like they were spooning. My mother’s other dog, AJ, just as big, had his head on Jeremiah’s hip, and he too was asleep. Courtney’s cat—a purely evil, sadistic creature that was allegedly a Himalayan but was far more likely to be some manner of goblin that hissed and spit at everyone but Courtney and Seth—was sitting next to Jeremiah’s head in the Sphinx position, looking out over her domain and purring like a motorboat.

“Mother, I think your dogs are in love,” Courtney informed her.

“I could say the same for your cat,” my mother countered, brows lifted.

“Yeah. And…that’s weird.”

“It’s not that unusual. Animals know when someone is good, and when they’re needed.”

Courtney turned to look at her. “You think he needs them?”

“I think he needs all of us.” She handed the statement down like a verdict, shooting me a look. “He needs a family, so if you don’t intend to keep him, you should let us know. You can’t dabble here, you understand? He’s not made like that.”