“You’ve changed.”
“People do.”
A container of coleslaw was set out on the table, as were sandwich makings. Good ones—crusty rolls, thick slices of turkey, Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomatoes already cut up and some exotic mustard. Conall smiled, remembering the tasteless, squishy white bread he’d grown up eating, the prepackaged lunch meats, the American cheese that came individually wrapped in plastic. His own tastes had become considerably more sophisticated, too.
Duncan offered a choice of drinks. Conall chose the coffee he hadn’t been able to swallow earlier. He was starved, too, he discovered, as he assembled a sandwich. Dinner had been a hell of a long time ago.
They’d both taken a few bites before his brother said, “Something on your mind?”
Too much. So much he didn’t know where to start, or even if he wanted to start. The itchy, restless feeling ran under his skin, making him wonder what would happen if someone touched him unexpectedly. God, was he twitching?
“Yeah.” With his fork, he poked at the slaw. “Coming home like this has been weird.” Okay, that was a place to start.
“How so?” Duncan eyed him curiously.
“I hadn’t let myself think much about Mom and Dad. Growing up.” His shoulders moved uncomfortably, of their own volition. “Or you.”
“Yeah, I kinda noticed that when you ignored my letters.”
He found himself, strangely, smiling. “Ignoring your letters was when I did think about you. Telling yourself you don’t give a damn takes some effort, you know.”
Duncan laughed heartily. “I’ll be sure to write you a lot more often in the future.”
Conall met his brother’s eyes head-on. “I won’t be ignoring your letters anymore.”
It was a minute before Duncan nodded. “I’m glad.” He sounded hoarse.
“I was a bastard.”
“Yeah, you were.”
Ridiculous to be smiling again, but he was. Duncan was, too, he saw. They both concentrated on eating for a few minutes, the silence easier now, something important out of the way.
“So you’ve been thinking about Mom and Dad,” Duncan said at last, reflectively.
“No.” He frowned. “Yeah, I guess I have. Do you remember—” He grunted with amusement. “Actually, you probably remember a dozen times when I’d gotten the shit beat out of me.”
“Two dozen at least.”
“There was this once when I was about nine. My eyes were both swollen shut.”
“God, yes. Your face looked like raw meat.” Duncan leaned back in his chair, contemplating Conall. “I heard Mom sobbing in the kitchen. There were broken dishes all over the floor. I sneaked upstairs and— I don’t remember why I even checked your room, but you were huddled in bed.”
“That sounds like the time I’m thinking of.” Conall took a swallow of coffee, striving for a ruefully reminiscent tone. “They were fighting when I got home. Seeing me tipped them over the edge. I guess they thought I’d stayed upstairs. I heard her yelling at him that she had never wanted me, that he was the one who insisted they have another kid. He bellowed that I had to be her fault, that he didn’t believe I was his. He couldn’t see himself in me.”
Duncan bit off a harsh obscenity. “I knew something worse than usual was wrong.” Breathing hard, he bent his head for a moment. “You believed them, didn’t you?”
“What wasn’t to believe?” There. He’d pulled the tone off perfectly. “I think she did love you. Maybe Niall some. Me, not at all. I always knew that.”
“No.”
Conall didn’t know if he’d ever heard so much anger in one word. “What?”
“It’s not true. She did love you early on, before things got so bad with him. She pulled back from all of us after that. Niall, too. Why do you think he started getting in so much trouble?”
Was it true? Not that his mother had loved him—Conall really didn’t give a damn anymore—but that she hadn’t picked out him alone to reject? “I didn’t think about it,” he admitted. “I was a mess.”
“I’ve never seen anyone as angry as you.” Duncan sounded troubled. “Later, you got so slick no one saw below the surface. Teachers couldn’t say enough about you, you took the baseball team to the only championship they’ve had before or since—”