The Long and Winding Road (The Seafare Chronicles 4)

“Yeah. But I think it’s better now.” I take a sip from my nearly empty wineglass. “We aren’t like we once were.”

“Scared.”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I’m still scared. Of course I am. I woke up this morning thinking I was about to have one child. Now I probably have three.”

?

?It’s okay if you—”

“But just because I’m scared doesn’t mean I can’t handle it. Because we’re not like we once were, Kid. We were scared then too, sure, but… we didn’t have what we have now. Not in the way we do now. The others, they—okay, they were there, but I wouldn’t let them in. Not for you. Not for me. Because I thought it was the only way we’d make it. I couldn’t trust anyone but myself, because then I couldn’t blame anyone but myself if I failed. It wasn’t easy.”

“Nothing worth having ever is,” he says. And then, “I’m sorry.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t get to come here and act like I did. It’s not fair.”

“No, you don’t. And it wasn’t. That was wrong, and I expect more from you. Always.”

“I’ll apologize to Otter too.”

“See that you do.”

“You mad at me?”

“I was.”

“Okay.”

I wrap my arm over his shoulder, pulling him close. He tugs on my fingers that dangle over his chest. He’s here with me, finally. After all this time. After everything we’ve been through, he’s here again. He’s right in his head again, mostly, and he’s here. There’s still a bit of anger in me, but it’s fading. I could never stay mad at him for very long. It’s not something we do. Sure, he can irritate me like nobody else, but he’s my brother. He’s my family.

“I just….”

I wait.

He sighs, his head on my shoulder. “It’s your life.”

“It is,” I agree.

“You get to make these decisions without me.”

“I do.”

“I don’t like it. Sometimes.”

“I know. But it’s not about you.”

“Yeah,” he says. “And that’s how it should be. You’re kicking me out.”

And that’s what I think this whole thing was about. Because the Kid is an idiot, but he’s not stupid. He can count. The Green Monstrosity has three bedrooms. One has been converted to a nursery that everyone oohed and aahed over earlier. The Kid’s room will be Izzie’s, however long she wants to use it. Which I was hoping would be for years.

That didn’t leave much room for Tyson.

“Not kicking you out,” I say. “There’s the foldout couch.”

He scowls. “Yeah. The one that feels like it’s bad-touching you whenever you lay on it.”

“I offered you bunk beds,” I remind him.