“You wanna come inside?” I ask.
“Yeah, that’d be great.” He follows me into the house and to the kitchen.
I open the fridge and pull out a bottle of water and offer him one, which he accepts.
“Here.” He holds out a bottle of rum. “We got this for you in St. Thomas, but Dani forgot to give it to you the other night while you were over.”
I accept the bottle from his hands and set it on the counter. “Wanna sit outside? It’s nice out.”
“Sure.” As we step out in the backyard and take a seat at the table, Ky looks around. “Wow, Laur, it looks great out here.”
I smile as I take a look around.
“So, in all seriousness, where is Dani?” I ask, relaxing back in my chair, and Ky adjusts his glasses again over his eyes.
“She’s home. I wanted to spend some time with you since she had you all to herself the other night,” Kyler says, then grips the back of his neck nervously. “And to apologize about Finn.”
I snap my head in his direction. “Why are you apologizing? You’re allowed to see him. I know how much he meant to you growing up. How can I be upset or mad about that? You knew him just as long as I have.”
K
yler stares at me, trying to see if I’m lying or telling the truth. I know that both of my siblings mean well, but I know that I wasn’t the only life that changed when Finn left. “You sure? I mean, you ran out of the house so fast the other night. I thought you might have been angry with me.”
I hate that I made him feel like that. I have no right to be angry or upset with Kyler for being friends with Finn, especially after our father walked out on us. Kyler always looked up to Finn as a big brother, so who am I to take that friendship away?
I inhale sharply. “No, it was just a long night. I finally told Dani all about Finn and our past. I was kind of a mess, and then just seeing him—” I look down at the ground. “—I don’t know, it was just a lot.”
I sneak a peek at my brother and see that he is giving me a small smile, and I use that to change the subject. “So, I hear St. Thomas was amazing.”
Ky’s serious face drifts to a full-blown smile. “It was. Minus the one day I got a little too sunburnt.”
I laugh, recalling how Dani described how miserable he was that night. “Dani told me that.”
We spend a little bit longer outside with him sharing his version of basically everything Dani said, but he is so animated talking about it that I just let him go on. All of a sudden, the sky open ups with a brief rainstorm, and we race inside.
Once safely in the kitchen, I hand Ky a hand towel to dry off.
“Hey, Ky, can I ask you a question?”
He sets the towel down and leans his hands on the island. “Yeah, sure. You know you can ask me anything.”
“Did it bother you not having Dad at your wedding?”
The side of Ky’s mouth twitches to the side as if he’s deep in thought.
“Honestly, no. I mean don’t get me wrong, it probably would have been nicer to have him there had I had a relationship with him, but I don’t. There was one time that I had wished he was, but I think it was more to show him how well I turned out without him. On my wedding day, I wanted to be surrounded by people I love, who support mine and Dani’s relationship, and Dad never even met her. He left us. I don’t even think he deserved an invitation—the man woke up one day and decided he didn’t want a family anymore.”
I don’t correct my brother. It’s not that he didn’t want a family anymore; it was that he didn’t want us. When I graduated from college, I was proud of my accomplishments and wanted him there. Part of me wanting to have him be proud of me while the other wanted to show him that his leaving didn’t bother me.
However, all that I found when I showed up at the address we had been receiving cards from on our birthdays, no presents, just a signed card that said “Dad.” I found him sitting at the dinner table with a little boy on his lap. If it weren’t for him looking just like Kyler did at that age, I wouldn’t have guessed he was my apparent half brother. My dad had a new family, and he never even told us.
Three months later, Finn was leaving for Seattle, and he proposed. The only reason I’d said no was the heavy weight of that on my mind. My parents had married so young; they were the only love they had known, and one day my dad just stopped loving my mom. I was terrified that it would have happened to us. Of course I wanted to marry Finn, but I wanted us to have our plan, have our careers stable first.
“What brought this up?”
“I don’t know.” I lean up against the counter. “I guess I always wondered, but then bigger things came up.”
“Like Finn coming back home,” Ky interrupts. He says it so matter-of-factly.