“It’s not his fault he is the way he is.” His brother grabbed the baseball tucked inside James’s glove abandoned on the floor by the bed. He shot the ball straight up, catching it before it landed on his nose.
“So it’s my fault he went digging through my stuff?”
“He’s just trying to get a rise out of you, but listen.” Thomas tossed the ball again, then curled up, sitting on the bed edge and catching the ball in one move. Resting his forearms on his knees, he lightly juggled the ball side to side. “Mom dragged us along to the Valley Fair Mall a couple of days ago. We ran into Dad’s secretary.”
“Mrs. Lorenzi?” She was as cavalier as their mother and should have retired a decade ago.
“You know how Mom and Dad and Uncle Grant won’t acknowledge Phil in public as Mom’s son?”
“Yeah, so? What happened?”
Thomas shrugged. “You know Mom. She can’t help talking about how great he is. ‘My nephew this. My nephew that.’” Thomas mimicked the tone and cadence of their mother’s voice. Then he scratched his head, ball in hand. “You’d think Phil would be cocky as shit with the compliments. He looked ill, and a little sad. I felt sorry for the guy.”
James frowned. “What does that have to do with his being an ass?”
Thomas shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t know. I got this feeling our parents and Uncle Grant are creating their own hell storm. One of these days Phil’s going to get sick of us calling him cousin.” His brother underhanded the ball and James caught it, putting it aside. Thomas stood and went to the door. “Does Aimee know about Phil?” His tone was curious.
James screwed his lips and shook his head. He was too embarrassed to tell her the truth. It disgusted him that his mother had sex with her brother. That would be like sleeping with Thomas if he were a girl. How gross was that? He still remembered the ridicule his family endured right before they left New York.
“Yeah, I think we’ve both done a good job sweeping that scandal under the rug. I haven’t told anyone either.” Thomas turned the handle and paused before opening the door. “Word of advice?”
James had turned back to his desk and homework. He cocked his head toward Thomas. “What?”
“Do the same about your art. You’ve slipped a couple of times lately.”
James agreed. He’d gotten careless. He looked at the drawer where he hid the shopping bag. “If you didn’t have to work for Mom and Dad’s company after college, what would you want to do?”
Thomas was silent for a moment. “I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it.”
“If you did think about it?”
“Brian Holstrom’s dad works for the FBI. He’s told us some really cool stories.” He shrugged, then held up his hand, fingers splayed. “Dinner in five.” His brother shut the door, leaving James with exactly four minutes to clean up and one minute to get his rear to the table. He sprinted into the bathroom, thoughts of Phil rinsing away with the dirt and grime.
The loudspeaker crackles overhead, reminding James of where they are and why. Boarding would begin shortly for their flight. He nudges Julian’s shin with the toe of his sneaker. “That was nice of you,” he says, referring to the doughnut half Julian sacrificed. “You’re a good brother.”
Julian doesn’t reply, just looks at him, then buries his face in his phone, cramming the rest of the doughnut in his mouth.
Standing beside his sons, James finishes his coffee and juggles his oatmeal, mixing in a packet of nuts and dried fruit. Flip-flops and loafers cross his line of vision while he eats. He scrapes the bottom of the bowl and takes his last bite when a pair of strappy, rhinestone slides fills his vision. They sparkle like crazy. Then he feels the owner’s presence and his entire demeanor hardens. The pulse in his neck throbs. He doesn’t have to see who’s wearing the tailored sundress with the thin leather belt tightened at a slender waist as he draws his gaze upward. He doesn’t have to look past the tiny pearl button at the neckline and into her pinched face to know who’s standing beside him.
The oatmeal he just ate lands hard in his stomach. What the hell?
“Hello, James.” His mother greets him with the closed-lipped curve of a smile.
For the second time this week, his jaw lands on the floor over her unexpected appearance. He has to stop himself from asking Marc to pick it up along with his dirty doughnut.
James gapes at the woman who lied to him and his sons for five years. The same woman who abhorred his artistic talent, so much so she’d ordered him to return the first oil-paint set Aimee had gifted him on his twelfth birthday. A frivolous talent, James, and not worth wasting your time on.
This came from the same woman who’s an artist herself. A brilliant one, too. He’d seen the piece displayed in the upstairs hallway of their house in Puerto Escondido. Carlos had also described in his journals the other works she’d painted during her extended stays in Mexico.
His pulse pounds in his ears. “Why are you here?”
Claire’s face twitches. Her barely there smile falters.
“Señora Carla!” Marc launches to his feet and hugs Claire, smearing sugar and sprinkles on her sundress. She doesn’t blink an eye, but her smile is back, brighter and wider.
“Are you coming to Hawaii? Will you stay with us? Tía Natalya will be very happy to see you.” Marc speaks rapid Spanish, unable to contain his excitement.
Julian looks up from where he’s sitting and stares bug-eyed at Claire, just as surprised as James to find her there. He slowly rises to his feet, sliding off his headphones to drape around his neck. He glances to James, then back to Claire, and James knows it won’t be long before his son figures out who Claire is, and what she’s been hiding from him for years.
Claire kisses Marc’s head, then does the same to Julian, who’s slowly warming up. She hugs him, then meets James’s hard gaze. “Do you mind if I join you?”
“Give us a minute,” he tells his kids. He grips Claire’s upper arm and hauls her a few seats away.
“James,” she gasps.
He stops by the trash bin and tosses the oatmeal bowl, then launches into his mother. His teeth are gritted to keep his voice low and somewhat under control. “We might have had some messed-up friendship thing going on in Mexico, but fact is fact. You took advantage of my memory loss. Do . . . not . . . expect us to pick up where we left off.”
“Watch your tone with me.” Her eyes arrow left, then right, concerned they were making a spectacle of themselves.
James loosens his grip and lets his arm fall to his side. “Why are you here?”
Her polished nails flutter to the pearl button at her neck. “Thomas told me you were leaving. He thought I’d want to know.” Her face softens. “You can use my help. The boys know me.”
“As Señora Carla. I thought you weren’t speaking with Thomas.”
She grimaces. “We talk only when necessary. James, darling, please. You weren’t home nearly long enough and Thomas didn’t know when you’d be back.” She glances around James. “I miss them. I haven’t seen them since last December.”
A chill rappels down his spine like a rock climber on a cliff face. “You were in Mexico last December?”
She looks surprised. “Of course I was. I went every year right after Thanksgiving. I’d stay through the Christmas holiday.”
But he hadn’t seen her. Which only meant one thing in James’s mind. She’d known he surfaced and had left the country.
Over the speaker the attendant announces boarding for first-class passengers. Claire opens her purse and retrieves her ticket. “You aren’t the only parent in this family worried about their children’s welfare.”
Since when had she cared about him? “A box of expensive paintbrushes doesn’t make up for years of ignoring something I used to be extremely passionate about.”
Claire snaps shut her purse. She frowns. “What do you mean ‘used to be’?”
“You finally got what you wanted, Mother. I stopped painting.”