All the Ugly and Wonderful Things(110)

“Where did you find him?” Leslie said, like it was a scavenger hunt.

I tried, “How did you find each other?” Because that was the question nagging at all of us. After seven years, how had Donal come to be sitting at our table for Christmas dinner?

“My parole officer knows this private detective,” Kellen said. “Got him to look through juvenile records in a couple states. He found Donal out in California.”

“What about Sean? Where is he?” Mom looked at Wavy when she said it, even though the answer was likely going to come from Kellen.

At the mention of Sean, Donal stood up from the table, sending his fork and his napkin tumbling onto the floor. He shoved his chair back and stomped out into the entry. A moment later the front door slammed.

Kellen picked up the fork and napkin, while Wavy whispered something to him. He and Mom stood up at the same time. He followed Donal out the door, while she headed toward the front windows. Part of me wanted to give them some privacy, but it wasn’t the strongest part. I peeked out the edge of the curtain.

Donal and Kellen stood on the front walk, just about where Wavy and Kellen had been reunited earlier in the year. Donal was hunkered down against the cold, while Kellen leaned over him, talking. Donal nodded. Kellen took out his wallet and handed Donal some money. Then he pulled something out of his front pocket and palmed it to Donal, while giving him a rough pat on the shoulder. As Kellen came back up the sidewalk to the house, Donal got into their car, started it, and drove away.

I tensed, waiting for the inevitable explosion. As soon as Kellen stepped into the dining room, my mother said, “What are you thinking? He’s not old enough to drive!”

“Yeah, well, he’s not old enough for a lot of the shit he’s been through,” Kellen said.

“You cannot be serious. You cannot be serious,” Mom said, even though he obviously was. “And what if he gets pulled over? What then?”

“He won’t get pulled over. He’s a decent driver, and dollars to donuts he’s just gonna go up the road to the gas station and buy a pop or something.”

“We have some pop here,” Leslie said.

“He don’t need anything to drink. He needs to get some fresh air.”

“He is only fourteen!” Mom said.

Kellen clenched his jaw, and I could see that under all his jokes about my mother’s anger, he was carrying a grudge. I imagine six years in prison will do that.

“What do you want from the kid? What the hell do you want? You think this is easy for him? Coming back here after all these years and seeing his family and not knowing what to say or how to act. It’s f*cking hard, okay? It’s hard for him.”

That shut Mom up for a few minutes. Kellen dropped back into his chair with a thud. He snapped his napkin across his lap and picked up his fork. We were all quiet while he chewed an enormous bite of pie.

“So is Donal living with you?” I said.

Wavy nodded.

“Since November,” Kellen said. It looked to me like it wasn’t easy for him, either.

“What happened? I mean with his uncle—your uncle? Sean?” The whole conversation was a minefield.

“He’s dead,” Wavy said. Kellen looked at her and she shrugged.

“He died of a heroin overdose, more than two years ago. Donal went into foster care after that and then ended up in juvie.”

“Juvie?” Leslie said. “Like jail?”

Kellen sighed and set his fork down. “Yeah. He had some trouble on a breaking and entering charge. Nothing serious. The kinda shit kids get into at that age. We hired a lawyer to get us through family court. Good guy, did okay by us. You know, I had to have my parole transferred down here, and then I can’t live with anybody under sixteen because of the sex offender thing. But the lawyer got us an exception for Donal, since he’s my brother-in-law.”

“Wow,” I said. It was like getting important news from a telegram: Sean dead, Donal in jail, Kellen and Wavy married. Stop.

“That’s great that he could come live with you,” Trisha said. She and Brice were both trying not to look stunned by their crash course in Wavy’s life.

“Yeah, it’s really great.” Leslie jumped in late, but she made up for the delay by nodding vigorously. “So how is he?”

“He’s doing better. But like I said, it’s hard for him.”

I waited for Mom to say something that would show she was happy, but she sat there looking like she’d been slapped. Despite all her efforts to keep them apart, Wavy and Kellen were together. I felt sorry for Wavy, because we were the only family she had. Kellen and Donal and us. She hadn’t come to rub my mother’s nose in it. She’d come to make up with Mom.

“So when did you get married?” I said.

“She didn’t tell you?” The heavy crease between Kellen’s eyes smoothed out and he smiled. “I thought you told her, sweetheart. Day after we got the bike, we rode down to Vegas and got married. Her roommate, Renee, and her boyfriend followed us down in the car, in case we had any troubles with the bike, but everything was dandy.”

“The postcard. I didn’t realize that was—congratulations!” I’d received a postcard of the Las Vegas strip, but all she’d written on the back was “Thank you,” signed with a W and a heart.