Rainshadow Road (Friday Harbor #2)(65)

Sam brought a cutting board, a chef’s knife, and raw vegetables and greens. As Lucy chopped cucumber and yellow bell peppers, Sam opened a bottle of wine and poured two glasses.

“No jam jar?” Lucy asked with a faux-wistful expression as Sam gave her a crystal stem filled with dark, glittering Cabernet.

“Not for this wine.” He clinked his glass with hers and made a toast. “To Mark and Maggie.”

“Do you think Alex will mind that you’re going to be the best man?” Lucy asked.

“Not at all. They don’t typically have much to do with each other.”

“Is that because of the age difference?”

“Maybe in part. But it’s really more of a personality issue. Mark’s the typical older brother. When he gets worried about someone, he gets bossy and overbearing, which sends Alex up the wall.”

“What do you say to them when they argue?”

“When I’m not running for cover, you mean?” Sam asked dryly. “I tell Mark that he’s not going to change Alex or stop him from drinking. That’s up to Alex. And I’ve told Alex that at some point, I’m going to drag his ass to rehab. Not the kind of rehab with celebrities and spa treatments. The kind with an electrified fence, where they give you a scary roommate and make you clean your own toilet.”

“Do you think it would ever get to that point? Where you could convince him to … get help somewhere?”

Sam shook his head. “I think Alex will stay functional enough to avoid ever having to deal with it.” He studied the depths of his wineglass, swirled the deep garnet liquid. “He won’t admit it, but he’s angry at the whole damn world because our family was such a screw job.”

“But you don’t seem to feel that way,” Lucy said quietly. “Angry at the world, I mean.”

Sam shrugged, his gaze turning inward. “I had it a little easier than he did. There was this old couple who lived a couple of houses away from us. They were my escape. They had no kids of their own, and I used to go hang out at their house.” He smiled reminiscently. “Fred would let me take apart an old alarm clock and put it back together again, or show me how to replace the kitchen sink drain pipes. Mary was a teacher. She gave me books to read, helped me with homework sometimes.”

“Are either of them still alive?”

“No, both gone. Mary left me some money to use as part of the down payment for this place. She loved the idea of the vineyard. She used to make blackberry wine in a gallon jug. Godawful sweet stuff.” Sam fell silent, his expression hazed with memories.

Lucy realized that he was trying to make connections for her, explain himself in a way that wasn’t easy. He wasn’t the kind of man who made excuses or apologized for who he was. But on some level he wanted her to understand the person who had been formed by the bitter implosion of his parents’ relationship.

“On my twelfth birthday,” Sam said after a while, “I came home after school and Vick had taken Alex somewhere, and Mark had disappeared. My mother was passed out on the sofa. Dad was drinking something straight from the bottle. Around dinnertime I started to get hungry, but there was nothing to eat. I went to look for Dad, and finally found him sitting in his car in the driveway, shouting some crap about suicide. So I went to Fred and Mary’s house, and stayed for about three days.”

“They must have meant a lot to you.”

“They saved my life.”

“Did you ever tell them that?”

“No. They knew.” Recalling himself to the present, Sam leveled a wary glance at Lucy. She knew that he’d told her more than he had meant to, and he wasn’t certain why, and he regretted it. “Back in a minute,” he said, and went to set the steaks on an outside grill at the back of the house.

* * *

As the steaks cooked on the grill, and a pan of red potatoes roasted in the oven, Lucy told Sam about her parents, and the recent discovery that her father had been married once before he’d married her mother.

“Are you going to ask him about it?”

“I’m curious,” Lucy admitted, “but I’m not sure I want to hear the answers. I know that he loves Mom. But I don’t want him to tell me that he loved someone else more than her.” She traced her fingers over the scarred surface of the worktable. “Dad’s always been distant from the rest of us. Reserved. I think his first wife kept a piece of his heart that he couldn’t give to anyone else after she died. I think he was permanently damaged, but Mom wanted him anyway.”

“Must be hard to compete with someone’s memory,” Sam said.

“Yes. Poor Mom.” Lucy grimaced. “I’m sorry you’ll have to meet them. It’s not fair to you. Waiting on me hand and foot, then having to suffer through a visit from my parents.”

“No problem.”

“You’ll probably like Dad. He tells physics jokes that no one ever gets.”

“Like what?”

“Like, ‘Why did the chicken cross the road? Because a chicken at rest tends to stay at rest. Chickens in motion tend to cross the road.’” Lucy rolled her eyes as he laughed. “I knew you’d think it was funny. Where do you think we should go for dinner?”

“Duck Soup,” Sam said. It was one of the best restaurants on the island, a vine-covered inn featuring local produce and items from its own kitchen garden, and freshly caught seafood. A whimsical portrait of Groucho Marx hung in the entrance foyer.