Page 134 of These Summer Storms

“Oh, Sam.” She took him in, looking despondent and totally unlike her brother. “Do you—want a hug?”

He recoiled like she’d smacked him. “Absolutely not.”

At least they could laugh about it all falling apart. “I’ll tell you what, there is no scenario where we ever behave like a normal family.”

“What the hell is a normal family?” he asked. “There aren’t normal families. They don’t exist. All unhappy families are unhappy in their own way.”

“Tolstoy would be impressed.”

“Why do I care what Tolstoy thinks?” Sam said, and when she opened her mouth to explain he raised a hand. “I’m kidding. I took comp lit in college.”

“You did?”

“How else was I going to meet girls?” he asked, kicking the porch swing into movement. “Anyway. I think thisisthe normal stuff. A bunch of kids home for their father’s funeral.”

“Celebration,” she said, and they both smiled. It made absolutely nothing better, but it felt nice. “I told you my story. Your turn…where’ve you been?”

She didn’t want to share. “I went for a run.”

“Training for a marathon during monsoon season?” He paused. “Without shoes? In the dress you wore to Dad’s funeral?”

“I’m eccentric,” she said.

“You’re fucking the help, is what you are,” he replied.

Jack wasn’t the help, but Alice bit her tongue and stayed quiet, knowing that if she said anything, she’d give too much away. Pretending he hadn’t said anything, she pulled her feet up onto the swing. “You want to tell me what happened?”

He sighed and leaned back on the swing, staring up at the porch ceiling. “Nothing happened. She doesn’t like me. She’s never liked me. And I think she’d be much happier if we weren’t married.”

Alice nodded. “And…”

“I think I would be, too.”

They didn’t speak for a bit, and then Alice said, “So, not like last time.”

The family avoided discussion oflast time,which Elisabeth only ever referred to in hushed whispers asSam’s peccadillo—like that was a word people used in the twenty-first century.

While their parents had never told them the whole story, as Alice understood it, Sam had given an interview to a fresh-faced journalist about his view of the Storm legacy, and it had gone on longer than the allotted hour. Weeks longer. The young woman made a mistake too many young women in the same situation had made before her (largely, believing the wrong man, one who accidently sexted the family text thread instead of her). Sila found out, packed her things, and moved out.

For his part, Sam had thought about letting her go, but Sila was nothing if not clever, and she knew exactly how she was going to make sure she and four-year-old Saoirse got what she felt they were owed. She’d made a call, Franklin and Elisabeth had lost their entire minds at the idea that their grandchild was living on Long Island, and Sila returned to the family fold within weeks. The whole thing had lasted just over five months, and once she was home, it took just under five months for them to conceive Oliver.

“No,” Sam said, and it was impossible not to hear the bitterness in his tone. “I learned my lesson on that. She never trusted me again.” Hepaused. “And never around you all. She thinks you all whisper behind her back.”

“We don’t,” Alice said.

He threw her a disbelieving look.

“Okay, fair,” she allowed. “But in my defense I haven’t whispered behind her back in five years.”

They both laughed, because what else could be done?

In the distance, the fog bell rang and Alice’s eyes went wide. “You got the bell working! Sammy! Amazing!”

“Oh.” He dipped his head, pretending not to be proud of himself. “You don’t have to make it seem like I’ve never been able to complete a task. Do you remember when we did it for Dad? With Charlie and that old dude from Newport?”

She thought for a moment. “I don’t think so?”

He smiled. “Maybe you were too young. Emily was barely out of diapers.”