Page 12

Chapter 12

Family Dinner

Isaiah

J onah and I arrived at Dad’s house thirty minutes late. When I arrived at my brother's place later that day, he and his two roommates were in the middle of building a bunk bed for his dogs and were covered in sawdust. When I told him they don’t need bunk beds, they need a barn, he gave me this look of realization that sent regret tumbling through my body.

Nothing good can come from Jonah’s brain.

Our childhood home is in a suburb of Philly, and it’s way too small for a family of six. Mom died in a car accident when I was eight, and our family never really recovered from her death. Angie definitely took over as our mother figure at only ten years old, while Dad faded into a shadow of himself. It wasn’t until about a year ago—to the shock of us all—that Dad started going to therapy and grief counseling.

It’s been an incredible transformation, but I wish we could have seen this version of him a lot sooner.

I’m not like my older sister, who is so free with her emotions. It makes her a great children’s therapist and friend. While her inclination is to coax feelings from people, mine is to hide them. Growing up the way we did, all I wanted was for my mom to still be alive and for my dad to be proud of me. As an adult, I realized what I was trying to do was be the man of the house—as outdated as that thought process is—since my dad wasn’t mentally there for us. I never saw my dad show emotion outside of Mom’s death bed and funeral. He always hid away, and that’s what I thought I had to do with my emotions, too.

Thanks to Angie’s relentless need to see what’s going on in everyone’s brain, it’s a little easier for me to open up now, but not much. I know that makes me come off surly a lot of the time, but at this point, being reserved is my comfort zone.

We didn’t know until recently that our mom wrote journals for each one of us kids which encompassed her pregnancy through our first year of life. I’m a little ashamed to say I haven’t opened it yet. Dad gave them to us about a year ago, but I’ve been too afraid to read what’s inside.

I’ll get there someday.

Now that we’re all out of the house, Dad’s been calling us a lot more to come over for the smallest things. His loneliness is the reason we’re all here, and why my sisters have established a mandatory family dinner every Sunday night.

And, okay, I guess it’s nice to see everyone or whatever.

“Fuck yeah, enchiladas!” Jonah hollers as we step in through the back door to the unmistakable aroma of our childhood.

“Language, Jonah,” Dad chides, holding his granddaughter to his chest. Zofia is unfazed as she takes a handful of Dad’s salt-and-pepper mustache.

“She’s six months old,” Jonah drawls, helping Dad remove her death grip from his facial hair and taking her.

“Doesn’t matter,” Dad replies. “You should start watching what you say from now on. They’re sponges.”

“Who made dinner tonight?” I ask, bracing myself for the answer.

“I did,” Rafael smiles, coming into the kitchen from the living room. He’s in a dark floral summer button-up, and as always, his smooth terracotta skin and styled hair are flawless.

My whole body relaxes knowing we’re eating well tonight. “Gracias,” I say, giving him a tight hug.

Rafael and his younger brother Joaquín have been in our lives since we were young. Their moms, Ana and Christina, were the adult mother figures in our lives, auxiliary to Angie. They live just a few neighborhoods over, and our families have been intermingled for decades. And now, with Raf and Ang getting married soon, they’ll be even tighter.

“Hey, bro,” Dane says, coming up next to me, holding our nephew Dominico. I take a step back for a moment to study my brother.

Dane usually wears dark clothes when he’s not in his veterinarian scrubs or rugby kit. But tonight, he’s opted for a band tee and ripped black jeans, complete with classic black Converse. Odd—he hasn’t gone full punk since high school. He keeps a few lingering stylistic choices, like the small black gauges in his ears, but this is like he stepped back in time.

“Are you wearing eyeliner?”

“So?”

“Nothing. You just haven't worn it in a long time.”

“It’s coming back,” he mutters.

“I don’t think it is.”

“What do you know about makeup?”

“Not much. It just looks like you’re ready to get Agony Nectar back together.” He bristles at the name of our family band we formed as teenagers, and I chuckle. “Are we going on tour?”

“Shut up.”

“Just say the word, and I’ll take my bass out of storage.”

With the hand not holding our nephew, Dane tries to gently rub his eyeliner away. At the same moment, my eye catches Joaquín coming through the door.

“Hey, I didn’t know Joaquín was going to be here today,” I say. “Maybe he wants to get the band back together, too.” I wave to him. “Joaquín!”

“Jesus,” Dane mutters.

“Hey, guys,” Joaquín beams, setting a plastic-wrapped bowl of salsa down and pushing back his long, shiny black curls.

“This is a surprise,” I say, patting him on the back as we hug.

“Yeah, I’m here this week working on some of the houses.” Joaquín and Rafael run Jimenez Brothers Properties together, and Joaquín travels between here and Washington DC often to check on their various rental properties.

He lets go of me and goes in for a hug with Dane and Dominico—or Nico, as we’ve recently nicknamed him. “I heard you guys started a new family dinner tradition, so I thought I’d crash it.”

“Dane wants to get Agony Nectar back together,” I smirk.

The guys pull away from each other, and Joaquín looks like he just heard the juiciest bit of gossip. “Tell me more.”

“We’re not,” Dane says.

But Joaquín rakes his gaze over my punk-rock brother. “We clearly are.”

“Dinner!” Rafael hollers from the dining table.

I take a seat between Joaquín and Angie, who’s at the end with Rafael so they can each access the kids in their high chairs. Rafael says grace for everyone, and we dig in.

“Where’s Ivy?” I ask the whole table.

“She’s at a birth right now,” Dad replies.

“She’s always gone.”

Dad shrugs before serving himself. “Yeah. It’s the nature of being a midwife, though. Always on-call.”

“And where are Ana and Christina? They’re usually here.”

“They’re visiting our family in Mexico,” Joaquín answers.

“That reminds me,” Angie chimes in over all the conversations happening. “We have an announcement about the wedding, everyone!”

Everyone quiets down but Dane finishes his side conversation with Jonah. “You only took that class in college because the professor was hot.”

“She was,” Jonah smirks.

“Jonah,” Angie cuts in.

“What?”

“Stop talking. Thank you.” Angie relaxes and takes Raf’s hand. “We found a venue in Guanajuato and put a deposit down. The date is officially set for May 14th next year.”

“That’s great, bunny,” Dad smiles.

“Jonah, this is your first reminder to make sure your passport is current.”

“I don’t think I have a passport.”

“Yes, you do,” Raf sighs. “You went to Ireland with the team two years ago.”

“Do you know where you put it?” she asks, but Jonah's face goes blank, and she groans.

“I’ll make sure he has one,” Dad says.

Angie’s expression is a curious one. “Thanks, Dad.”

“Whatever you need, bunny.”

Then she looks at me. “And yours is up to date, Zay?”

“Yeah.”

“It better be,” Dad says. “If you’re going to be the USA Valor’s head coach, you’re gonna need—”

“Dad!” I hiss.

“Wait, what?” several people ask at once.

So much for trying to keep Dad in the loop. I’m not telling him anything ever again.

“Nothing’s official,” I seethe. “I don’t even know if I have the job yet. I probably won’t get it.”

“Of course you will,” Raf says with a pinch between his brows. “You’d make an excellent head coach.”

“Whoa, whoa, back up,” Dane says. “What about Robyn?”

Sweat forms under my arms. “What about her? ”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Dane drawls. “Maybe it’s the fact that you’re in love with her?”

I need new friends who are not my family.

“I’m not in love with her,” I lie.

“Does the Pope shit in the woods?” Jonah asks rhetorically.

“I think you mean ‘bear,’” I say.

“No, I think he means ‘hat,’” Raf replies. “He meant to say: Does the Pope wear a funny hat?”

“No,” Dane says. “The phrase is: Does a bear shit in the woods?”

Jonah puts his hands up to quiet the noise. “Irregardless—”

“That’s not a word,” Angie and I remind him in unison.

“The point is, if you get this job, you’re going to be around Robyn a lot,” he smirks and points his fork at me. “And as it is, you’re afraid to be around her.”

“I am not.”

“Who wants to hear about the time Isaiah met Robyn?” Rafael booms over everyone. At that, I get up from the table and book it downstairs to the basement, but not before I hear Raf start, “It was his sophomore year…”