Page 97 of Rev

Rev parks, sits a moment regarding the house. A ramshackle thing, it’s been added to several times over the decades since my great-grandfather built it. Dad re-sided the whole thing with cedar shakes a few years ago, but it’s still a jumble of dormers, wings, bump-outs, additions. Some of the windows are original, as are most of the floors. The front porch wraps around the left all the way to the back, and it’s a deep porch, white paint peeling, some steps and boards sagging. There’s a swing hanging by a chain right off the front door, a thick maroon wool blanket scrunched up in the middle—Mom and Dad have their coffee there every morning, regardless of the weather.

“Little kids?” Rev asks, eying the toys.

“My nieces and nephews. My older sister has four kids, Angus and Jordan have two each, and Jordan’s wife has a third on the way. Juniper and Mallory are engaged, but neither have kids yet.”

He eyes me. “How many siblings you got?”

“Five. I’m the youngest of six. Anastasia, Angus, Jordan, Juniper, Mallory, and Myka.”

His eyeing continues. “Six of you?”

“Yep.”

He blinks. “Close?”

“What? Close what? Do they live close?”

“You close to them?”

“Well, yes. Very. My oldest sister Ana, especially. I’m closest in age to Mal, but…” I shrug. “I’ve just always clicked with Ana.”

“Your dad’s in the hospital?”

“Yes.”

He gestures at the house. “So why’d we come here?”

“Oh. Well, he can only have a few visitors at a time, and there are a lot of us, so they’ve been going to see him in shifts. When Angus, Lou, Mal, Ben, Aunt Tina, and Uncle Reg get back, Jordan, Callie, Ana, my sister June, you, and me are going.”

He frowns. “Too many fuckin’ names,” he mutters. “Never gonna keep ‘em all straight.”

I just laugh. “Oh, honey, don’t even try, not right off the bat. There’s a billion of us—no one expects you to remember everyone’s names. Just remember the ones you can as you get to know us.”

“Hmmm.” He squares his shoulders and shuts off the engine. “Guess it’s time to go in.”

I touch his hand, finally verbalizing something I’ve been wrestling with more and more the closest we’ve gotten to my childhood home—which even after all the years I’ve been out on my own still feels like home.

“Rev?” He has his door open, one long leg angled out; he halts, twists his torso to look at me. “Could I, um, ask you to do one thing for me?”

“Anything.”

I wince, not liking at all having to make this ask of him, and worried how he’ll take it. “Could you…try to curtail the cursing while you’re around my family? For me? My family is…you’d call it religious, I suppose. It’s not about religion, per se, however. It’s beliefs, it’s…spirituality. The cursing would make them feel uncomfortable, but they’d never say anything about it to you directly. But it would…it would mean a lot to me.” I watch his face move through several shifts in expression, each brief, each quickly buried. “Just while we’re here.”

He stares at me a moment, then nods. “Can try. Can’t promise I’ll succeed all the time, but I’ll try.” He frowns. “Why’d you seem scared to ask, Myka?”

I rub my thumb over his knuckle. “Because I like you for exactly who you are, Rev. I would never try to change you, and I don’t want you to think that’s why I’m asking.”

His expression softens, just a tiny bit—meaning, the ungiving marble his face is usually carved from shifts into something like an expressive human face. And it is so beautiful my heart aches to look at him. “Yeah, babe. I can do that for you.”

Babe.

Something in my belly turns to goo. I lift his hand to my lips, kiss the strong, purple-veined back. “Thank you, Rev.”

He just stares at me, at my lips on his hand, and I see his Adam’s apple bob. “Yeah,” he scrapes out, voice rough.

We each climb out and close the doors—which are heavy, and slam with a densethudthat echoes off the trees and the house. Immediately, the screen door slams open with a deafeningcrackand a wobbly creak, and feet thunder across the deck.

“AUNTIE MIKE IS HERE!” a small, shrill voice screams. “AUNTIE MIKE IS HERE! AND THERE’S AGUYWITH HER!”