Page 60 of The Incredible Kindness of Paper

Oliver

Oliver woke on Wednesday morning in his brother’s house to two monkeys shrieking and jumping on his bed.

“Unkie Owiver, Unkie Owiver! Are you awake?”

As soon as Noah and Davy saw Oliver crack open his eyes, they pounced on him and smothered him in hugs and kisses.

“I am definitely awake.” He smiled and wrapped his arms around them. It was impossible to be mad at four-year-olds who just wanted to cover you in love. Even if they were very loud first thing in the morning.

“Daddy’s making waffles,” Noah said.

“Hmm,” Oliver said, as if he couldn’t decide whether that was a good thing. “I’m more of a pancake man, myself.”

Davy screwed up his face while he studied Oliver. “Noo, siwwy unkie. You’re a person , not a pancake man. We has a book about a gingerbwead man, and you…” He assessed Oliver one more time, then shook his head as he confirmed his previous conclusion.

Oliver couldn’t help laughing. “You got me there. But since I’m actually a person, I have a few things I need to take care of before I can come down to breakfast. How about I go to the bathroom to splash some water on my face and brush my teeth, and then I’ll meet you downstairs?”

The twins looked at each other in that silent way that siblings have of discussing important decisions with mere glances, then both turned to him and nodded. They scream-hugged him one more time, then bolted out of his bedroom.

After freshening up and running a wet hand through his unruly hair, Oliver jogged down the staircase.

Ben was in the kitchen, working three waffle irons at once.

Ben was slighter than Oliver and had blond hair and blue eyes, but they both had the same observant gaze of boys who’d grown up having to be wary of a con artist mother, as well as a similar knowing smirk, so it was obvious they were brothers, even though they looked nothing alike.

“Morning, champ!” Their dad, Richard, waved. An older-looking version of Ben, he sat in his wheelchair at one end of the table with an expression of pure contentment on his face despite his ever-present pain, because he was watching his grandsons as they wriggled in their booster seats.

Elsa, Oliver’s sister-in-law, looked up from the other end of the table.

“Did you sleep well, Oliver?” A Biewer terrier puppy cuddled in her lap.

Elsa was a specialty breeder of the affectionate dogs, and she loved them as much as she loved her kids.

She always tried to place her puppies in homes where the owners needed the dogs as much as the dogs would need the owners; Elsa regularly received gushing thank-you letters, like the recent one from a widow in New York nicknamed “Thelma the Terrier Lady,” who had gotten her dog, Rufus, a while ago as a companion after her husband passed away and found renewed joy in life because of Rufus and his other doggy friends.

“I did sleep well,” Oliver said, “although I would like to lodge a small complaint with the proprietors of this establishment about the duo of alarm clocks. Would it be possible to turn down the volume on them a little?”

Elsa laughed deeply, her curly hair shaking. “I’m afraid that’s how the alarm clocks arrived from the manufacturer, dialed up to full blast. Neither Ben nor I have been able to figure out how to change their settings.”

Ben piped up from the waffle irons. “Dad’s the only one who actually likes the volume.”

Their dad chuckled. “Grandpas think everything about their munchkins is perfect.”

Elsa looked fondly at Noah and Davy.

Oliver pulled out a chair at the table and sat, his limbs loose and relaxed in the cozy nest of family.

He’d forgotten what this was like. Alone in New York, his apartment was sterile, sparsely populated with IKEA furniture and not much else since he spent almost all his waking hours at work.

Here, though, Ben and Elsa’s house was full of framed photos of them at pumpkin patches and decorating Christmas trees, tchotchkes from Myrtle Beach and Ocean City on the shelves, and LEGOs hazardously sprinkled across the floor.

Here, he could feel the warmth of life , of people whose daily highs and lows vibrated and intertwined themselves so that they weren’t mere individuals but a single, beating heart.

But Oliver was no longer part of that, was he?

He was welcome here, no doubt about it, but he was a temporary visitor.

They would fold him into their home as best they could, but tomorrow, Oliver would head back to New York and they would continue without him.

A different part of the geometry of the universe.

“Hey,” Ben said to Oliver, approaching the table with an enormous red platter. “Frowners don’t get waffles.”

“It’s okay,” Davy said, standing up in his booster seat to grab a chocolate chip waffle before Ben had even finished setting them down. “Unkie Owiver is made of pancakes.”

Ben arched a brow and looked from Davy to Oliver.

Oliver laughed and shrugged. “What can I say? He’s right—I’m a pancake man.”

Wednesdays were Ben’s day off from his restaurant, so the brothers took their dad into town to have some time together without Noah and Davy interrupting every two seconds.

They found a sunny table on the back patio of a coffee shop.

Oliver had had a chance yesterday to catch up with them about the family in general: how the boys were liking preschool (favorite thing ever!), how business at the restaurant was going (solid, although there was a lull with people out of town for summer vacations), and whether the home nurse service was working out (they were patient and knowledgeable and Richard rated them five gold stars.

He’d given them a couple days off, though, since Oliver was in town and able to help).

Now, however, Oliver needed to broach a different topic with his dad and Ben. As soon as their coffees arrived, he cleared his throat.

“Uh-oh,” Ben said. “Sounds like something serious.”

Oliver shot him a Shut up I’m your big brother look.

Richard smiled at his grown boys, almost identical to how Elsa had looked at Noah and Davy this morning.

“It’s about Jennifer,” Oliver said.

Ben suddenly found the milk in his latte very interesting.

“She showed up at my apartment in New York, out of the blue,” Oliver said. “Which is curious, because I haven’t talked to her in years, and no one knows my address there except you two and Elsa.”

Richard started scrubbing an imaginary spot on his wheelchair’s armrest.

“That’s it?” Oliver asked. “Neither of you has anything to say about this? Not even, ‘Oh gosh, how surprising that Jennifer showed up at your door asking for money. I wonder how she knew where to go!’?”

Ben grumbled. “Fine. It was me. But she’s different now, I swear.”

Oliver sat back in his seat and crossed his arms. “Yeah, right.”

“Really,” Ben said. “She came to the restaurant, and… we talked. The thing is, she had a lot of time to think in prison. And when she got out, the first thing she wanted to do was meet her grandsons. How could I deny that?”

“Because she’s a poison on anything she touches,” Oliver said.

Ben shook his head. “She’s family. I know she screwed up when we were younger, but she wants to change and become a better woman. Everyone deserves a second chance.”

Oliver jammed his hands into his hair. How could Ben forgive Jennifer so easily? Didn’t he remember the utter destruction she had rained down on them in the past?

But maybe not. Oliver had to remind himself that Ben had been younger, and that Oliver himself had protected him from some of the worst of their mother.

“She was real good with the twins,” Richard said. “Being a grannie suits her.”

“Dad,” Oliver said, “I love you, but I don’t trust you on this topic. You’ve never been able to say no to Jennifer.”

“She’s a charmer. That’s why I fell for her.

Even after everything…” Richard shrugged like he couldn’t help it.

He and Jennifer had finally gotten divorced right before she went to prison, but Oliver knew a part of his dad would always love her.

He had been hostage to her charisma—and the cons that resulted from it—for most of his adult life, and it was hard to shake Stockholm syndrome when the captor was your wife.

“Mom wanted to find you in New York to make amends,” Ben said.

“She doesn’t intend to intrude on our lives, just wants to start over.

Like I said, she had a lot of time to think while she was locked up, and I really believe that seeing Noah and Davy sealed it for her.

She’s done with selfish get-rich-quick schemes.

She wants to try to make the world a better place now for her grandsons. ”

“So you told her where I live,” Oliver said. “And, presumably, gave her the train fare and money for a place to stay?”

“Er… and your phone number,” Ben said. “She said she was going to call ahead of time, not randomly show up at your door.”

Oliver tried to keep his cool. But he drummed his fingers hard on the table, sending ripples through their undrunk coffees.

Richard reached over and put his hand over Oliver’s, stilling the movement.

“If you had a chance, son, to make a small difference in society, would you do it?”

Oliver looked at his dad but didn’t answer.

“What if,” Richard said, “by forgiving one person—or even just withholding judgment and giving them the benefit of the doubt—you could potentially take one criminal off the streets and save dozens of people from victimhood. Would you do it?”

Oliver sighed. He didn’t want to believe that Jennifer could change. He didn’t want to fall for any more of her false promises that this time, it would really work out.

But he also saw what his dad was saying.

“I could try,” Oliver said. “But I have to warn you, I am kind of a misanthrope.”

“Kind of,” Ben said, smiling and finally picking up his coffee for a sip, even though it must’ve been tepid by now. “But we still love you.”