Two years ago, Manda had kicked her husband out for sexting with a coworker. When she confronted him, Dakota had thrown every dish they had onto the kitchen floor in a rage, then proceeded to slip and cut himself on a piece of dinner plate. He’d blamed Manda for his fall, saying she’d upset him, and then schlepped off to the hospital to get four stitches in his forearm. He’d ended up at Shelly’s that time. Winnie distinctly remembered her saying “So what, right? He didn’t even have sex with her…” And Shelly had moved their beloved brother into the spare room.

“Yeah, but Shelly, if Mike did that—” Winnie had protested.

“Ha! He knows better. And besides,” she’d said out of the corner of her mouth, “Manda has really let herself go.”

The next time Manda kicked him out it was for a tiny pouch of white powder she found in his wallet. They’d taken him that time—her and Nigel. It had been Chelsea’s turn, technically, but she was in Hawaii for her tenth wedding anniversary with her wife, Mary. Dakota had hidden in the spare room for a week, and then one night, he’d gotten high and drunk while Winnie was cooking dinner and had stumbled into the living room wearing only his tighty-whiteys while Samuel was watching TV. As Samuel watched wide-eyed from the sofa, his uncle threw up on the PlayStation and then shat himself.

Manda had always fought with him for—wait for it—drinking too much in front of their kids and acting erratic. Instead, he came to drink in front of Winnie’s kid, which of course had caused a fight with Nigel of epic proportions.

Winnie paused for a long moment, and then she swore. “Shit. Dammit. How could I forget about that? I can have Samuel stay with my mom for the weekend. We’ll reassess on Sunday.” All the sisters were the same way about Dakota—they babied him. Except he wasn’t a baby, and Winnie had a sinking feeling that this time Manda wasn’t going to forgive him.

“Maybe Dakota and Manda will work things out by then, anyway—they usually do,” she said. She stared at her screen saver: a photo of her and Nigel and Samuel standing on a beach during their vacation to the Dominican Republic last year.

“It’s never been this bad before. Manda might not be so willing to take him back this time. He’s been a college kid on a bender for the last ten years, Winnie.”