Then, “Is she okay? What do you fuckin’ think? She’s curled in a ball in the corner of the goddamned sofa because I was so fuckin’ pissed my sister is fuckin’ screwy, the instant I learned, I threw a goddamned beer bottle across the room. And the reason I’m so fuckin’ pissed, Jill, is because she is supposed to feel safe with me. And my own goddamned sister orchestrated a fuckin’ scenario where, my back’s turned for half a goddamned hour, she was sittin’ on my own fuckin’ couch and she was not.”

Okay, weirdly, what Brock said made me feel less freaked out at his wild, angry, unrestrained behavior.

There was another short pause.

Then, “Jill, you had a different dad than me. You and Laura, you had a different dad than Levi and me. And now, for years, I’ve been takin’ your back with this shit, even before he got sick. But you gotta get your head outta your ass, woman. No man, even Dad, deserves to die alone, thinking his son has abandoned him. But that’s as far as it goes and you need to get that and you need to show me while I have your back, you have mine and I’ll make this official right fuckin’ now. You have my back, you have Tess’s, and you can read what you want into that and my guess is what you read will be right. Are we clear?”

Oh my God.

Did he mean what I thought he meant?

“Jesus,” Brock clipped. “Uh… yeah. Wake up, Jill. She’s met my fuckin’ boys. In seven years has one woman I’ve been with met my boys, or, for that matter, you?”

Oh God.

He meant what I thought he meant.

I was feeling warm and gushy again.

“No,” he declared firmly. “Tess will tell you it’s okay because Tess is sweet and she won’t want you to feel bad so, no. You aren’t talkin’ about this with her. You’re listenin’ to me tell you that shit you did wasn’t right. And you know”—his voice dropped—“you know, Jill, from watchin’ Austin, I gotta have this covered for a lifetime. That ghost shadows her, just like Laura. I gotta have this and I gotta know my family has it too. So this is the last we’ll speak of it but before we’re done, I gotta know. Do you have this?”

A lifetime?

“Right,” he said quietly. Then, “I’m sorry too. It’s done. We’re movin’ on. Tell your daughters their uncle hasn’t dropped off the face of the earth. They both got cars. They can drive them to my place. Tess will have a cupcake waitin’ for them.” Pause, then, “Right.” Another pause, then, quietly, “Jill, we’re cool. Aren’t we always cool?”

A moment passed before I watched him tip his head back to look at the ceiling.