“Because he loves me and she made me miserable for ten years. The four of us kids were close growin’ up and sometimes, honest to God, Tess, sometimes I could swear the only things Levi wants in life are to see Jill, Laura, and me happy. He’s not married, never has been, has dedicated his life to his career, his summer softball league, his season tickets to the Broncos, gettin’ laid as often as he can, and his family. He’s the one we all call to babysit. He’s the emergency contact at all the kids’ schools. He never fails to prop his latest piece in a chair at the dining room table at Mom’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. And he runs his ass ragged to get to every house on Christmas.”

“I don’t know if that sounds nice or a little crazy,” I shared cautiously.

“You and me both, babe. I get his struggle. There were times I wondered if I’d grow up to be Dad. Let a good woman down and fuck over my family. Because none of us know why the fuck he did all the shit he did. As a man, you watch the man whose seed made you and you think that shit’s in you. Then again, you also gotta live your life and if that beast lives within, you gotta have the balls at least to try and tame it.”

He pulled my face slightly closer to his and his silvery eyes grew intense as he continued.

“But the beast doesn’t live within. This is not to say that I didn’t think of steppin’ out on Olivia, who was a pain in my ass, but I didn’t have it in me. And when it got so miserable I couldn’t take it anymore and I had the choice of eatin’ shit my whole life and teachin’ my sons eatin’ shit was the right thing to do, which it isn’t, or getting out from under that mess and showing them it was important to be a man and find my own happiness, I made that choice for me and for them. Levi doesn’t get that life will always be fucked one way or another and you can’t run away from it. He’s living a life that’s been over for years. We aren’t livin’ with Mom and doin’ our homework at the kitchen table. That family’s changed and that life is gone and he needs to make his own life and his own family.”

“Have you told him this?”

“Getting my brother to listen is like convincing him to let it go about Olivia or Dad. It is just not gonna happen.”

“My sister lives in Australia and my mother lives in Florida,” I told him.

He grinned and let my hair go as his arms wrapped around me.

“Finally, two things that show my Tess can be lucky.”