1
Landry
“Mooooooommm,” I sigh into the phone as she continues to ramble on about Chester this and Chester that. What Chester bought for her. Where Chester took her.
Who names their kid Chester?
It sounds even sillier for a grown man, but Mom seems to be head over heels and won’t be deterred from her mandatory eighty-gazillion minutes of talking about all the places they go a day. I listen a while longer about the trip they just got back from—their honeymoon-slash-business trip—and try not to roll my eyes. I’m happy for my mom; I am. But this is her third marriage, and for some reason, call me crazy, I’m having a hard time getting attached.
“Mom, Mom, Mom,” I start a chant over her long run-on sentences.
Finally, she pauses and then, “What is it, Panda Bear?”
“First, don’t call me Panda Bear, please—”
“I’m your mother,” she says, her prim voice shooting across the phone.
“Fine. If it floats your boat, do it.” I laugh at her pulling the mom card.
“Oh, I meant to tell you about our boat ride—”
“Tell me when I get there. I’m about five minutes away,” I say as the voice I named Reginald pops up on my Maps app on my phone to let me know I need to turn right in half a mile.
“I can’t wait for you to meet Chester,” Mom gushes.
My lips quirk up in a smile. I love her, and I want what’s best for her. If Chester makes her happy, I’m going to put my big-girl panties on and get to know the guy.
“Oh, I, uh—” She cuts off, and my ears perk up.
“What’s up?”
“I need to tell you something else, Landry.”
The smile drops off my face, and the good feelings I had plummet straight to my stomach.
“Hold on, Mom,” I say as I stop in front of a large gate, a gold filigree M centered in the middle of both panels.
I check the address I was given again. My eyes widen as I realize this is the correct place, and I lean over to hit the button on the box next to my window.
“Hi, um, it’s Landry,” I say into the speaker.
My mom’s laughter sounds tinny, coming through my phone.
“Hold on, baby girl. I’ll open the gate,” she says as I bring my phone back up to my ear.
“Mom?”
“Well, maybe I have two things to tell you,” she says.
I roll my eyes. “You said he had money. You didn’t tell me he was loaded.” I put the phone on speaker and lay it on the console next to me.
“Chester does well for himself,” she says.
I snort. “So I see. Now, what were you wanting to tell me?”
“Oh, nothing.” She brushes it off, and the bad feeling remains. “I’ll see you in a minute.”
The phone goes silent as she hangs up, and I grip the steering wheel, feeling like Cinderella, out of my comfort zone as I survey the house in front of me. I drive around a freaking fountain in the middle of the driveway to stop at the entrance of the monstrosity.
My dusty Jeep looks sad compared to the Audi I see parked in front of the detached garage, shining like it came off the showroom floor. I can’t say that I’ve ever been around this much money.
We were not poor as a family; my dad makes quite a lot of money, doing his photography. But since my parents’ divorce when I was eight, I lived with my dad and traveled around with him. Being homeschooled by a traveling photographer—who was never home—until my freshman year didn’t leave me with a lot of time to make friends or to have a lot of possessions of my own.
I step out of my Jeep, stretching my neck and putting my hands to the small of my back, pushing in as I look left and right. The opulence of the place goes beyond what I can see. I lean over the driver’s seat to grab my backpack off the passenger side and throw it over one shoulder. I adjust my sunglasses and pull my shirt straight before taking a deep breath and walking up the steps.
“Landry, dear,” Mom says after she throws open the front door, gliding out onto the porch, her gauzy dress floating in the breeze like a ghost around her.
She pulls me in for a long hug.
“Hey, Mom,” I say softly, blinking rapidly to keep my tears at bay.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her, and I didn’t know how much I’d missed her touch and smell until she started hugging me. She pulls back and stares into my face, letting her eyes linger on each part of me, as if rewriting an old memory. I guess that is what she’s doing since she hasn’t seen me in the flesh in over a year. We didn’t talk that much in that time either. She would call me once in a while to check in, but she wasn’t usually too forthcoming with what all she’d been doing, steering the conversation more to me and my life—until now, when all she seems to want to talk about lately is Chester since they’ve gotten married.
“Come in, come in. Do you have more luggage? Oh, what am I saying? Of course you have more luggage. I’ll have Doran retrieve it.”
“Doran?”
“Our butler.” She twirls her hand in the air as if to say, Doesn’t everyone have a butler?
I nod and try not to gape as we walk into the front foyer, the sweeping staircase and high ceilings all but taking my breath away.
“So, when will I meet the illustrious Chester?” I smile, letting Mom know that I’m only joking around, but she doesn’t notice.
A dreamy look passes across her face as she turns to me. “He was hoping to be here when you arrived; however, he had to step out for some business. He should return shortly. In the meantime …” Her voice takes on a worried tone before she pauses.
“What?” I scrunch up my face in confusion.
She opens her mouth to talk again when there is a loud noise at the top of the stairs, cutting us both off. It’s like we’ve entered a slow-motion video, the way our bodies turn at turtle speed, my hair brushing my face and Mom’s dress fluttering with the movement. Time stands still as I raise my head, meeting three pairs of eyes. Two sets of icy blue-gray and one glittering green staring back at me. I vaguely register a basketball loudly thudding down the staircase, sounding like it hits every step.
“Ah, here they are.” Mom recovers first and pastes a smile on, gesturing with her entire arm toward the top of the stairs like I don’t know who she’s referring to.
“Here who is?” I say, gritting my teeth.
It appears that Mom left out a large and very important detail when she married Chester.
“Why, your brothers,” she says, turning back to me.
I would pay good money to anyone who could catch my expression on camera because I’m sure my mouth hit the ground and they could see down my throat and into my soul.
“What?” I ask, praying that I heard her wrong.
Brothers? Surely not.
I don’t have brothers. I’m quite happily an only child, and my mom would have informed me before marrying someone else with children.
Right?
“Well, silly me. Only two of them are your brothers. The other is here so much that he is part of the family. They are all in your grade. Isn’t that great, honey?” Mom starts rambling, inserting little giggles here and there.