A Toast to the Good Times by Liz Reinhardt, Steph Campbell

voice is frantic.
    “...blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus...” Mom mutters.
    Dad stomps to the door, puts a hand on the knob and announces, “This entire family has gone bat-shit crazy. My father warned me that you kids would be payback for all he’d had to put up with when I was a kid. But never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine I’d have kids like you !”
    We each get a solid sneer before he slams the door, rattling the glass.
    Mom is half-wailing now and has fled the room to find her rosary.
    Paisley looks at me, her eyes filled with tears she’s so close to shedding. “Landry? Landry, do you think I’m an idiot for doing this?”
    “No, Squirrely.” I put my arms around my sister’s shoulders and rock her back and forth while she cries hard. “Idiotic would be marrying Calvin or agreeing to incubate his demon spawn. What you’re doing is just kind of nutso. But good-hearted nutso.”
    She pulls back and wipes the tears away with the back of her wrist. “Yeah?”
    And I say the thing I’m always waiting for my parents to say to me, even though I’m an adult, and it shouldn’t fucking matter.
    Because I’m a human, so it does kind of matter. It just does.
    “Yeah, Squirrely. It’s good-hearted and brave. Brave as hell. And I’m proud of you. I’m proud that you’re leaving this little Podunk town behind and doing what you’re passionate about. And I feel like those little kids in Chad will be lucky to have someone as amazing as you there with them.”
    Paisley knots her arms around my waist and squeezes until I’m sure she’s crushing vital organs. When she talks, her voice is all muffled in my shirt.
    “Thank you, Landry. Thank you so much. I knew you’d understand. I knew you’d say what I needed to hear.”
    Henry catches the last of her words.
    “Hey, I was supportive, too.”
    “You told me Calvin would probably get eaten by a lion and made me watch that parasite show with you,” Paisley accuses, her eyes narrowed.
    Henry looks at me with a self-congratulatory grin that I can’t help but mirror. “Well, he’s got a point about the lions and Calvin, Squirrely. Your boy isn’t too bright — ”
    “Or too fast,” Henry adds.
    “Or too brave,” I tack on, and we’d have kept going for hours, except that Paisley’s lip trembles all elementary-school tear-fest style, and, before we know it, she’s rushing out of the kitchen and up to her room.
    “Nice going, dick - cheese ,” Henry says, shaking his head.
    “Are you serious? You’re the one who’s telling her that her lameass boyfriend is gonna get mauled,” I point out.
    “Yeah, just now I did,” Henry says, slapping the counter in almost the exact place our father pounded his fist a few minutes before. “But I’ve been here, listening to her cry and be all nervous for weeks now. Maybe even months. Where the hell have you been, Landry?”
    All jokes are off. Henry stares at me, his eyes accusing.
    I flounder for something, anything, to take the pressure off.
    “I’ve been in Boston, man. You know that. You coulda come to see me.”
    “You could have fucking invited me,” my little brother lashes out. “I didn’t even have your damn address, dude. What was I supposed to do? Stalk you and just end up on your doorstep? What if you didn’t want me?”
    “Who the hell are you? Paisley? Since when did you need me to send you an invitation in the mail with little bows on it before you could come see me? We’re fucking brothers, Henry.”
    We stand across the kitchen from each other, breathing hard, not blinking, pissed as hell.
    “Really?” he finally gets out, shaking his head like he can’t believe me. “You’re gonna put all that shit on my shoulders? Like it was my fault. Dude, you really are such a ball sack , it’s unbelievable.”
    He smacks the wall on the way out of the kitchen, and I’m left alone, left behind, the remnants of our Christmas Eve brunch