An hour later I'm outside my parents' farmhouse trying to keep a lid on my warring emotions. Already, I'm tense and angry. Just being in the vicinity of this place makes me remember why I left, and if I ever doubted why I haven't returned, I only have to recall how they treated me and Diana when we came to visit.

There are four vehicles in the driveway, which I assume means I'm the last to arrive. Jamie, Sam, and Ang must already be here. My parents have only ever had one vehicle between them.

At the door, I examine the doorbell and realize that someone has pulled it out of the wall. For years, it didn't work, but rather than repair it, someone has just yanked it out. Classic Robinson family solution. Let's not fix what's broken. Let's make it worse.

With a resigned sigh, I knock. From inside, I hear shuffling, and then my mother draws back the door. She's tall and thin, but I can't get over how much she's aged. There are deep wrinkles and lines across her face, which, in anyone else, might be a sign of character, and her once dark hair is streaked with gray.

"Ang said you were coming, but I didn't believe it." Her bloodshot blue eyes take me in from head to foot. "I suppose you can come in, but I should warn you that your father's got the shotgun out."

Sure enough, when I enter the kitchen, the shotgun is propped beside his chair. I hope it isn't loaded. He greeted me and Diana like this as well. It's like he thinks I'll never be able to get another one over on him if he's got the gun. The only person in this house I'd even attempt to defend would be Ang. The rest of them proved long ago that they don't want to be saved. They'll drown in alcohol before they grasp my outstretched hand.

On the large kitchen table is a haphazard assortment of food, and both my parents have cigarettes burning in the ashtrays beside them. They are crammed full of butts, and I wonder if the food will taste like ash. The walls are yellowed from years of tobacco, and everything in the house looks tired, as though the house gave up the fight long ago.

Before I decide if I even want to risk talking at all, Ang bounds down the backstairs with Jamie and Sam trailing behind her.

"Thanks for coming," Ang says, enveloping me into a hug. "Let's eat. We haven't all sat at a table together in years."

And we all know the reason for that.

My father grunts and picks up his fork. He hasn't said a word to me, which means he's likely sober. My brothers are also either sober or hungover, other than a cursory nod, neither of them has said anything to me either.

The silence is thick around us, and for the first time part of me wishes I had Gwen beside me. If anyone can defuse a conversational bomb, it's her. I pick at the tasteless food.

"Nothing on your plate good enough for you?" my mother asks, her eyes narrowed at the way I've pushed things around without eating much.

"Not very hungry."

"Sorry it's not fancier to suit your doctor tastebuds," she says.

Similar digs were made last time I was here, but back then they knew Diana's family was wealthy, and the digs were meaner, more pointed. They'd also been drinking. Either way, my best bet is to ignore any comment that tries to get me to rise to it.

At least no one seems to be drunk yet. Maybe there was some method in Ang's madness. Hungover is better than three sheets to the wind.

"I gathered you all here this morning to talk about my wedding, which is in two days. Personally, I'm very grateful Blake could make it." She looks around the table and tries to make eye contact with people, but everyone else is focused on their food.

"Decided to come down off his high horse for a day, did he?" Jamie asks, eyeing me from across the table, despite speaking about me like I'm not here. His bloodshot green eyes blaze with resentment. It wasn't always like this between us kids, but maybe it was always heading here. Them on one side. Me on the other. Ang refereeing in the middle.

My brothers aren't spectators to Mom and Dad's lifestyle; they participate. As kids, we didn't have many choices about how we were raised or the ways we were treated, but even now that we do, their choices baffle me. 

But I've seen enough of other people's family dynamics around the world to understand this is often how it goes. A child either bucks family traditions or embraces them—no matter what those traditions might be. There wasn't a single bone in my body that was capable of embracing my parents' lifestyle.

"Jamie," Sam says, surprising me. "Now's not the time. Go on, Angie. What else did you want to say?" He gazes at Ang with the same affection I feel. As the baby in the family, we did our best to shield her from the worst. Ang is the glue, keeping us all together, even when we threaten to crack and scatter.

Ang licks her lips and glances at me, and my heart kicks at her obvious show of nerves. "I've asked Blake to walk me down the aisle."

The entire table erupts in fits of yelling and finger pointing, and I can't tell exactly what anyone is saying, but it's clear no one, not a single person, is okay with Ang's choice.

Rather than trying to diffuse them, Ang crosses her arms and sits back in her chair, letting them yell. It's not an approach I normally take, but I follow her lead and let them squabble. Nothing they can say is going to hurt me, but I also don't want them to hurt Ang.

The strangest thing happens, though. They turn on each other, like a pack of wild dogs that's forgotten the initial target of their rage. It would be almost comical if I wasn't related to them all. Now, instead of yelling at me or Ang, they're bickering amongst each other, picking holes at one another and speculating about why Ang didn't ask them.

"Have youse calmed down?" Ang places her hands on the table and stares them all down.

She handled that so well that I don't really understand why she waited so long to do it.

"You can't be asking him," my mother says. "He's not even one of us anymore."

"He's family. He'll always be one of us," Ang says. "I think it's about time everyone at this table learned to be civil with one another."

I want to tell her I have no interest in being embraced back into the fold. That if I ever had a family of my own, I'd keep them as far away as possible from all of them except Ang. She's the only person who has any value to me anymore.

"No," my father says. "He thinks he's better than the rest of us. Always has. Always will. I won't be sat around a table with him pretending everything is right as rain."

"Be indifferent then," Ang says. "But I'm not having a brawl break out at my wedding. No fighting. Anyone who lifts a fist is dead to me." She makes eye contact with every single one of us, including me. "Promise me."

Grumbles of agreement happen all around the table.

"One more thing," Ang says. "Blake is bringing a date, and your best behavior also includes her."

"You've brought someone home?" Sam asks, and I can't tell what emotion lurks in his words. Skepticism? Disbelief?

"They've been traveling together," Ang says.

"This one another do-gooder like the last one?" My mother sneers. "Likely to end up dead too, won't she?"

I stand up so fast my chair screeches across the kitchen floor, and I hit the screen door to leave the house with enough force it bangs into the exterior wall. Blind rage coats the edges of my vision. Outside, I pace the driveway, trying to get my breathing under control and convincing myself that storming back in there won't do anyone any good. They want a reaction and a fight and for me to look like the one in the wrong in their eyes.

"Blake!" Ang comes running out of the house. "They're just..."

"Assholes," I say. "Assholes is the word you're looking for."

"Jamie and Sam weren't okay with Mom's comment either."

I stare at her, too full of disbelief that I can't even formulate words. The bar is so much higher than them calling Mom out for being awful about Diana's death. Except for Ang, none of them have any idea what happened, and to throw it in my face?

"I told them to avoid Gwen at the wedding. Just to leave her alone."

"Gwen is not the type of person who can be ignored. She'll want to talk to them."

Ang puts her hands on her hips, and she stares into the distance. "I thought it was better to bring all these things up before the wedding. Avoid the nastiness there."

"The only thing those people know is nasty. How do you live here? Spend time with them? How are you still sane when they're so vile?"

"They aren't like that with me," she says simply. "Mom and Dad are Mom and Dad. They aren't going to change. They are who they are, and they don't see anything wrong with their behavior. None of us are changing them. But Jamie and Sam..."

I wait for her to say something else, and when she doesn't, I tug my keys out of my pocket and head for my car. "I'll be there for the wedding in the theme suit tux thing in the closet at the hotel, but don't expect to see me hanging around before that."

"Blake! Wait." She huffs out a breath. "You've held your truth so close for so long, and you're carrying a weight that you don't have to be carrying. For someone so smart you can be so dumb and stubborn."

"Gee, thanks, Ang. Next time our family brings up my fiancée as though what happened to her didn't gut me, I'll remember not to call you for sympathy."

"I'm not—"

But I duck into the car and slam my door before she can finish. Rather than staying to escalate a fight I can't win, I peel out of the driveway.

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