Different Circles

“No,” she said softly. “It was actually good news—kind of, anyway.”

“Do tell,” he said.

“He just had his first grandchild,” she said.

Jake raised his eyebrows a bit. “Grandchild?” he asked. “How old is he?”

“Just a little over two months old,” she said. “Everett Ryan Best. He was born on September 27, the first day of the TSF. Isn’t that wild?”

“Uh ... yeah ... very wild,” Jake said. “But ... uh ... I meant how old is your brother? Isn’t he a little young to be having grandchildren?”

“He’s thirty-nine,” she said. “And yes, he is a little young for grandkids, but he has one anyway. Brian, the baby he and Sarah had back when I was twelve years old, is now nineteen himself. He got his high school sweetheart pregnant back in January. They got married in April—on my birthday, if you can believe that—and she had the baby while we were at the TSF.”

“Wow,” Jake said for the third time that night. “Talk about family traditions.”

“I know, right,” Laura said. “He wanted me to know about Everett and he figured that Mom and Dad would not reach out to let me know about him, so he wanted to tell me himself.”

“He told your parents about it?” Jake asked.

“On several occasions,” she said. “He told them when he was told about the pregnancy back in March, back when Brian and his girlfriend got married in April, and again when Everett was actually born. He says that they are far from supportive and far from happy to be great grandparents. In fact, they told him not to call or contact them ever again.”

“You’re not giving me any warm fuzzies about your parents here, hon,” he told her. “I hope that wasn’t your intention.”

She smiled a little. “It was not,” she assured him. “In truth, I’ve lost what little respect I still had for them over the past ten minutes. Joey said it wasn’t even the out-of-wedlock pregnancy that upset them the most, it was the fact that Brian’s girlfriend is not a member of the church and has no plans of converting. Anyway, Joey apologized for not responding to the wedding announcement I sent him back when you and I got married. He says he was still trying to maintain a relationship with Mom and Dad back then and they told all the brothers and sisters not to acknowledge my existence or they would be dead to them too.”

“But he’s changed his mind about that?”

“Joey has, yes,” Laura said. “And I believe him. He says that the way Mom and Dad treated him and talked to him after Brian’s girlfriend got pregnant was beyond atrocious. Especially that last conversation after the baby was born and they were finally told that she wasn’t Mormon. Everyone else in the family has broken ties with him now. He said it made him realize what I had been going through all these years and made him want to reach out to me. He tried to call me and write to me at the address and number I had put on the wedding announcement—he kept it—but that was for the Nottingham Drive house and we don’t live there anymore. And then, just a few days ago, he read in the Pocatello newspaper that you and I were visiting up here at Schweitzer for a ski vacation. He tried to contact me directly at the hotel, but, of course, we’re not checked in under our real names. So, he dug a little deeper using the internet and found out that Pauline is my manager. He dug up her number and gave her a call. And that’s how he finally managed to get in touch.”

Jake nodded. “Nerdly would be proud of their use of the internet in that manner,” he said.

“I’m sure he would,” she said.

“Well then,” Jake said, “this has all been very interesting. I’m glad you were able to talk to your brother after all these years and learn about your new ... what is it ... grandnephew?”

“That would be the correct term,” she said.

“Grandnephew ... right,” Jake said. “And now, how about we find our way into the bedroom there and have ourselves a little...”

“Joey invited us to visit,” she interrupted.

He looked at her. “Did he now?” he asked carefully.

She nodded. “I told him that we’ll be here in Schweitzer for another two days but after that, we have no firm plans.”

“You told him that?”

“I did,” she said.

“Well ... I mean ... I thought that we were thinking about flying over to Jackson Hole and trying out the whole snowmobiling in Yellowstone Park thing.”

“We were just talking about that,” she said. “We haven’t actually booked anything.”

“That’s true,” Jake said, “but...”

“I’d like to go see him, sweetie,” she said quietly.

“You would?”

She nodded. “I would,” she said. “I’d like to see Brian and Sarah and Joey’s other kids. I’d like to meet my new grandnephew. Mostly, I’d like to reconnect with a part of my family. I don’t have any family right now, Jake. Can you appreciate what that is like?”

“No, not really,” Jake admitted. “But there’s a reason why you don’t have contact with your family, right? They’re intolerant and judgmental. It was they who broke contact with you, not the other way around.”

“I understand,” she said. “But now, Joey has reached out to me. I’d like to reach back and see where it goes.”