Cut and Run 6 - Stars and Stripes

choir. I’m sure they don’t need us.”
    “What’s wrong with him?” Deuce asked with a jerk of his thumb at Earl. “He doesn’t sing with his fingers.”
    Mara narrowed her eyes at them both.
    “Okay, okay,” Ty conceded, holding up both hands. “We’ll sing.”
    Deuce grumbled but didn’t argue. The brothers locked eyes and seemed to communicate silently, devising a way out of it. Mara was too pleased to notice.
    “As long as Dad sings with us,” Ty added with a shit-eating grin at his father.
    Earl rolled his eyes.
    “Whatever it takes,” Mara said. She stood and went to the refrigerator. “All of you shitheads need Jesus so far as I’m concerned.”
    Zane almost choked on his tea.
    “That includes you,” Mara told him. She sat back down with a dish of whipped cream, and Zane waved a hand in acknowledgment as he tried to clear his throat.
    Ty was laughing beside him. He patted Zane’s knee under the table and squeezed, resting his hand there. Zane’s eyes were watering, and his cheeks were warm with a shade of embarrassment, but it was okay. Par for the course with the Gradys.

    After dinner, everyone gathered in the living room for coffee. Zane sat on one end of the couch, his long legs stretched out in front of him. The weather had turned drizzly toward the end of the afternoon and dropped the temperature a little low, even for late June in the mountains. The windows were open, letting in the breeze and the scent of rain.
    It was a pretty scene, homey and comfortable. For all that the Gradys had bickered over the construction of the new roof and made fun during dinner, they seemed to enjoy the verbal battles, and there was no tension or malice in the air. Zane could feel weariness encroaching as the breeze and familiar scents seeped into him.
    He sat slouched with one arm outstretched off the end of the couch, his fingertip brushing a little cut-glass figurine on the table. It reflected the light as he nudged it, watching it sparkle.
    Ty sat on the floor, leaning back against the couch and looking exhausted. Deuce lounged on the other end of the sofa, his feet up on a stool in front of him. Earl and Mara sat on the loveseat across the room. They cuddled together, Mara curled in the crook of Earl’s arm draped over the back of the loveseat. For a couple who’d been together so long and seemed to lack any sentimentality about their marriage, it was an oddly sweet thing. Zane had never seen his parents cuddling.
    Deuce groaned. “Ma, what sort of pie was that?” He was rubbing his stomach.
    “Bitter cherry. Lucy Hopewell had one at the potluck a week back, and I thought I might try it. It wasn’t good?”
    “It was good, Ma,” Ty said, voice flat.
    “Where do you get bitter cherries?” Deuce asked.
    “Disgruntled trees,” Ty said. He looked over his shoulder with a smirk.
    Earl barked a laugh and Mara gave a surprised giggle. Zane studiously kept his eyes on the figurine, biting his lip as laughter shook through him.
    Deuce glared at Ty, but Ty returned the look with wide-eyed innocence. “Maybe they need a shrink.”
    “I hate you.”
    Chester cackled and shook his head. He rocked in his chair, facing the couch from the other side of the fireplace, drinking from a mason jar of clear liquid that Ty had implied was some incredible moonshine. He watched the glass figurine as Zane played with it.
    “I gave that to my wife on our fiftieth Christmas together,” he announced, looking at the little angel with a melancholy fondness.
    Zane let his head fall to the side as he watched the light play off the glass. “I bet she loved it.”
    “She did love a shiny thing, my Evie,” Chester said with a smile.
    Earl and Mara both laughed.
    “We made it sixty-three years.” Chester raised one gnarled finger and pointed at Zane. “Takes a whole lot of shiny things.”
    Zane raised an eyebrow, but smiled, and his eyes strayed to the compass pendant around Ty’s neck. “Keeping anything worthwhile generally does,” he agreed, looking back at the figurine, his eyes skimming over Ty along the way.
    Ty wasn’t looking at him, though. He was sitting with his arms around his knees to keep his balance as he rocked from side to side, staring at the rug in the middle of the floor. It was possible he’d already zoned out and wasn’t listening, but Zane doubted that very much.
    “Got to find the right fit,” Chester continued. He waved a hand at Mara and Earl, who were watching him in