This Is Where I Leave You

complexions. This isn’t a family, it’s a Christmas card. You can picture the plush carpets of their home in Long Island with views of the Sound, the stonework around the front door, the marble and mirrors in the foyer, the perfectly manicured lawn, the sixty-inch plasma television and leather furniture in the den, the art deco living room that no one is allowed into with shoes, the two year leases on their matching Lexuses. I don’t like Cal. Cal’s friends, if he has any, probably don’t like him either. He has hairy forearms, showy biceps, a store-bought tan, and predatory eyes that seem to be looking for a conversation to interrupt, an argument to have. But Mom seems genuinely fond of Sandra, whose mother died when she was a young girl. Mom’s parents took her in for a few years. There’s a bond there.
    “Cindy’s on the swim team, All-American,” Sandra tells mom. “And Dana’s captain of the lacrosse team.”
    “We should send them equipment,” Mom says. “Paul, you’ll send them a package?”
    “Sure, Mom.”
    “I can’t believe Mort’s gone,” Sandra says, and then, unbelievably, starts to cry.
    “He was a tough old guy,” Cal says. If I didn’t know this was his crude way of showing respect, I’d throw something at him. And then he’d probably beat the shit out of me.
    “He was always very fond of you,” Mom says, taking Sandra’s hand, and I’m thinking, If he was so fond of her, why is this only the third time in my life I’ve seen these people?
    “Wendy, where’s the wedding album?”
    Wendy pulls out the album, which creaks like a rusty hinge, and Mom and Sandra start playing a game where they identify dead relatives I’ve never heard of: aunts and uncles, a cousin with polio, a family friend who went to jail for armed robbery. “Come here, girls,” Sandra says. The two girls slink over like cats. Phillip watches them a little too closely. Wendy smacks the back of his head.
    “What?”
    “You know what.”
    Mom shows us all pictures of her wedding - the washed-out colors, the men with their mustaches, the cigarettes during dinner, the bad toupees, the black plastic spectacle frames that make every man look like he works for the CIA. “You see how pretty I was,” Mom says to the bored twins. She’s not bragging. She’s just looking at their dewy perfection and realizing that she’s so much older than she ever believed she’d be. In most of the photos, Dad looks worried in his borrowed tuxedo, like there might be all sorts of trouble brewing right outside the frame. But there’s one of the two of them, on the stairs of the catering hall; he’s carrying her in his arms and they’re laughing, at the photographer, at themselves in their ridiculous gown and tux, at the idea that they can do this thing, start a family. A lump forms in my throat and lodges there. You can kind of see who they were back then, innocent and in love; long before kids and a mortgage and rottweilers and cancer and possible (probable) lesbianism.
    “He looks so handsome there,” Sandra says.
    “I could barely walk the next morning,” Mom says. The girls giggle loudly and shake like wind chimes. Wendy smacks Phillip’s head again. This time he doesn’t ask why. 12:10 p.m.
    Paul and his friends have stepped outside into the side yard, where Paul’s old batting cage still stands. Boner, who played shortstop in high school, wonders if he can still hit Paul’s fastball. Paul wonders if he can still throw it. Horry, who lettered in football and played hockey in the county league, will don the musty catcher’s gear, and Dan, who played outfield, will call balls and strikes. The other guys will stand around spinning bats like swords and making asinine comments, and Phillip and I will watch to see who makes a fool of himself first. There’s simply no way to calculate the odds.
    Paul pulls out his old glove and starts warming up, throwing lightly to Horry, rolling his shoulder around in its socket to loosen up. Even after all this time, his motion is graceful and assured, his body uncoiling precisely from his windup to launch each pitch. Boner tries out a few bats - we have no shortage of gear - and then steps into the netting, digging his fl ip-flops into the grass, settling down into his stance. He works the bat around for a little bit, and then Dan steps behind Horry, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, and says, “Batter up!”
    Paul’s first pitch goes a little wide and Boner holds