This Is Where I Leave You

the nose and he goes down hard. Phillip stands over him with one foot on his chest and says, “Call my brother an asshole again.”
    A fat security guard materializes and pins Phillip’s arms behind him. A second one comes up behind me, grabbing my arm tightly. “Let’s go,”
    he says, and they hustle us toward the exit.
    “My wife is in there.”
    “We’ll deal with it outside.”
    It’s raining outside, a hard rain that makes a racket against the fiberglass awning of the emergency room. The guards release us beside a parked ambulance. They hold a quick, whispered conversation, and then one of them heads back inside. The other, a large black man with a shaved head and thirty-inch forearms, turns back to us. “Is that the Man Up guy in there?”
    “That’s him,” I say.
    “Which one of y’all hit him?”
    “Nobody hit him, he just fell,” Phillip says. The guard smiles widely and extends his hand. “Shake my hand, man. I hate that loudmouth motherfucker.”
    Phillip shrugs and shakes his hand. “And if you hadn’t pulled me offof him when you did, I’d have really kicked his ass.”

    5:20 p.m.
    Phillip doesn’t quite remember where he parked, so we get soaked walking around the lot. When he finally locates the Porsche, it’s parked a few cars away from Wade’s silver Maserati, with its man up vanity plate. Before I have time to talk myself out of it, I climb up onto the roof of the car and jump up and down on it, screaming obscenities into the 264rain like a madman. I jump up and land hard on my knees, feeling the metal crumple satisfyingly beneath me. Phillip pops the trunk of the Porsche and pulls out an L-shaped tire iron. “Here,” he says, tossing it up to me. “Go crazy.”
    But I’m suddenly out of steam. I slide down the front windshield and sit on the hood. Phillip joins me, and we sit there in silence for a few seconds as the rain pummels us.
    “I miss Dad,” I say.
    “Me too.”
    “Why didn’t I miss him more when he was alive? He was dying for two years, and I only visited him a handful of times. What could have been more important than spending time with your father?”
    “He didn’t want us around. He told me so. He didn’t want us to remember him like that.”
    “Well, that was probably our time to step up and say ‘Tough shit, Dad.’ ”
    Phillip nods soberly. “Dad was always much tougher than us.”
    “I guess. How did we become such wimps?”
    “Hey,” Phillip says. “Did I or did I not just take out Wade Boulanger with one punch?”
    “You did.”
    “Damn straight.” He winces a little as he rubs his hand. “I think I broke my knuckle. Can you even break a knuckle? I should go back in and get it X-rayed.”
    “I heard the baby’s heartbeat.”
    Phillip looks at me. “That’s great. Right?”
    “Yeah.” I’m quiet for a moment. “I told Wade he was hoping for a miscarriage, but the truth is, I think part of me might have been. And how terrible is that, for a baby to be growing in the womb and for the father to be hoping it won’t make it?”
    “It’s pretty terrible,” Phillip says, lying back against the windshield to join me.
    “Did you think Dad was a good father?”
    Phillip ponders this for a moment. “I think he did his best. He was pretty old-school, I guess. He didn’t always get us, didn’t always appreciate us, but come on, look at us, right?”
    “I think I could be a pretty good father, actually.”
    “I think you’ll be great.”
    Raindrops land in small explosions on the Maserati’s gleaming hood. “But I’ll have to forgive her, won’t I? I’ll have to learn to live with the fact of Jen and Wade. I mean, for the sake of the kid.”
    “I don’t know anything about parenting, but my guess is that there will be much larger sacrifices to be made.”
    I look over at Phillip, who is catching raindrops on his tongue. “You almost sounded wise right there.”
    Phillip grins. “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”
    I smile and lean back on the windshield, looking up into the rain.
    “I’m going to be a dad,” I say.
    “Congratulations, big brother.”
    “Thank you.”
    “You ready to go home?”
    “Okay.”
    He grabs the tire iron from me, and as he slides off the hood, he swings it to the side, noisily shattering the driver’s-side window. The car-alarm goes off instantly, a muted, almost apologetic wail. Phillip looks at me and smiles. “Whoops.”
    “You’re an idiot.”
    “You just