This Is Where I Leave You

could possibly say besides “I’m sorry.”
    A hard rain pounds at the windows, looking for a way in. On the monitor, Alice yells at Paul. “You could have done permanent damage. And for what? To strike out Boner Grodner?”
    “If she wakes the baby, I’m going to kick her fat ass,” Wendy says as she assembles a plate for Mom.
    “Mommy, you said a bad word,” Ryan says.
    “No, I didn’t, honey.”
    “You said ‘ass.’”
    “ ‘Ass’ is just another word for a donkey.”
    “So it’s not a bad word?”
    “It is when children say it.”
    “Why?”
    “I don’t know,” Wendy says, exasperated. “Those are just the rules, Ryan. Deal with it.”
    “We’ve been here for less than a week, and you’ve been in two fistfights!” Tracy shouts at Phillip. “This is clearly not a healthy place for you.”
    We cannot make out the other half of either conversation because, in true Foxman form, Paul’s and Phillip’s responses are low and monosyllabic. Under attack, we retreat into stoic fortresses built for one. It drove Jen crazy. The more she yelled, the quieter I got, sometimes not uttering a word for hours. Maybe if I had yelled back at her, things would be different now. Maybe yelling back is a kind of marital diplomacy I never learned.
    Eventually someone slams the den door and the lights in the kitchen flicker and then go out. Phillip comes stomping into the dim room and opens up the freezer. He grabs an ice pack and sits down across from me, wincing as he presses it against his swollen hand.
    “For a guy who punches people so often, I would think you’d know how to do it better,” Wendy says.
    “I think I may have broken something.”
    “Besides Tracy’s heart?”
    Phillip gives Wendy a dirty look. “Don’t you ever get tired of being the thorn in everyone’s side?”
    Upstairs another door slams and the lights come back on. On the monitor, Serena starts to scream.
    “Fat bitch!” Wendy mutters.
    “You said a curse word!” Ryan shouts, gleefully horrified.
    “A bitch is a female dog,” Wendy says.
    “Bitch!” Cole repeats happily.
    The first time I heard my father curse, I was helping him install a timer in the garage for the lawn sprinklers. He had a screwdriver in his mouth, some screws in his hands, and he dropped a key washer, which rolled across the garage and down through the grate of the catch basin.
    “Ah, shit,” he said. I was eight. I laughed until my ribs ached. Paul enters the kitchen wordlessly and opens the freezer. Phillip has the only ice pack, so he grabs a slab of frozen meat and slips it under his shirt to press against his shoulder. He leans back against the fridge and closes his eyes for a second. Seated between him and Phillip, I feel conspicuously uninjured.
    “I have to get out of here,” Paul says, and heads for the door.
    “You’re in no condition to drive with that shoulder,” Phillip says, getting to his feet. “I’ll take you.”
    “Lucky me,” Paul says, disappearing into the front hall.
    “Asshole,” Phillip says.
    “An asshole is a donkey,” Ryan says.
    “Asshole,” Cole says. “Bitch. Asshole. Elmo.”
    Phillip considers our nephews gravely. “It’s good to see our influence on the next generation. We should seriously consider getting neutered.”
    “It’s too late for me,” I say.
    “Yes it is. I forgot.” He stands up and fumbles for his car keys. “Okay, then. Have a good night, everyone.”
    “Wait!” I say, following him out to the front hall, where Paul is already halfway out the door. “What about the shiva?”
    We look into the living room at the five empty shiva chairs lined up in front of the fireplace. “You’ll be fine,” Paul says. “Just nod and smile.”
    “You can’t leave me here alone.”
    Phillip flips a cigarette into his mouth and leans into the shiva candle to light it, which strikes me as somewhat sacrilegious, but I guess Dad wouldn’t mind. “It’s like a monsoon out there right now. I bet no one will even come tonight. So why don’t you come with?”
    “What if people come?”
    Phillip grabs a legal pad and pen from a compartment in the hall table and draws up a quick sign:
    shiva canceled on account of rain. try again tomorrow.
    - the management.
    He jams the paper under the knocker on the front d oor. “Problem solved,” he says.

Chapter 40
    9:15 p.m.
    Sticky Fingers is in one of the last strip malls on Route 120, just about a mile down the road from the Marriott where Jen