Page 38 of The Summer Club

“No, but she gave you something like three grand so you could get one. And after pestering Mom and Dad, you did.”

“Okay, I think we’ve covered all the bases,” Andi interjected. “Can we switch the subject before everyone starts fighting again? Let’s go up to the house for lunch.”

No one budged.

“I’d always wondered why she didn’t seem to like me as much,” Hugh said. “What I might have done wrong. That’s pretty crappy to make a kid feel like that.” He looked at Andi and shrugged. “Now we know why Tish treated us like we weren’t really family.”

Sydney heaved herself to her feet. “No, I hate to think of Tish like that. We’ve got so few memories with her as it is and she’s older now. I think I’ve heard enough.”

Hugh watched her grab her bag and collect her things. “It doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”

“I’ll tell you what it is. Mean. It implies she favored me.”

“She did!” Hugh cried. “Because you were blood.”

Sydney snatched a towel and hastily brushed the sand off her legs. “Why do you always have to be so negative, Hugh? She gave us a lot over the years. I recall you getting a car.”

“Yeah, from Mom and Dad! Which I shared with Andi.”

“You two were twins! Two new cars at the same time is a bit spoiled, isn’t it?” Sydney shook the towel hard one last time, covering them all with a hot layer of sand.

“Hey!” Hugh swiped at his mouth, spitting. “Jesus. Everyone in this family is rainbows and unicorns. No one likes to hear the truth.”

But Andi was done too. “Hugh, I think we’ve dredged up enough.”

Hugh turned to her. “Really, Andi? I expect this kind of cluelessness from Syd, but not from you.”

She spun around to face him. “Cluelessness?”

“Don’t you remember the year I came out to the family? Do you have any idea how hard that was?”

Andi did. It was their senior year of high school. Hugh had been so miserable that year. Quiet. Detached. Brooding. Their parents had been worried he was depressed or drinking or worse, but when they tried to talk to him about it he refused.

“Part of the reason I was so scared to come out was because I knew something was off. I had always felt it. That I was different. That somehow I was less loved.”

“Than me?” Andi sputtered.

“Yes, even you. I was gay in a straight neighborhood, a kid hardly sure of himself, let alone his sexuality. All I knew was that I felt different from everyone.” He paused. “So finding out now that we weren’t really Dad’s kids has thrown me back in time to some pretty ugly days. Days I don’t care to revisit!” He was starting to shout now and Martin reached for his arm.

“Honey, let’s go.” He pulled Hugh up to his feet. “It’s okay.”

But it wasn’t okay. Andi felt hollowed out by the things Hugh was throwing at all of them. By the realization of how he’d been made to feel and the horrible fact that, in the vacuum of the truth, he’d blamed himself all those years ago. “Hugh, I’m sorry,” she cried.

“You can’t tell me you didn’t feel it too! I know you did. I felt it. I was different.”

Tears pricked the corners of Andi’s eyes. Because what Hugh was insinuating was something awful. And because, maybe, buried somewhere deep, she did remember something.

“You don’t remember Mom and Dad fighting at times? About how Tish treated us so differently from Sydney? About how small she made Mom and the two of us feel?”

“I don’t know,” Andi cried. “Maybe some of it?”

“Don’t be so naïve, Andi. You of all people should know better. You’re my twin.”

Andi leapt to her feet. “Screw you, Hugh.”

Tears spilling, she spun away from him and across the scorching hot sand to the beach trail. It was one thing to delve into the bomb their grandmother had dropped on them. But to try to connect that to the pain of his coming out all those years ago? To suggest this secret may have caused unnecessary hurt, even back then? Even for Hugh, it was too much. One had nothing to do with the other.

Andi pounded up the beach trail, putting quick distance between herself and the rest of them. Her feet burned with each step, but she barely noticed. She was livid with Hugh. With the ugly questions he was asking.