One for Big Daddy.
Another for Walker, the eldest.
Then one for me.
Then Dwain and Lee—my other two brothers—or the O’Ralley runts, as they were known around town, even though both had outgrown Walker and myself.
And another for Mel, the baby.
But that one lonely chair would always remind us of who was missing—no, who was taken—from our family.
After taking a silent moment to remember a bright smile and delighted laugh, I noticed Dwain narrow his eyes, his jaw tightening as he looked at me. It was the way he’d get sometimes when we were kids and he wanted a fight.
“So word has it you both had a good night at the ho-mo-sexual event at the Barn last night,” Big Daddy said.
Mel bit her bottom lip, clearly trying to keep herself from correcting him about not needing to use the word homosexual or drag it out so goddamn long.
Walker eyed me uneasily.
“Yes, we had a really good time,” I said.
Big Daddy nodded. “That’s good. I’m glad that in these hard times, when orders have been down and distributors have been on edge, when we’ve had the worst quarter in five years, you two were able to get out and cut loose a bit.”
I knew Big Daddy well enough to know this was going somewhere, though I couldn’t imagine where the fuck that could be.
“Brody, are you proud of being an O’Ralley? Do you respect the blood, the sweat, the tears…our ancestors’ crimes during prohibition…all that went into building this business and keep it running for nearly a century?”
“I’m very confused about where this is going, Big Daddy. Did we suddenly turn into the mob?”
“Can you shut your smart mouth for five seconds?” Dwain asked, still eyeing me like he was about to knife me.
“Dwain, you keep looking at me like that, and I’m liable to—”
“Liable to what? Kiss me?” The way he said it left no doubt about what he meant.
Or what he knew.
“What are you on about, Dwain?”
“You were at the Barn last night, and I know what you were doing there.”
“How the hell do you know anything about what was happening at the Barn?”
“Because Karissa messaged Lynda, and Lynda messaged Brian, who FaceTimed Bentley before telling Angela, who I was with—”
“And what were you doing with Angela?”
His face turned bright red, his fists tightening on either side of the table. “This is not about me.”
Big Daddy closed his paper, a declaration of war in our family.
“Are you about to disown me because I made out with some guy at a bar?”
“The hell kind of father do you think I am? I don’t care if you’re a ho-mo-sexual any more than I care that Melissa’s a pan.”
Mel cringed again.
“Dad, I’m not gay,” I told him, feeling a little less confident about those words since that kiss.
Big Daddy pushed to his feet. “Do you have any idea who that guy you made out with was?”
“I barely remember his face,” I lied, since I could remember plenty about it for having only seen it a moment. Didn’t come across a face like that often.
“That face was the face of Cohen Mitchell,” Big Daddy said. “Let that sink in.”
As soon as I heard the last name, I knew what this conversation had been about.
“Oooohhhh…”
“Fuck,” Walker muttered beside me as I became even more acutely aware of the throbbing headache tormenting me.
“So you can imagine how your father feels about his son parading around with the family’s sworn enemies since prohibition…and since no one from the law is around, safe to say, before prohibition.”
The family feud.
The goddamn Mitchells versus the O’Ralleys. How in the hell could I have known that the random guy I found to lock lips with was, unwittingly, part of the convoluted feud I’d heard about all my life, right up until the Mitchells’ distillery closed down two years prior.
“Big Daddy, I didn’t even realize there were still any Mitchells left. I thought it was a rumor.”
He paused a moment, reflecting on my comment. “So this wasn’t some grand statement you were trying to make to shame our family name?”
“Not at all. I ran into Karissa last night, and she wanted to talk. I grabbed someone, a total stranger, and kissed him, hoping to shake her. It worked. That was the end of it, short of kissing a Mitchell, who looked so out of place, I doubt he’s even planning on being in this town very long. That’s the entire story.”
“You didn’t find him on social media?” Dwain asked. “Bring him out here to cause trouble?”
“Dwain, that’s nearly as dumb as the rest of this conversation. I do not know this guy. I had nothing to do with why he’s here. And I doubt I’ll ever see him around here again.”
Big Daddy seemed to be soaking in everything I’d said.
As much as I wanted to soothe him, I really didn’t see a fucking reason why it would have been any of their business if I did want to parade around town with a Mitchell. This was not a hundred years ago, and I had no beef with some guy I’d never met before.
“I believe you, Brody,” Big Daddy said, which earned a scoff from Dwain. “I have to admit, with business going the way it has been, knowing a Mitchell’s in town feels like a bad omen. That family never did nothing to help us stay in business, would have reveled in our defeat, and part of me feels like this guy might have come at the right time for that.”
What had begun as such anger with me for what Big Daddy had believed was a stunt was followed by a familiar sorrow I’d seen in him as we had greater and greater issues keeping the distillery open. I saw the hardworking father I’d come to know all these years, the man trying to keep the business going and provide for his family.
“I’m sorry for raising my voice,” Big Daddy said, sitting back down and retrieving his paper, but Dwain’s expression seemed less forgiving. “I’d like to think you wouldn’t do anything intentionally to shame this family and our history…our legacy. I know it doesn’t mean as much to you kids, but history and our name is all we have to hold on to. Without our past, what do we have? What can we hold on to?”
I knew he meant Big Momma.
And I also saw, plain as day, that the whole fucked-up situation was a perfect example of the dysfunctional mess we’d become since her death. In some ways, it had brought us closer together, but even though we would have killed without question for each other, there was something else that lingered—a certain distance that kept us so very far apart.
“So let this be a reminder,” Big Daddy went on. “You sit at this table, you stand against all Mitchells. There is no middle ground on this. So long as this Mitchell is in this town, we, as all O’Ralleys have done since 1931—well, 1935, if the law asks—stand against him and his wicked blood.”
“Amen, Big Daddy,” Dwain and Lee said together.
Walker and Mel didn’t respond, but it didn’t seem that their responses mattered as much as mine, because Big Daddy’s eyes were right on me.
“Fine,” I muttered.
Big Daddy would see how ridiculous this all was once Cohen finished appraising the place or taking out whatever he needed to take back to wherever he was from.