Page 76 of Saint
“He’s sleeping?” Sean asks. “I thought he was going to be watching you pray all day for an article or something. And you can’t be the best uncle, because in case you haven’t noticed, you’re a monk.”
“We’ll see what Josie says when he’s old enough to appreciate my delicious monk beer. And why don’t you want to talk to me? Your own baby brother?”
Sean heaves a giant sigh. “I guess I can talk to you. That’s fine. But for the record, Ryan is the baby brother.”
That’s true enough. Ryanisthe baby. He’s just gotten his bachelor’s degree—barely—after a college career that makes my pre-monk life look downright saintly by comparison.
“How’s Ryan doing?” I ask.
“Bad and gross,” Sean says with the weary air of The Oldest Brother. “I went to pick him up for lunch last week, and he’s living like how you used to before you joined a monastery.”
I think back. “Making millions of dollars and planning an epic Timber Wolf funeral?”
“No. Like spiked Gatorade is a food group. No offense.”
“None taken. Maybe he should join a monastery too.”
Sean huffs. “What is it with my brothers all joining the Church? Am I a medieval landowner? Am I an Italian merchant in the nineteenth century? My family has to join the Church because I can give them no living and the king is fighting no wars?”
“It’s not just us. Your wife was about to join the Church too,” I point out. Elijah’s little sister had been about to take her vows as a member of a religious order when Sean happened to her.
Or maybe she happened to Sean. I’m still not exactly sure how it all went down.
“Yes, well.” Sean plants a kiss onto Josie’s soft, dark curls. “I’m grateful every day that she changed her mind.”
He’s in his home office, and behind him is a wall of pictures: him and Zenny and their four babies in a mix of candid shots and those photoshoot-y pictures that are always taken in fields for some reason.
Once upon a time, my older brother had been sinning his way through our city with a vengeance and doing it with such cool sophistication that all I’d ever wanted was to be like him, arrogant and charming and grabbing all the good things in life while the grabbing was good. And now he’s sitting here dandying a baby on his knee during what used to be the sacrosanct hours of a money-earning workday, surrounded by pictures of the love of his life and the giant family they’ve made with each other.
“You changed your mind about things too, you know,” I say softly, which is right when his second oldest, Mary Amanirenas, charges into view and drops an empty plastic bowl onto Sean’s desk with a significant look. She’s only three, but like the queen she’s named for, she often looks ready to symbolically behead someone.
“Goldfish all gone, Daddy,” Amani tells Sean in an imperious tone.
“One second, angel,” Sean says, adjusting the baby on his lap to open up a desk drawer.
“Do you have Goldfishinyour desk?” I ask.
He gives me a critical glance. “Have you ever tried to watch four children at once while taking a work call, Aiden? I dare you not to have Goldfish in your desk in those times, sir.” He deftly keeps Josie balanced on one knee while one-handedly refilling the Goldfish bowl, and then leans down to give Amani a kiss right between her pigtail puffs.
Amani accepts the kiss with great toddler dignity, takes the bowl, and looks up at me. “Hi, Uncle Brother,” she says, because at some point she heard someone calling me Brother Patrick and so now I’m Uncle Brother forever.
“Hi, Amani. Where are Caro and Martina?” That’s her older and younger sisters, respectively.
“Taking naps,” she replies.
“How come you’re not taking a nap?”
She gives me a look that reminds me of Elijah—one baby eyebrow lifting into her forehead. “Don’t like naps,” she says, as if this should be obvious, and she takes her Goldfish back out of frame.
“Shouldn’t Josie be taking a nap too?” I ask as I hear the faint sounds ofSesame Streetplaying from a tablet somewhere.
“A of all, have you ever tried to get four people to nap at the same time?”
“It happens every day at the monastery,” I tell him, but he ignores me.
“B of all, he’s teething. If he’s not nursing or being held, he’s pissed. Aren’t you?” he asks the baby, kissing his curls again. “Aren’t you pissed off when we’re not holding you?”
Josie pauses chewing on his drool-covered fist to give his daddy a big, gummy grin.
