Learning Curve

Wednesday February 12th

Finn

“I feel compelled to give a toast,” Wendy, the matriarch of the Winslow family, announces as she rises to her feet, her majestically silver bob of hair shining under the overhead lights.

The entire gang is here—both the Winslows and the Hayeses—for the first time ever. All of us, in one house. We’ve been together in parts and pieces ever since the big news first broke, but it’s hard to get this many people’s schedules to align. But tonight, we’re all here, Remy having bought Reece a last-minute plane ticket so he could fly home from California yesterday, and thankfully, Wendy’s New York brownstone is big enough to fit us.

“Reece, Finn, Travis, Jack, and Willow,” Wendy addresses, “seeing you all here, so young and vibrant, takes me back to when my boys and Winnie were young.”

“Hear that?” Jude teases, pointing to the Winslow kids. “We’re old now.”

Wendy shushes him immediately. “I didn’t ask for crowd participation, Jude, but now that you’ve mentioned it…yes, you’re old. And so am I!”

Jude laughs, and Flynn elbows him to calm down when he starts choking on spit. Wendy carries on, undeterred. I imagine she’s pretty used to all their shit anyway.

“I’d be honored if you called me Aunt Wendy, and I want you to know that you always have me in your corner. I’m always here for you.” She smiles toward each of us.

“Aunt Wendy it is!” Trav exclaims, and she laughs.

“Thank you, Travis,” Wendy says through a small laugh. “And Helen,” she says my mother’s name and looks across the dinner table at her. “I feel like I’ve gained a friend. A friend I hope I get to know more and more as the years go by. A friend I hope knows that I’m always here for her too. A friend I hope will one day understand the same things that it took me what feels like decades to realize. You are strong. You are beautiful. And you can do anything.”

“Thank you, Wendy. That means more than you probably realize.” My mother’s voice shakes, and a sheen of tears shines in her eyes. She’s been emotional since I set foot in the door, and she greeted me by wrapping me up in a big hug. The past two nights, we’ve had long phone conversations—that she initiated—and I’m happy to see her taking all of this in for the gift that it is. She’s going through a lot right now, and after spending years in an abusive marriage, it’s almost like she has to retrain her brain.

Maybe I should be mad at her for staying in that situation as long as she did, but I’ve never seen my mom as the problem. When she married Jeff Hayes, she had no idea what she was getting into, and once the cycle of abuse started, his ability to manipulate and control was too much for a woman with five young kids. She was a victim like the rest of us, just trying to survive. How can I be angry at her for that?

“Let’s raise our glasses to the Hayes family,” Wendy starts to cheers, but Jude is quick to pipe up again. I have no idea how, but he loves to stir shit even more than Ty.

“And what about us, Mom?” he asks with a wry smirk. “You got anything sweet to say about your actual kids? You know, other than us being old?”

His wife Sophie doesn’t hesitate to slap him on the back of the head. “Ignore him. Please.”

“Hey now!” Jude retorts on a chuckle. “All I’m saying is she could’ve thrown us a bone, you know?” He looks over at Remy, who just stares back at him with annoyance. Then he looks at Flynn, who pretty much does the same.

His sister Winnie immediately says, “Don’t even try to wrangle me into your needy bullshit.”

“Yeah, Jude,” Ty agrees. “If you need someone to suck your cock, ask your wife.” The whole house devolves into an uproar, and Jack and Trav share a high five. One thing about putting all ten offspring of that asshole Jeff together is that things are going to get crazy.

“To the first official Winslow-Hayes Family Dinner Night,” Remy announces, wading into the melee to calm us all down. His wife Maria raises her glass high in the air, and we all follow suit.

I cheers my glass of lemonade with the people closest to me—Flynn, Flynn’s wife Daisy, Jack, and Willow—and allow myself a small moment of wonder.

From where I started to here had a really steep learning curve, but it’s taught me an important lesson I’ll keep with me forever. Hard things are worth it.

“Now, how about some fucking spaghetti?” Jude announces with a big-ass grin on his face. Wendy starts to open her mouth to chastise him, but her words turn into an outright laugh when Jude makes a show of walking the bowl of pasta over to his mom to serve her. “For my beautiful mother. The best mother in the entire world.” He looks over at Helen. “No offense, Aunt Helen.”

My mom just laughs, and Ty picks up a piece of garlic bread to toss at Jude’s head. Jude dodges it on a chuckle.

My newest brothers might be middle-aged men, but they still act like kids. Not a single one of them is the uptight, better-than-thou persona I had imagined the first time I found out about their existence.

“You know what’s crazy?” Travis questions as he serves himself a giant helping of spaghetti. “Jeff Hayes…Jeff Winslow—whatever you want to call that son of bitch—he might be a true piece of shit, but somehow, he managed to create incredibly good-looking offspring.”

The sounds of cutlery clanking and people chatting stop on a dime.

“What?” Travis holds out both hands and shrugs. “I know I’m not the only one who sees that the Hayes and Winslow families aren’t ugly. I mean, Winnie is beautiful with her blond hair and blue eyes. Flynn could be James Dean reincarnated. Remy might be in his fifties, but I swear, people probably confuse him with Superman. Ty could be Zac Efron’s doppelgänger before his face got all fucked up.” Our mom smacks him in the chest, but he keeps going. “And Jude looks like an old Abercrombie and Fitch model from back in the day.” Everyone stares at Travis as he shoves a bite of spaghetti into his mouth and talks around his food. “My siblings aren’t ugly either. Reece is a handsome fuck. It’s annoying how attractive Finn is. Willow is so pretty that I feel like I spend most of my time beating high school douchebags off with a stick. And I’m uberhot, obviously, and since Jack is my twin, I guess he’s okay-looking, too. It’s just nuts, you know? Who would’ve thought an abusive drunk who’s in prison for killing a cop could create such good-looking kids?”

When no one responds, Reece lets out a shocked laugh. “Bro, I think you might’ve taken that shit too far.”

“Hey, I don’t have any problem saying the silent part out loud.” Travis just shrugs and shoves another bite of spaghetti into his mouth. “I know I’m not the only to pick up on that shit. Not to mention, how weird it is that all of our names start with the same letter—by birth order? Remy, Flynn, Ty, Jude, Winnie…Reece, Finn, Travis, Jack, Willow. It’s fucking strange.”

“Trav, honey?” my mom chimes in, and he looks over at her. “How about you just sit there and eat your food?”

Wendy lifts a hand to cover her mouth, giggles shooting up from her lungs in the process.

And pretty much everyone bursts into laughter. I’m not sure if it’s out of actual humor or a coping mechanism. But all of us laugh for a good two minutes straight over Travis’s observations that he probably should’ve just kept to himself.

“Has anyone heard from the kids?” Daisy asks once our laughter dies down, looking over at her husband—and my brother—Flynn. “I feel like they’ve all been gone a long time to pick up some pizza.”

All day, my mom and Wendy have been cooking up a feast of spaghetti, garlic bread, chicken parmigiana, and sides. But when everyone started to show up and they realized how big the family gets when the Winslows and Hayeses are combined, they decided to send my sister Winnie’s daughter Lexi out on a pizza run. Unfortunately, once she agreed to go, the rest of my new siblings’ kids decided they wanted to join in on the fun too, which is a logistical nightmare because of how many of them there are. Wendy and her husband Howard offered up their Sprinter van for capacity.

Not even five minutes later, Lexi, Remy’s girls Carmen and Izzy, Flynn’s twin sons Roman and Ryder, Ty’s daughter Emily, Winnie’s son and Lexi’s brother Wes Jr., and Jude’s son Hawk and his daughter Meadow all piled into the fucker like the next act on this year’s Circus tour.

Their ages run from eleven to fifteen—which is crazy because they’re not much younger than Willow.

“Have no fear. I have Life 360 on Hawk’s phone, and it looks like they’re only a few miles away,” Jude’s wife Sophie says, and Daisy furrows her brow.

“You only have Hawk on Life 360? Not Meadow?”

Sophie laughs. “Have you met my son?”

“True,” Daisy agrees, and Remy’s wife Maria grins.

“I think Rem and I would be in an early grave if we had a Hawk.”

“That’s because, like Mom says, we’re old as shit, honey,” Remy teases, and Maria nudges him with her elbow. Wendy rolls her eyes. “Or, at least, I am. You, my beautiful wife, don’t look a day over thirty-five. I look fifty-fucking-eight.”

“That’s because you are,” Jude razzes. “You’re old as shit.”

“Yeah, but he ages like a fine wine,” Maria says and presses a kiss to Remy’s lips.

All this open affection is commonplace here, but it’s the opposite of what I’m used to.

I grew up in a house where the only love that existed was the love my mother gave us. I never saw love between my mother and father. Only anger. Only violence. Only hate. Only fear.

Their DNA is shit, but the Winslows are like a flower finding its way through a crack in concrete. It makes me feel like maybe I can be a flower too.

“Hey, Remy,” Maria says, and he looks over at his wife. “Don’t you think now is a good time to…you know…”

He searches her eyes for a long moment, but when realization dawns on him, he nods in understanding. “Oh, right.” He stands and raises his glass in the air. “I know Mom just did a toast, but I have some news that I think deserves another.” He moves his eyes to my mom. “Helen, I know I’m not the only one here who is proud of you for having the strength to leave a man who has affected all our lives. A man who doesn’t deserve a single person in this room.”

A few tears stream from my mom’s eyes. Wendy sniffles.

“Maria and I know the challenges that you face,” he continues. “We consider you a part of our family now. And I’m not sure if you’ve realized this yet, but when you’re our family, we have your back.”

“Yes, we do!” Jude exclaims. Flynn, Ty, and Winnie all nod in agreement.

“And since the man who doesn’t even deserve for us to speak his name is behind bars and awaiting a trial that will undoubtedly lock him away forever, we think you deserve a fresh start. A home that you can fill with happy memories and love,” he explains.

“Uncle Brad wants his lake house back, doesn’t he?” Jude teases, earning a flip of the middle finger from Remy.

“We’ve located a house in Westchester for you and Jack and Travis and Willow. It’s a nice five-bedroom home, big enough for Finn and Reece if they come home for the summers. It’s within walking distance to the high school, and it’s only a ten-minute drive to your job.”

“Remy. Maria.” My mother’s head begins to shake back and forth in shock. “W-what are you saying?”

“We’re saying that the house is yours. It’s fully paid off and ready for you to move in,” Remy announces, and Maria stands up to hand my mother a small white box with a pretty yellow bow.

My mother’s hands tremble as she opens it, and when she pulls out a shiny pair of keys from the box, tears start to fall from her eyes. “W-what? No. I can’t accept—”

“Yes, you can,” Maria says, tears in her eyes now too. “You’re family, Helen.”

“Yes, Helen.” Wendy stands up from her chair and walks over to my mom. “You’re family. We love you.”

Wendy and my mother hug, and everyone in the room is a mixture of tears, smiles, and outright surprise. Even Travis and Jack have slack jaws and wide eyes, little salty tear trails on their cheeks.

Remy just bought my mother a house. An entire fucking house. Because he wants to help us.

“Thank you so much,” my mom says through her tears, and she walks over to Remy and Maria to wrap them up in her arms. “You have no idea what this means to me. To us. I just don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.”

“You being a part of our family is payment enough,” Wendy says, and fresh tears trail down my mom’s cheeks. Willow is crying now too. I’m speechless.

I never dreamed it could be like this.

The door bursts open, and Roman, Ryder, and Hawk are the first ones to run inside with stacks of pizza boxes in their arms.

“Dinner is served!” Hawk shouts at the top of his lungs. But when he sees that the room is filled with people hugging and crying, his feet to skid to a stop. “What the eff?”

Roman and Ryder nearly barrel into him, and their reaction is the peak of confusion. “Um, what the hell is going on?” Roman questions, and Ryder’s brow furrows.

“Mom?”

“We’re just happy, sweetheart,” Daisy says, and Ryder’s brow only furrows deeper.

“Happy?” he questions. “This looks like a scene out of a fucking funeral.”

“Roman!” Daisy chastises through her tears.

“What? What’d I say?”

My brother Flynn heads over to his twin teenage sons, and he doesn’t hesitate to corral them away from the dining room and into the kitchen. Hawk follows along voluntarily with a piece of pizza hanging out of his mouth.

Things may look and sound normal to someone else, but to me, my universe is rattled.

My mom and siblings are safe. My father can no longer hurt us anymore. My family, my support system, has tripled in size.

I’m not only worthy of love; I’m capable of giving it.

And one day, Scottie will be ready to receive it. Maybe I need to wait a little less patiently.