“And there’s a sassy foreigner who eventually marries one of them,” I said.
“It’s practically a documentary.” He shot me a rueful grin. “I liked to tease Nick about being the Niles of our family. I used the alias because it made him laugh.”
He kicked aimlessly at a small rock on the pathway.
“He’s not ready yet, Fred,” I said. “But he’ll get there. I think.”
Nick had kept his twice-a-week appointments with Dr. Kep, and it felt like the fog was lifting as far as he and I were concerned. Dr. Kep had been strict about us going on dates—or “dates,” because we couldn’t just pop out to the pub for some fish and chips—and had put us on a sex fast.
“Physical intimacy is a crutch. Intellectual intimacy is true connection,” Nick had repeated to me. (Intellectual Intimacy was also the name of Dr. Kep’s latest bestseller.)
“In other words, we shouldn’t screw ourselves right back to where we were,” I said.
“Such a tawdry summary,” Nick said. “Kep will be sorry that isn’t his subtitle.”
But that progress was divorced from whatever therapy Nick was doing about Freddie. The brothers had settled into being absent from each other’s lives except as coworkers, and I was committed to keeping my foot in that door until one of them came over and kicked it open himself. But I had no idea how long it was going to take.
“In retrospect, it was incredibly naïve to think there wasn’t going to be any fallout with him,” Freddie sighed. “Nick’s just always been so…reasonable. It was easy to convince myself that his even keel knew no bounds.” He scratched at his costume beard. “How is he? How are you two doing?”
“We’re good,” I said. “We were in a strange place. But I don’t think he’d mind me telling you that he’s been seeing a therapist. It’s helped a lot. Have you thought about doing that, too?”
“Technically I have seen a therapist,” he said with a wink. “More than one. But let’s talk about you. Are you ready for the trip?”
“The prep has been insane, but yes,” I said. I wrapped my arms around my torso. “I can’t believe I get to go home. I realized yesterday that it’s the first time I’ll have been in the States since my dad died.”
Freddie looked surprised, then elbowed me affectionately. “We’re going to need ice cream for this.”
Ten minutes later, he returned with two vanilla cones that had Cadbury Flakes poking out the top.
“A Double-99,” he said, handing one to me. We sat down under a leafy tree and leaned against the bark. “English summertime classic.”
“That line looked way longer than you took.”
“I gave my money to a woman near the front and said these were for two sobbing children. So please look sad, and young.” He licked some off his finger. “Now. Back on topic.” He affected a rich baritone. “I’m listening.”
I snorted with laughter. “Thanks, Dr. Crane. Longtime listener, first-time caller,” I said. “It’s not a big deal. I think about Dad all the time, no matter where I am.”
“I know you do,” he said. “That’s not what stood out. It’s the way you talked about America. You called it home.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You absolutely did,” he said, and took a sloppy bite of vanilla soft-serve.
“Huh.” I frowned at the toes of my sneakers, stretched out in front of me. “I wonder how often I do that.”
“You never talk about missing America,” Freddie said. “You never really talk about America at all.”
I pulled out a Flake and nibbled the end. I’d lived in the UK since I graduated from college, and although I thought about my parents often, I didn’t dwell too much on home (there was that word again) in my day-to-day life. There were things I missed about my country of origin—measuring things in inches and pounds and Fahrenheit, being able to watch baseball live—but I lived in a palace with a person I loved very much. Still, my heart had leapt a little bit to see the United States on the itinerary, even though we weren’t going anywhere near Iowa.
“It’s not that I don’t feel at home here.” I chewed on the Flake as some chocolate pieces crumbled onto my shirt. “But I guess I didn’t choose England so much as I chose Nick. And it was a package deal. It always felt like my home here was the person, and not the place.”
“It probably doesn’t help that everyone here thinks of you as