The Thing About Three

chapter fifteen | family

JEREMIAH MULLINS WASN'T a tactful person, that much I gathered by the first ten seconds of having opened the front door to my house for him the night after Jovan showed up at work, because that's when he'd blurted out: "I think you're my sister."

I blinked at him for a few moments before replying. "What?"

"My dad is also your dad, I'm pretty sure. Which makes you my sister." His hands were tucked into the pockets of his black sweatpants, his face relaxed and tone casual, as if what he was telling me was a perfectly normal thing to show up at a stranger's house and say.

"Huh?" I breathed out.

"Do you not remember me?" he asked.

"You're the guy with the red Miata," I said, having instantly remembered him from that day at Whitlock's.

He nodded. "Yep, who also happens to possibly be your brother."

I stared at him for a long while, and then held up a finger, shut the door, and ran to find my dad washing dishes in the kitchen.

"What's up?" he asked when I entered. "Who was it? Dallas?"

"No," I said, frowning as I replayed the last twenty seconds in my head, "it's some guy claiming to be my brother—your son."

He frowned with me, as if the idea was outrageous. Because it was. "What? What do you mean?"

"I don't know, go ask him that," I said, feeling a headache coming on. "I left him on the front porch for you to deal with."

He set down the plate he'd been washing, grabbing a tea towel and wiping the suds from his hands before following me to the foyer.

"Uh, hi," Dad said to Jeremiah, facing him.

And that's when this whole "brother" business started to make a bit more sense because standing next to my father, I finally understood why Jeremiah Mullins had looked so familiar the day I had met him at Whitlock's.

He was the spitting image of my dad—"our" dad. Dark blond hair, hazel green eyes, strong jaw and angular nose. It was almost eerie how similar they looked.

Dad noticed it too, his eyes flitting back and forth between me and Jeremiah, like there was some resemblance there, too.

He stopped his eyes on Jeremiah after a while, staring at him intently. "Dear God," he sighed, taking him in. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-one. I'll be twenty-two on December 10th."

I could see Dad do the math in his head, his eyes on the floor as he rolled months and years over in his mind, finally placing a woman with the time frame. "Norah Mullins," he exhaled.

"It's Norah Keith now," Jeremiah said, taking his hands out of his pocket to gesture inside. "Can I come in? It's kind of cold out here."

Dad obliged, and we moved into the living room, me on shaky legs, Jeremiah with eyes focused on the family pictures lining the walls and mantle, and Dad bringing up the rear with an unmoving mask of shock on his face. He was so dazed that he bumped into the side of the couch, stubbing his toe and letting out a silent curse as he hobbled over to the sofa he liked to nap on.

I sat next to him, Jeremiah taking the love seat across from us. We all sat in silence for a while, just staring at each other in disbelief until Jeremiah broke the silence.

"Uh, so, yeah, my mom is Norah Keith," he announced a bit awkwardly, his hands clasped together as he fiddled with his fingers in his lap. "I've known since I was little that I had a dad out there, but didn't really care much because Mom married my step-dad and that was good enough for me."