When Michael Knapp brings his lover Dan Biggs home to meet his parents, he doesn't expect things to go smoothly. His mother's been trying to marry him off for years, and sometimes he isn't even sure his father knows he exists. He has always felt like the shadow son, competing with his terminally stupid older brother and smart-mouthed little sister for his parents' attention. Coming out to them over dinner seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally get noticed.<br><br>But an unexpected phone call interrupts his announcement -- Aunt Evie, the family matriarch, is dead. With Dan in tow, Michael follows his family to Sugar Creek, where he spent his summers growing up, to prepare for the funeral.<br><br>Amid an overabundance of memories and relatives, Michael's world begins to slip. His dysfunctional family, Evie's death, and an old friend's confession all threaten to smother him. Worse, in his grief and confusion he seems determined to inadvertently push everyone away, including his lover. Can he and Dan move beyond his family and his past to a new life together, before Michael's insecurities tear them apart?

It's All Relative

I turn towards her, about to ask what the hell she’s talking about, but then Trevor speaks up. “Horny asses,” he declares, so matter-of-factly that I just stare at him. He glances at us, gives me a tight, thin-lipped smile, then leans onto the table, dangerously close to the pumpkin and the knife in Caitlin’s hand. With one small finger he shoves his glasses up the bridge of his nose and nods as if confirming it. Beneath his breath, he whispers it again, slowly, enunciating each syllable until the phrase sounds prim in his little boy voice. “Horny asses.”


“What are you teaching him?” I want to know.


“He’s getting a well rounded education,” Caitlin points out.


At the counter, Aunt Bobbie has been wiping out the sink while we go back and forth, studiously neutral and out of our conversation. It’s safer that way. But at my sister’s remark, she looks over her shoulder with reproach. “One his mother won’t appreciate, I’m sure,” she says now.


Chapter 139