"Who is she supposed to have kids with, Dad?" Sloane asked.

"Whomever! That's what women are doing these days. She's one hell of a smart-ass, that sister of yours," he said to Sloane, then looked at me. "But you got a good head on your shoulders and a lot of men find that intimidating. That's why you tend to hang out with such basket cases like your friend Nathan there."

"Sloane, did you hear the news?" Greg asked.

"Yes," I chimed in, ignoring my father. "You don't have to pay the caterer tomorrow, you can just give her one of our trees. They're very rare."

The door swung open and Nathan walked back inside, dripping sweat from his run.

"This place is beautiful, God, Melvin, just beautiful," he said to my father. Then he spotted Sloane. "You must be Sloaney Baloney! Yippee!" he shrieked and ran over to embrace her.

My future brother-in-law slid out the back door as soon as he saw that a hug might be headed his way. My father lowered his paper an inch below his eyes, watching Nathan like a detective on a stakeout.

"Sylvia," Nathan said to my mother, "I'd love a smoothie."

"Hey, asshole," I whispered, "this isn't Jamba Juice."

" Chelsea, I heard that," my mother said. "I'd love to make a smoothie for Nathan."

"Well, then, you better make one for Whitefoot too," my father said and muttered something under his breath.

After taking a forty-minute shower, then dumping his running clothes on top of our laundry machine and asking my mother not to wash his shorts and shirt together, Nathan picked up our phone and went into the bedroom where all the little kids sleep.

I quickly slipped outside to the deck to avoid further discussion with my father. Half an hour later, when I came back inside, Nathan was having a loud argument with his bookie/lover, which my father was listening to through my sister's baby monitor that he held inches away from his ear. My father got up, grabbed me by my elbow, and dragged me into the kitchen.

"Do you know what a sbnorrer is?" he asked me.

"Dad, what is your problem?" I said.

"It's Yiddish for mooch. That faygeleb friend of yours is the classic definition of a mooch, and I don't like it one bit. When is he gonna get off the goddamn phone? We've got a wedding to arrange for that Mormon sister of yours and there's no goddamm cell-phone reception. What kind of misbigas is this?" Misbigas is another Yiddish word, for bullshit. "Do you know he has a bookie? Where did this guy grow up, in the woods?"

"Let go of my elbow, Dad."

"I don't like it one bit. Now tell me the truth, is he delirious?" my father asked in all seriousness. That was my father's way of asking if Nathan was on drugs.

The truth of the matter was that Nathan did all kinds of drugs, but I couldn't imagine he would've gotten on a plane to my sister's wedding with an eight ball smuggled inside his rectum. And as far as I knew, he hadn't been doing anything but drinking prior to the wedding. Nathan's MO is to go on binges for weeks at a time but then clean up his act for a couple of months. When he is on a binge, Nathan has a habit of staying up all night, coked to the gills, and then calling me or one of our other friends at seven in the morning, where he will bring up subjects like why in the game of Monopoly, Baltic Avenue is cheaper than Ventnor, when really it is in a better location. There are also long gaps of silence-if you don't count the times when he's grinding his teeth, or the sound of his vertical blinds hitting each other as he stands by the window, looking for the cops. I always want to hang up but get scared he might swallow his tongue.

"Dad!" I protested innocently. "Nathan is not on drugs. Stop being like this. Be nice to him!" When my father doesn't like someone, you don't have to have esp to figure it out. He has the subtlety of a sling blade; all it takes is one moment of direct eye contact. And while it might once have been fun to watch him get riled up, I had long surpassed the golden years of experiencing sheer and utter elation in disappointing my father. At around twenty-four I realized I was just chasing that initial high you get the first time you tell your father at the age of sixteen that you're pregnant and thinking about keeping it.

"Just keep him away from your mother and keep him away from Whitefoot," my father ordered. Greg entered the kitchen just as my father said this.

"Yes, Chelsea, I think that's a good idea. Unless, of course, Whitefoot brought condoms," Greg said. My father hates my brother's sense of humor even more than he hates mine. He looked at us both with disgust and headed for some bushes. "Oh look, Dad's going to relieve himself. That's charming," Greg said as we looked over and saw my father unzip his fly.

After Nathan got off the phone, I suggested we go to the beach. He said he'd rather sit on the deck and enjoy the view.

More of my family soon started funneling in, and I hoped that at least would take some of the attention off of Nathan. Luckily, my sister Sloane took a shine to him. He was giving her a ridiculous amount of compliments and Sloane was eating it up. If he wasn't complimenting her on her "piercing blue eyes," it was the way all her toes were the same length. This opened the door for her to ask him one question after another about being a member of GLAAD.

I was hoping my father would be charmed by Nathan, like most women were, but neither he nor any of my brothers wanted anything to do with him. I felt embarrassed for bringing him home and disappointing my family. The truth was, Nathan was behaving terribly. He was over the top about everything, and he was talking nonstop, barely letting anyone else get a word in edgewise. I kept trying to lure him outside, away from my father, but the more Nathan sensed he wasn't winning him over, the harder he put on a full-court press. When he wasn't praising my father about how lucky he was to have strong enough sperm to produce six healthy children, he was ordering food from my mother like he was in a twenty-four-hour diner. He had been there for only one day and had already eaten close to six different meals, all of which he requested be prepared with absolutely no oil or butter.

"Why don't we go into town for a drink?" I offered, steering Nathan, for the tenth time, toward the door. "Why would we leave this paradise?" he said, breaking free of my grip. "Everything we need is here."

"I don't know, Nathan, maybe because you're acting like an asshole, and my mother isn't your personal chef."

"What are you talking about?"

"Just tone it down a notch, okay."

"Sloane loves me and so does Whitey. How can you say that?"

"It's Whitefoot! And my parents don't give a shit who he likes."

"You're being so dramatic!" he said and left me outside by myself.

At around eight P.M., I had no other option but to dilute two Tylenol PMs into his margarita. An hour later he was in bed.

The next day was my sister's wedding, and Greg woke me up to tell me that Nathan had already been on the phone with his bookie for over an hour.

"Now he's out on one of the kayaks taking a joyride. And Dad's watching him with his binoculars. Dad could have a meltdown at any minute," Greg said excitedly.

I rushed downstairs to the kitchen, where my mother was making blueberry pancakes.

"Sweetie, I think you need to keep your friend Nathan out of Dad's eye line when he comes back," my mother said. "Your father is about to pass a kidney stone. I've made a list of last-minute items Nathan could pick up in town."

"Okay," I said. "Sorry, he's not usually like this."

My father walked in. "I'm not going to be able to hold my tongue for very much longer."

"Dad, please, I'm sorry. Do not say anything to him. He's had a rough life and his father used to hit him."

"For good reason!" my father said.