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Daniel picks up his club and heads for our cart.

“Mom wants to see us.”

He stops with his back to me. “She’s had thirty years to do that.”

I can’t argue with him. Mom never calls, forgets birthdays, and sometimes lets Christmas pass without so much as a message. We see less of her now than we did as kids, when Dad was doing everything he could to keep us apart. He’s no longer stopping her, but she still hasn’t made much effort.

It’s hard to ask Daniel to make one for her.

“Ava was excited,” I say.

That gets him to turn around.

“Of course she was. She thinks she’s getting a contract out of us.”

“I don’t think that’s why. She seemed pleased at the thought of getting the family together.”

“She isn’t our family.”

“She’s our stepsister.”

Daniel’s grip tightens around his club. “She’s Carl’s daughter. That’s it.”

I could point out that this is how stepsisters work, but it won’t get him to lunch.

“Two weeks from today. One o’clock.” I look between them. “This family’s been split in half long enough. I want to see if we can fix some of it.”

Daniel shakes his head and reaches into the cart for his beer.

“I’m not asking you to like anyone,” I add. “Come to lunch. Sit at the same table. Make an effort.”

“I made an effort by coming here today. Look where that got me.”

I nod toward the trees. “You’ve hit three of those. That has to count for something.”

“Four,” Tom says.

“He hit the same one twice.”

Tom laughs into his drink. Daniel waits for him to finish, then looks back at me.

“So you arranged all this before asking us?”

“I knew how this conversation would go.”

“Then you know my answer,” he says.

“You owe me.”

His eyes narrow. “For what?”

“The calendar.”

Daniel takes a slow sip of his beer. “You’re still talking about that?”

“You told me it was a business photo shoot.”

“It was for charity.”