Five Brothers, page 43
I’m sweating. My clothes stick to my skin. The ceiling feels too low.
“What happened?” Army moves toward me.
“Nothing.” I climb the steps, afraid to look back at him. My hand shakes. I grab the railing to steady it.
“Why don’t you guys go—”
“I’m just gonna take a shower,” I choke out, my pulse racing in my ears. “I’ll follow.”
“Macon…”
“Go to work. All of you,” I call out, trying to lighten my voice. “I’m close behind.”
I can’t breathe.
The door opens, and I turn, taking a long look at Trace’s face. He raises his eyebrows.
“Put some beer in the cooler.” I force a smile. “It’ll be a hot day. We deserve it, right?”
“Psh, yeah.” He smiles wide and races out the door, Dallas following, and I twist back around, heading for the top.
Army still stands there, watching me. I know he is.
“Macon…”
“I’m right behind you,” I say, not looking back. I reach the top and walk to my room. I step inside, close the door, and lock it.
I see my bedside table and barely feel myself walk toward it. But I don’t open the drawer.
Not yet.
I sit on the bed, letting the sunlight Krisjen always leaves spilling into my room cut into my brain. I wince at the glare in the corner of my eye, and the way it’s too hot on that side of my face. No clouds outside. I hate clear skies.
I rest my elbows on my thighs, draping my arms over my legs as I bow my head.
There’s dirt under one of my nails. I feel it like it’s a seed burrowed in there.
Sweat dampens my body. It’s so hot.
And every follicle of hair feels like it’s being pulled from underneath my skin.
Hair hangs in my eyes. Dirt on my shoes. I can feel it through the leather.
I’m sick of the dirt roads. The thought of seeing them again feels like a ten-ton weight on my shoulders.
All the same, all the time.
And food and people and the years and the talking. So much fucking talking. It’s all the same, every time. Every day.
Tomorrow won’t be any different. Neither will next week.
My eyes burn as I stare at the drawer. I vaguely feel my phone vibrate, but I cancel the call without looking and drop it on my bedstand.
Krisjen was right. She couldn’t keep me alive. I was always going to end up here. I thought if I had her, it would be more than this, because I wasn’t finding a reason to stay for them. For the Bay. I fail here. Every day is just more bullshit. I’m shit.
People don’t love me. They’re scared of me. They need me. My brothers might be attached to me, but only because I’ve always been here. Every moment of their lives I’ve been here, taking up space, on their case.
The phone buzzes again. I pick it up, ignoring the call.
I zone in on the wood grain handle of the drawer.
It could be over in one minute. Less, even. I could just stop.
I just want to stop.
The sun scorches my eyes, and I close them.
They’d get used to functioning without me. They may even feel guilty about the sigh of relief they’ll feel when I’m not around. But they’ll feel it.
I was never compassionate. Patient. Kind. I’m someone people put up with. Was I ever tender with her?
I was.
It was real.
She felt it, too.
She liked me.
She was always looking, even though I acted like I didn’t see.
I shake my head. No.
No.
She’s kind. She’s good at being kind.
It was fucking pity.
I’m so much less than what she could have and she knows it.
She’s just kind.
She won’t want…
I swallow hard…me in…
I growl, digging my fingernails into my hair…five years.
“Krisjen…” I gasp.
I yank open the drawer, my heart pounding and my head splitting, but I hear a voice.
“Macon?”
I look at the phone on the table.
“Macon, are you there?”
Iron?
I pick up the phone, and it feels like fifty pounds as I lift it to my ear.
“Are you there?” he says again.
I can’t talk, but I’m breathing hard. I pull the phone away from my ear, seeing a number I don’t recognize.
“How are you…” I clear my throat. “How are you calling me?”
“A friend has a cell phone.”
I missed the sound of his voice.
“I thought if you saw the prison on your caller ID you wouldn’t answer.”
He’s right. I wouldn’t have answered. I hate that he knows that about me. “You need…”
But I stop, about to ask him if he needs money but deciding to shut my fucking mouth. He can have whatever he wants.
“Are you safe?” I ask, the tears straining my voice.
“So far, so good.”
I was worried about Iron in prison, but not because of his safety. When people like him go to jail, it’s only the start.
“You know,” he starts, “I was thinking of that time you took me to the Cocoa Beach Air Show.”
I remember. Sand. Clear day. Lawn chairs, kids with earmuffs, aviation geeks with their binoculars and coolers.
“Just you and me.” His voice softens, and I can tell he’s smiling. “I had wanted to go the year before, but Dad was just too busy. I know he tried, but it was what it was.”
Yeah. My parents had suitcases. Up in the attic, never used.
“We never got to go anywhere, and I just wanted to see it, because of the pictures I’d seen online,” he tells me. “I didn’t think it was real. Like planes and pilots and people who had adventures like that every day were something that only existed in movies. It was the first time I realized how big the world was. And what people can do.”
We don’t even use the suitcases now. We don’t go anywhere. They don’t even ask.
“Those planes flying in formation,” he goes on. “All the people in uniforms…”
I listen, still hearing the sounds of the jets whooshing past, slicing through the air.
“Everything in the Bay was draining, and that day was so full of energy.” He pauses and then continues. “The music, the crowds…You probably don’t remember it, but I never forgot what a good day that was.”
It was. It was noise that wasn’t stress. It was distracting. I didn’t think about home all day. I remember noticing that on our way back home.
“It was a good day, more so because you smiled a lot,” he says. “I felt special. Like it was something we both shared, and I don’t know why that felt so important, but it did and it stuck with me. I remember thinking we’d be closer because of it.”
I close my eyes.
“I’ve had too much time to think in here already,” he says. “I forgot how I wanted to be one of those pilots someday. Be a hero. Do brave things.” He pauses. “They wouldn’t take me now, would they?”
A knife slices my heart.
He’s a felon now. The military doesn’t take you with a record.
He breathes hard, and I grip the phone, forgetting the drawer.
“You don’t realize how badly you wanted something,” he tells me, “until you find out that it’s no longer an option.”
I stare at my shoes.
“I’m sick of regret.
“Sick of just surviving,” he adds. “But I’m going to be a pilot. I don’t know how.” His tone is steady and resolute. “And I don’t care if you don’t support me, but every path has to be carved by someone, so I’m making a new one.”
Something stretches my throat.
“I’m not coming back to that house just to exist,” he states. “You understand?”
I smile, just a little.
If I’m not dead, then I’m not done.
I can do this.
If he can do this—keep going—so can I. It’s going to be over eventually. No one lives forever. I can do more before I go.
I can show my family that we keep standing back up. I’ve got another fight in me.
Drawing in a lungful of air, I rise off the bed and whip off my jacket. “I’m building you a new room,” I say. “If you’re not home on time, I’m painting it lavender.”
I hear a muffled chuckle. “Well…I also like peach.”
I smile. “Talk soon.”
“Yeah.”
I hang up, tear off my clothes, and wrap a towel around my waist. Opening my bedroom door, I yell. “Aracely!”
In a few seconds, I hear her footfalls on the stairs, and she appears at my door. Her eyes drop to my towel, and she almost looks away.
I swipe up my shirt and hold it out to her. “Have the…”
But I stop, taking a moment to correct myself. “Would you please have the buttons on this fixed?” I ask her politely. Then I hand her the pants and jacket. “And take this suit to a tailor as a reference for sizing. Have them make me three more. You pick the fabric. Shirts, ties…”
Her face falls a little, but I don’t linger for questions. Swiping my phone off the bed, I hand that to her next. “Put this on the charger. And find a time on my calendar next week to talk to me. You’ll start handling my schedule, and we need to talk about you taking over managing Mariette’s.” My brain floods with everything I want to do, and my mouth can’t keep up. “I’m giving you joint control with her. Understand?”
Her eyes go wide, but then I see it. The smile. She nods.
Taking the pants back from her, I dig out my wallet and slip out a credit card.
I hand it to her. “Go buy groceries and text my brothers to be home by six for dinner. No stopping at bars.”
She takes the card. “What do you want me to make?”
“I’m cooking.”
Her arms fall, and for a second she looks like she’s going to drop the clothes. I shove the pants back at her and start to walk away.
“And…” I fire back. “Start organizing a…like a block party or something. Let’s get everyone together. The whole Bay.”
Her eyes bug out again.
I narrow mine. “Are you writing this down?”
She fumbles for a second and then gestures to her head. “I got it,” she mumbles.
I walk toward the bathroom but point to the suit in her hands as I go. “And have that cleaned.”
“Are you sure?”
I shoot her a look before I close the door, knowing she can smell Krisjen’s perfume on it as well as I can.
I twist the shower handle, pull off the towel, and step under the spray, inhaling hard as the cold water rushes over my skin.
I force full, deep breaths, even, in and out, as I fist my hands and feel the rush of the ice charging my body.
Just one more day.
I can stay for one more day.
Like my mom did.
29
Krisjen
I wanted to leave with him—the second he walked away.
But how could this have not been about revenge? How could he not hate everything I reminded him of?
I sit against the wall, hugging my knees and feeling the shorts and sweatshirt that I threw on, but have no idea if it’s the Florida State one or the Hilton Head one. It’s gray.
All the times he wouldn’t look at me. Speak to me. Of course.
It wasn’t because I was a Saint. It was because I was me. Part of her. He’d look at me and see her hair. Her nose.
A tear spills over, dripping down my face. He couldn’t stand the sight of me.
I lock my fingers together and bow my head into my hands, shaking with cries I won’t let out.
He must’ve thought I was a real piece of work, playing at his house like it was some kind of fucking theme park.
But when he did look at me…
When I found him racked with pain and saw the tears.
When he held on to me at night and then quickly let me go when he’d wake up and realize.
And then go right back to wrapping himself around me the next night. And the next. And the next.
When he finally started talking to me, and wanted only me near him. Only me.
He tried not to see me. Tried not to get close. Tried not to look at me or talk to me.
He didn’t want revenge.
He didn’t want me to find out and knew I would at some point.
He knew I’d hurt him when I did.
I never deserved him.
Lifting my head, I watch my curtains blow in the breeze pouring into my dark room. It can’t be much past noon, but the clouds hang low outside, making the light on my walls gray with hues of blue.
I follow the light past the fabric hanging from my four-post bed and over the keepsakes—a carousel, stuffed animals, and pictures of parties, trips, and ceremonies. Past the displays of medals and ribbons I got for every swim meet or spelling bee I participated in.
Because every artifact was like another addition to the résumé of my life that proved I was alive. That I did things. That I was accomplished, and that made me valuable.
Proving I was living my best life distracted me from the realization that this room could never fit the proof of all my failures.
And knowing now that only one matters.
Rising to my feet, I wipe a tear from under my eye and cross the room. I rip the bulletin board off the wall, followed by my rack of karate belts from when I was eight. The last five are missing, because I quit, but I still display them like it was some big deal.
I throw the carousel onto my bed, scoop up every stuffed animal, and throw any picture that doesn’t have someone I love in it into the pile. I grab hold of my sheer bed curtains and start yanking, tearing them away, balling them up, and adding them to the junk. Gathering up the four corners of my blanket, I pull the sack off my bed and stuff it in my closet. Some of it will get disposed of in the garbage, and some things I’m not sure if I ever want to see again. I just want them out of sight right now.
I stare in the mirror, seeing myself for the first time all morning. His mark is on my neck, and my lips are puffy. I fold them between my teeth, noticing how sore they are. I didn’t notice when I woke up with him this morning. I pull my phone out of my back pocket—no calls or texts.
Clutching it in my hand, I leave the room, tucking my tangled hair behind my ear as I head downstairs. My mother hasn’t come back to my room, but I know she’s in the house. Macon won’t be able to tell her and me apart in a few years. Fifteen-hundred-dollar heels, married to a banker or a lawyer…
I do the math in my head real quick, remembering that my father doesn’t think Mars is his son, but Mars was born long before Macon’s parents died. Macon was off in the military. I didn’t think it was him anyway. Thank God.
A blender whirs in the kitchen, and I head in, leaning against the doorframe and folding my arms over my chest.
My mom holds down the lid as the yellow slush spins like a whirlpool inside the machine, and I can smell the tequila and the citrus.
She stops the blender, glances up briefly, and pours a glass without missing a beat. Walking it over, she hands it to me and I take it.
Strangely enough, I feel no anger toward her. None at all.
I hold the drink to my nose, smelling the Cointreau and agave syrup. My mother makes the best margaritas. “You always were a wonderful mixologist.”
“It’s good to have a skill.”
Mine has yet to present itself.
She walks back to the island, filling a glass for herself. I don’t take a drink.
“You know, I never really thought about it, because it wasn’t like I had a choice,” I tell her, “but if anyone had ever asked me, I would’ve said that I liked you more than Dad. I still do. You know why?”
She fits the pitcher back onto the blender base and lifts her eyes to me.
“Because you eventually win,” I reply. “You always claw your way back to the top. It was the only quality I ever hoped I inherited.”
She takes a long drink, and I step forward, setting my cup down with the island between us.
She drops her eyes. “The affair only lasted—”
“It wasn’t an affair.” I tighten my fists around the back of the wrought iron chair, making my knuckles ache. “You and your friends victimized a young man who’d just lost his parents and was trying to support his five siblings.”
She stares at me, no change in her expression.
I go on. “And you don’t care about it any more than you care that I hate you for it. All you care about is that I fall into line.”
That’s why she wanted him away from me. Oh, I can fuck Macon Jaeger all I want. I can pay him for some fun. Someday. After I give Jerome Watson a couple of kids and make his house a home. Then she’ll encourage me to have all the fun I want. Discreetly.
“I’ll meet with Jerome Watson,” I tell her.
Her eyebrows lift.
“And I will get you a settlement from Dad.”
“How—”
“What does it matter?” I blurt out. “You’ll be well taken care of.”
A small smile crosses her lips, happy that I’m taking care of business.
Oh, yes, I am.
But I’m not finished yet. “On two conditions,” I tell her. “You go to the house in the Keys until further notice. And…” I harden my voice. “You sign over the house.”
“What?” she asks.
“To me.”
“You’ve got to be kidding—”
“Or I’ll tell everyone what you did to him,” I say.
“You think that will shock them?” She looks about ready to laugh. “Like your father or anyone else in this town doesn’t have secrets of their own?”
