Chapter 7

I thought about packing the truck in the middle of the night and taking off, but I knew I wouldn’t. Instead, I called home, which was now Birmingham since that’s where Mike, Mary and the kids were.

“Hey, Little Brother,” Mike greeted me when he answered. “You’re calling late. What’s up?”

“Hi, Mike,” I said with the first genuine smile since lunch started. “I’ve had kind of a weird day and wanted to talk to you guys about it.”

“Sounds ominous,” he said. “Let me get Mary. She’s just checking on the monsters. Sabrina said her first swearword today,” he said. “Mommy suspects she knows who she heard it from, so you may be the man of the house when you get back. I may be buried in the woods somewhere.”

I laughed at that. “You gotta be careful what you say around them now,” I reminded him.

He took the phone away from his ear for a moment and spoke to her to let her know I was on the phone.

“Put it on speaker. He should know what sort of potty-mouth you’ve put on your daughter,” she said sharply.

I heard the beep and then there was Sabrina happily babbling something that sounded suspiciously like “shit” over and over again. Mike was fucked. If they didn’t cure that soon, I might get laid again before he did. My laughter probably wasn’t helping his case either. I think it’s a rule that you HAVE to laugh at your brother when something like this happens.

A few minutes later, they were ready to talk, but I was still laughing. “It’s not funny, Peter!” Mary snapped.

“I’m sorry,” I said, forcing myself to calm down. “I’ve had kind of a shi ... uh, bad day, so I needed the laugh.”

“See, Mike? Grown men CAN watch their language when they try,” she said tartly.

“Yes, dear,” he said contritely. “I swear, I didn’t teach it to her. She might just be babbling sounds on her own and keeps it up because we’re reacting to it.”

“Shut up, Mike,” she said and turned her attention to me. “So what happened that made your day bad?” she asked me.

“I got a phone call at work,” I said.

“You mean like the ones you were getting here?” she asked, concerned.

“No,” I said. “This one was from Billy.”

“What did THAT want?” she snarled at the mention of his name. “Scratch that! How did he find you?”

“I hung up as soon as I heard his voice,” I told her. “How he tracked me down was a mystery to me too when I left work. I only gave the number to my landlady and only for emergencies.”

“So what happened?” Mike asked.

“I guess he tracked me to Mrs. Sanchez and said he was my brother and needed to get in touch with me. He made her think it was urgent so she gave up the number.”

“So you have no idea what he wanted?” Mike asked.

“Nope,” I said. “I figured it out once Mrs. Sanchez told me that my sister was waiting for me in my apartment.”

“SISTER?!!?” Mike demanded. “What the...” He tailed off, rather than complete the thought with a word that would get him in more trouble.

“Linda,” I said flatly.

“Shit!” Mary blurted out. It would have started me laughing again, but I had too much to tell them.

“Yeah,” I said. “She drove down here to talk to me and Lead-Foot was calling to see if I’d heard from her.”

“What did she want?” Mary asked.

“She wanted to get a lot of guilt off her chest, express how sorry she was about Sabrina and then she told me she was pregnant and wanted to know how I’d feel about her naming her daughter after Sabrina.”

“WHAT?!!?” Mary thundered. “That BITCH!”

“Relax,” I said soothingly. “I told her she was too late, that you’d named the twins after me and Sabrina. She was surprised that you had kids. I thought you guys told the mother-creature about them.”

“We did,” Mike said. “She must not have shared. So she just showed up unannounced and lays that bomb on you?”

I told them all that we’d talked about, the phone calls in Birmingham and the reason, her friend tracking me down here and her phone calls to Billy.

“What are you gonna do?” Mary asked.

“She asked me to take her around town tomorrow and show her the sights. Then I’ll send her home and forget about her. She said she’ll call from time to time, but I don’t imagine that’ll keep up for long. This is the most interesting thing that’s happened to me in six months. It’s not like I have a lot to talk about and I remember her reason for leaving me was that conversations with me weren’t all that fulfilling. She’ll get bored and the calls will taper off.”

They sympathized with me and told me they wished they could be there for me.

“It’s okay,” I said softly. “I think the job here is just about done, so when it is, I’ll be back for a little while to rest up and then I’ll start looking for work. I want to spend some time with the kids and you guys.”

“You’re always welcome,” Mike told me. “We’re actually planning on buying a house this summer. With you and The Pierces visiting more often, we need more space. God help us when we have to put them in separate rooms.”

“Wow,” I said, my mood crashing a little. “Any idea when you’re planning to move?”

“We’re talking to the bank now to find out what we can afford and then we’re gonna start looking for places,” Mary told me. They were both excited and I was feeling ... I dunno. Like I was left behind, maybe. We ended the conversation and I was still trying to put my finger on what had pulled my mood down.

I poured myself a shot of tequila and tried to make sense of it. I hadn’t felt like this when we’d moved there or when I’d come here, but now that they were putting down roots, I felt ... adrift. I finally decided that it was the house. They’d started their family, Billy and Linda had started theirs. If Sabrina had lived, we’d have started ours by now. She’d have her Masters now, same as me. We’d both be working and building a life together.

I slugged back another shot and grimaced. I never fussed with salt or lemon, just drank the shit straight. I didn’t drink it to feel good, so the gut-twisting effect suited me fine. I was drinking to get in touch with my demons. God, I missed her. I sometimes had to strain to remember her voice and tonight was one of those nights. I was ashamed of myself. I promised I’d never forget and here I was trying to remember her laugh. I should hear that laugh every day. I should see her smiling at our baby. I should be listening to her talk about her day. We should be living in a house of our own, with kids and joy and a future.

Instead, I was sitting on the floor of a garage apartment, drinking alone and crying for a life that wouldn’t ever be. I lost myself in sorrow, weeping turning to sobbing, sobbing turning to whimpering as I daydreamed about her on our wedding day, about holding her hand as a doctor told her to push, about listening to her sing in the nursery and a hundred other happy memories that we’d never have. I cried because she was gone and because I wasn’t. I wished I was driving or that we’d gone to the movies or a club or anywhere but home that night.

It was the middle of the night when I felt a hand on mine. I looked up and she was there. She was beautiful and perfect and I bawled when I saw her. “I’m so sorry!” I said brokenly. “I can’t remember! I try so hard to remember your voice, but it won’t come. It’s all so dim now! I don’t want to forget! Help me!”

“Peter,” she whispered sympathetically and sat down with me on the floor. “You don’t have to remember,” she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. She wrapped her arm around me and it felt so good that I sobbed with fresh grief. I wanted her to hold me all the time. “Peter, Peter, Peter,” she said slowly. “What am I gonna do with you? We can’t keep meeting like this. Here, dry your eyes.” she said and passed me a tissue.

I didn’t want to, but I dried my eyes and slowly calmed my breathing. I took a few deep breaths and then looked at her again. “I’m sorry,” I told her again. “I know you told me to move on, but...”

“You’re still holding back,” she said, finishing the thought for me. “I know. I hoped you’d find someone, but, Babe, you have to leave the house to meet people. They’re out there, you know. A whole wide world full of them and one lucky girl is looking up at the stars right now and hoping tomorrow is the day that she meets the guy she’ll spend the rest of her life with. Okay, so maybe she’s looking up at her bedroom ceiling and masturbating while she fantasizes about him,” she said to get a laugh out of me. She punched my shoulder lightly. “My point is that she’s never gonna find her guy if you’re here with me.”

I nodded miserably. They all wanted me to find someone and move on. I took another deep breath. “I’ll try,” I promised.

“Not good enough,” she said sternly. “Commit to success. Don’t try, persevere. I love you, Babe, but I’m not coming back until you have good news for me. No more. No more booze, no more dreaming about the crash. No more late night visits from me. I’m putting my foot down. You’re twenty-five, now. You’re still young enough to have the life you want. You just have to stop wanting to die to get it.”

“How do I do that?” I asked her. “There’s a hole in the middle of my chest.”

“Then fill it. Pete, we were together for a year. You’ve been mourning for two. What happened to your wisdom that recovery takes half the length of the relationship?”

I smiled in spite of myself. “That was bullshit,” I argued. “I wasn’t ready to date.”

“And now you are,” she said. “Let Linda set you up with her friend or start looking around here more seriously. Hell, I bet Mrs. Sanchez could use a strong man around the house. You could play horsey with her for a little while. It’d be good for both of you. Make her feel young and remind you that you’re still alive.”

I laughed at that a little. “I do have a thing for older women now,” I reminded her. Her birthday was a month before mine and I teased her about being the first older woman I’d dated.

“Well, if that’s your pleasure, isn’t there a nursing home on your way to work?” she teased. “You could get one of the old gals to take her teeth out and pull down those sexy polyester slacks...”

“Oh, stop!” I laughed. It seemed like forever since I’d laughed.

“If that’s what it takes to get you to stop dwelling on it and move on, then I’m all for it,” she said and put the cap on the tequila. “But I mean it. This is the last visit. The next time I come back, I want to hear about her and I want you to tell me that she makes you happy. I can’t make you happy, Pete. I can only hurt you now, so I have to go away. Don’t worry about me,” she said with a serene smile. “I’ve got a book to read.” She smirked and punched my shoulder again.

She got up to leave and picked up the tequila bottle. “You know, if Linda had broken up with you when things started with her and Billy, this is probably how things would have been between you and her.”

“What should I do about her?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I think she means it when she says she’s sorry. You’ve held the grudge a long time. Let it go. Be friends or not, but I think you made a good start toward letting go with her. Your brother’s going to be a little more difficult. You still blame him for what happened to me.”

I nodded. “I do.”

“Remember that phrase,” she teased me. “You’re gonna need to say it in front of a crowd someday.” She turned serious. “You know that I should have checked the intersection before I hit the gas, right?” she pointed out.

“You’re saying that it was your fault?!!?” I gaped at her.

“I’m saying that I was with my guy and I was in love and distracted and in a hurry to take him home and show him how much I love him and I wasn’t paying attention. Sort of like how Billy was looking at Linda and hurrying home to make love to her. Your history makes you want to hate him, but if it had been Mike in that truck, you’d have let it go by now. If it had been a total stranger, you’d have let it go, but by random chance, it was Billy. Poor dumb bastard just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Deep down, you know that he didn’t mean to run the light. Just like deep down, you know that Linda belongs with him. I’m not saying you have to be pals and throw family barbecues, but you could probably throw the poor guy a bone.”

I shrugged, but my face softened a little from the normal snarl that I had on my face for when Billy’s name came up in conversation.

She nodded. “You’ll be okay, Pete,” she told me. “Bring me good news and we’ll talk more. Until then...” she lifted the bottle of tequila. “I’ll hold onto this until then. I love you, Babe. Now go make me proud.” She grinned at me and then disappeared down the stairs.

The dream faded then, but it turned into other dreams. I didn’t dream of the accident or anything that really made sense, just jumbles of events and places and people. I dreamed about Denver and LA and Birmingham and Austin and places we’d been on vacation when I was a child.

I woke up early, the floor being exceptionally uncomfortable. I was stiff and hung-over and not really at my best. I decided to clean up before Linda banged on the door to get me started on the promised tour. I picked up the glass I’d been drinking from and looked around for the bottle. For the life of me, I couldn’t locate it. It wasn’t on the table or the floor. I moved the sofa to look under it. I pulled out the cushions to see if I’d stuffed it in there, but no matter where I looked, it wasn’t there. I searched the kitchen, wondering if I’d put it out there or put it away in my drunken stupor, but it was just gone. I thought about Sabrina picking it up and taking it with her and shook my head. There had to be an explanation. I’d find it somewhere in the next few days.

I started the day the way nature had intended after a night of shooting tequila. I threw up. Then I got showered and shaved and started coffee. I wanted to go back to bed, but I suspected that I wasn’t going to be allowed to indulge. I was right. Linda showed up as I was starting to mix batter for the waffle-maker.

“You okay?” she asked when she saw my face.

“Yeah. I had a rough night,” I told her.

“Sorry,” she apologized. “My visit probably set it off. I, uh, heard some last night. I had the window open. You must have too.”

I frowned. “Yeah, Mary informed me that I talk in my sleep when Sabrina comes to visit.”

“Does that happen a lot?” she asked, curious.

“Most of the time, I just dream about the accident. A couple of times though, she’s come to talk to me. The first time was just after the twins were born. Last night was the second time.”

She nodded. I could tell that she wanted to ask, but knew that my acceptance of her presence was delicate. “Still, I’m sorry that I caused that.”

“Not your fault,” I said lightly. “We needed to talk anyway. She had something important to tell me.” I put a waffle in front of her. “I didn’t know if you’d started with the cravings yet, so it’s just plain,” I told her.

“Thanks,” she said gratefully and watched me pour out batter for a second one. “Can I ask what she had to say?”

I chuckled. “Mostly that she’s sick of my shit,” I said lightly. I felt different this morning, like the relief after an infected tooth is pulled. The pain was still there, but it was like the pressure had faded and I was actually healing. “She told me to stop living in that moment and find someone to build a life with. She’d tried to tell me that the first time, but I wasn’t ready to listen.”

“I think that’s good advice,” she said carefully. She was still trying to avoid angering me. “You feel like you’re ready to take it?”

I thought about that and nodded. “She pointed out that we were together for a year and I’ve been mourning for two now. She also told me that she believes you when you say you’re sorry about all of this. She pointed out that if we’d broken up when you and Billy first got together, we’d probably have been good friends. She also told me that I’ve been carrying the grudge too long at this point and I should let it go.”

She gasped a little at that. “Really?” she asked, surprised and hopeful.

I nodded and pulled the second waffle out of the maker. “You want another one?” I asked. She looked at her empty plate and nodded. I slid it onto her plate and started a third one. I was familiar with the appetite of the expectant mother. “She wasn’t sure if we could salvage a friendship out of it, but she thought I’d held onto the anger for long enough and I should let it go.”

“I’d like us to be able to talk, at least,” she admitted. “I HOPE we can be friends, but I know Billy’s always going to be a sore spot.”

“We’ll see,” I said softly. “She gave me some things to think about in regards to Billy too.”

“Like what?” she asked.