Abe and Sara start over again in the ‘burbs.

Being fictional, Abe and Sara don’t actually exist -- but if they did they would be eighteen.

As I was bringing boxes down to Uncle Seth’s pickup truck -- it was parked in front of the apartment building that we were just about to leave -- one of my soon-to-be-ex-neighbors walked by with her dog.

“Sara,” she said, “are you guys moving?”

I thought about saying something really “smart” about how keenly observant she was. But I didn’t want to be mean, and besides, I was really apprehensive about all the changes. I just said, “yes.”

“You know, most normal people don’t move in the middle of winter,” she said as if it were a profound thought before continuing on her way.

She was right. But we weren’t really “normal people.” There were a couple of inches of snow on the ground in the city as we loaded up and left our home of the past five years. But we had stayed as long as we needed to. It had been a whirlwind January. Soon after New Years Day Abe and I celebrated our 18th birthdays six minutes apart. We started our second semester of senior year at about the same time. According to Pastor Rehnquist over at the Mission Church -- where we went to a college-prep seminar --, the school district had to let us finish our senior year once they officially recorded us. Even if we moved across the city-county line which was exactly what we were going to do.

It was a half-hour drive to the new house that we were going to share with mom’s brother, Uncle Seth. The realtor had described it as a “tiny 100-year-old cottage,” but she hadn’t seen the one-bedroom-apartment that Abe, mom, and I had shared, or Uncle Seth’s efficiency by the factory he worked at. To us the 900-square-foot farmhouse was huge. It had two bedrooms and a full bath on the top floor for Uncle Seth and mom -- who would no longer have to share a bedroom with her grown-up daughter -- three rooms and a half-bath on the main floor, and two finished rooms in the basement. One was a legal bedroom for me and the other a bizarre combination of full bath, utility, and laundry room.

As usual, Abe got the short end of the stick. As usual, he didn’t complain. But this time there was at least potential. He could probably do something with the leftover unfinished space. Uncle Seth had less useless junk than we did, and we didn’t have enough to fill a one-bedroom apartment. The deal was mom or Uncle Seth would use his pickup truck and drive us to the Metro Bus stop just across the river and the city-county line. If they got us there in time for us to catch the early bus we could transfer to another and get to our old high school in an hour. Then we would play it by ear as to how we got home in the afternoon.

Of course, this necessitated us quitting our jobs four and five blocks from our old apartment but we could study and do homework on the bus. In all honestly, there wasn’t that much opportunity for career advancement at the Deal ‘n Dollar Store or the S’uh’b Shoppe. As a family, we had sacrificed much to get the apartment in Nelson High’s catchment area, nobody more than mom. It was time to cut some costs while staying on course for college in the fall. It would be a community college for the first two years but we had checked and the credits counted just the same.

We got unpacked and settled into the new house and soon we had established brand new normal routines. We left early in the morning, freezing in the back of the pickup, and got dropped at the Metro Bus stop. Then mom was dropped at her work and Uncle Seth went to his job at the factory. Some variation on the reverse of that theme would be run most evenings. By the end of February, it was apparent that our whole social situation had changed. It was a quadruple-whammy of people realizing just how poor we were, a lot of people thinking that we were getting over on the system by trying to remain solvent, our lack of mobility, and the massive time drain commuting two hours a day placed on us.

We no longer had the ability to hang out with her old friends. So, besides sitting together on the Metro Bus and at the South Transfer Station we ended up doing a lot of things together. We didn’t have any cash coming in and we weren’t spending much money. We brown-bagged it, studied together, and did our homework. We talked a lot about our futures, where we saw ourselves and fantasized about college. Even though the next two years would be County Community College it would be “a” college and we wanted to have plans and a few bucks in our pockets.

We commiserated with one another over our simultaneous “single and alone” status. We talked about the good and bad habits of past boyfriends, girlfriends, and what we would do differently. One thing led to another and it eventually led to us being alone in my bed. I was rolling a condom from the fishbowl outside of the school nurse’s office over my brother’s erect penis. Guiding him to the entrance to my secret, innermost place. Him pushing and breaking his way in. Me crying tears that were one-quarter pain and three-quarters joy. Him crying tears that were one-quarter guilt for inflicting that pain and three-quarters joy. Us doing the laundry, and both of us suddenly realizing that it would never be exactly the same.

Waking up naked in my bed one Saturday morning, then talking, and deciding to approach the whole situation rationally. Commuting an hour a day and spending another hour a day waiting for a ride, a transfer, or the bus. All to get to and from a high school community that we would no longer fit into. It wasn’t the least bit conducive to us dating, anybody could see that. We were each other’s best friends and had been for years, so we made a deal. To do everything we could to help each other out until we got ready to go on to a “real” college, whatever that meant. A brother and sister with benefits.

The school handed out free condoms. The use of which rendered what we were doing together more than a little bit impersonal. But they also had the phone number up for a free clinic in the West End. So I made a call. I could get a little stick implanted and not have to worry about Abe and me being part of a future episode of some lurid daytime talk show. Abe, bless his heart, was less certain than I was. He was truly concerned about safety, side-effects, and risk-factors. All kinds of terribly un-sexy statistics and because he was concerned about the neighborhood where the clinic was located, he went with me to the appointment.

“So you are her boyfriend?” the receptionist asked as we were signing in.

“No, he’s my brother,” I said without thinking.

“Her boyfriend’s at work,” Abe said thinking quickly.

“He came so I wouldn’t have to be alone,” I said, following his lead.

“Wow, how thoughtful. You guys must be really close,” the receptionist said.

You have no idea, I thought.

The implant was liberating, we could go over and over and over again without risk. Being pent-up, healthy, and young that’s exactly what we did. Abe fixed up a nice area as “his bedroom” in the corner of the unfinished basement, a mussed-up “boy’s space” that looked as if it was actually being slept in. The house was perfect, everybody had their own little space. We never went up to the second floor because there was no reason for us too. Most of the time Abe or I would grab the laundry basket so mom or Uncle Dave wouldn’t have to come down to the basement. They hardly ever did.