“Why are you here and not with Augusta, sis?”
Stacy entered John’s house, dropped her bag, and embraced her brother. “Why do you think everyone just listens to you?” She walked past her brother and straight to the kitchen. John joined her.
“Stacy?”
“Fine, stop using that authority voice, and I’ll tell you.” She opened the refrigerator and started removing stuff to the counter. “Augusta is with the dynamic duo. She had an appointment this morning.”
“You wanna cup?” John offered as he poured himself an oversized cup of coffee.
“Um, does Dax have a big dick?”
John made a gagging sound. “A simple yes would suffice?”
After accepting the cup with a nod of appreciation, Stacy tested the brew. “Agh, but where would the fun be in that?” Setting the cup aside, she asked, “Scrambled or scrambled?”
John sat back down at the bar. “You’re cooking? Will miracles never cease? I think I will try…scrambled.”
“Shut up, smart ass, or I’ll spit in your eggs. Yes, I am cooking a lot now. Between those two giants I live with, it seems I’m always cooking something for someone.”
John silently sipped his coffee. Her words said complaint, but her face said content. Since not-marrying Dax and moving in with him and his teenage daughter, John had never witnessed his sister happier. She and Macy were practically best friends, but Stacy didn’t take shit from her either. His sister had even managed to form a somewhat relationship with Macy’s birth mother.
His sister was exactly where she needed to be in life, and she would move Heaven and Earth to make those two happy. He didn’t begrudge her happiness, she deserved it more than anyone, but there was a slight bitter bite of jealousy.
John wanted what she had, and for the first time, he admitted to himself he wanted that with Augusta. Screw the age difference and screw the pregnancy. Not that he was ready to watch her have a baby and hand it over to someone else, but he could appreciate it for the miraculous gift it was…from a distance, for now. Lucky for me, I have another ten days to work it out in my head.
“Earth to John? Butter or jelly?”
“Oh sorry,” he mumbled. “Jelly on one and butter on the other.”
“Why did I even bother to ask? I should know that John Roberts never changes.” She turned with two plates. One she sat in front of him, the other she placed on the counter in front of her. What does she mean by that?
Stacy dove into her eggs. If they could even be called that with the amount of ketchup on them. “Ketchup?”
“No thank you, that’s just gross. I can’t even see your eggs under there. Since when do you drown them in ketchup, anyway?” John remembered when she went through the phase of only eating egg whites with provolone cheese and salt. Nothing else. Stacy was always changing. Evolving.
“Have you ever tried it?
“No, I don’t like it.”
“How do you know if you never tried it?” Stacy teased him with ketchupped egg at the end of her fork, waving it in his face like she was still a kid.
“I just know, okay.” John didn’t realize her egg had dripped ketchup on to his plate until he took the next bite. It didn’t kill him. As a matter of fact, he rather liked it, not drowning in ketchup of course, but a little wasn’t bad.
When he looked up at his sister, her eyes were sparkling in mischief the way they always did when she thought she was right. “You did that on purpose, you little shit.”
The air of innocence she adopted didn’t fool him at all. “Oh, I’m sorry, did I upset your…routine?”
“What do you mean by that? That’s twice you’ve said routine like it’s a dirty word.” John raised an eyebrow. “Are you calling me boring?” When Stacy didn’t answer, John continued, “Just because I don’t let chaos rule my life doesn’t make me boring. I like routine. It’s…”
“Predictable.”
John continued to stare.
“Oh, John.” Stacy sighed a sound of exasperation and sadness. “First, put that eyebrow down, it looks like a silver caterpillar trying to run into your hair.” John would take offense to that coming from anyone else. Stacy knew his eyebrows didn’t look like caterpillars. Dax teased him all the time about his long-standing biweekly appointment at the salon to clean up the facial hair and keep it neat.
The fork stopped halfway to her mouth and returned to her plate. Stacy pushed the plate aside and leaned forward on her forearms. Clasping her hands together, she looked him in the eyes.
“You’ve always found comfort in…routine. Maybe it was because you wanted to give Troy and me structure, I don’t know. But after Mom and Dad died, you quit being the big brother I had always knew and started being…different.”
John pushed his own plate out of the way and leaned back. He folded his arms across his chest and raised his eyebrow again. This time, just to annoy her. Stacy shoved back from the counter and threw up her hands.
“I’ve never told you this before, but you were one hell of a father. You did everything exactly the way I believe Dad would have done it. Losing Troy wasn’t your fault, or mine. It was some fucked-up hick girl whose social IQ couldn’t even buy a fucking soda if I converted it to coins. There was nothing you could have done to save him. You lost someone you were responsible for, I get that. You lost a brother, and boy do I get that. In fucking spades, I get that…because I lost two.”
John was blown away by her anger and her words. He allowed his body to take a less superior stance. While remaining seated, he leaned forward just enough to slump his shoulders a bit. He didn’t know what to say, he was at a lost…and confused. Her words made no sense. Well, some did, but not toward the end of her rant.
The best course of action was to say nothing, not until he knew what she meant so he could decide what to say. Stacy reached for her plate and cup, noticing for the first time the text the hot liquid revealed. He had bought it especially for when she visited.
“Hahaha, I love it,” she said as she rinsed it out. “I’m keeping it, by the way.”
“I thought you might, since I bought it for you.” John took a deep breath and lowered his voice. “Stacy, what did you mean by two?”
She was still facing the sink, drying the mug. John assumed she was gathering her thoughts. Stacy never liked to argue when she was overly emotional. She said that was a rookie mistake that would get you five to ten.
Once the mug was dry, she turned toward him with eyes glistening with moisture. Leaning against the counter, she held the mug low and rubbed it with her thumbs, staring as if some wisdom would appear from it other than the fading…IF THIS MUG WAS FULL OF FUCKS, I STILL WOULDN’T GIVE YOU ONE. She spoke, but her focus remained on the mug.
“Because I lost you, too. The old you, anyway. You started changing with Troy after Mom and Dad died. But you still stayed the same with me. Same big brother who pulled pranks on me daily. Same big brother who made midnight runs to Dairy Queen and snuck me back a peanut buster parfait. The same big brother who threatened to beat up any guy I liked while at the same time helping me sneak out to go hang out with them. The same unpredictable, spontaneous brother I had always known.”
Wow, John didn’t even remember that guy. Was he ever really that guy or was it just memories of a sister that had built him up to be something he wasn’t?
“The brother who used to turn off his truck lights going over that hill toward the river at night just for the thrill of it…he died with Troy. And Mr. Control was born. Don’t get me wrong, John…” Stacy set the mug down and came to him. She grasped his beard-covered cheeks and brought his attention to her. “I love you. Every bit of you, just the way you are, controlling and all, but I do miss the old you. The you that would’ve thrown Gus over your shoulder like a caveman and did what you wanted to do ages ago.”
John was starting to remember that guy fondly, too.
“The guy I remember didn’t hide behind routine. Didn’t allow pain to navigate his path. Wouldn’t let losing a child demand he couldn’t be with the woman he loves.” His look must have prompted her next words. “Yes, you big idiot, you love her. But because you can’t deal with what that bitch did to you, you are hurting Gus and possibly losing your shot at chaos. Blissful, unpredictable, chaos.”
John deflated. How could he make Gus see? How could he make Stacy see he didn’t know how to go back to being that guy? “Stacy, losing a child, whether from your body or not, fucking hurts. Brother or baby you haven’t met yet, it marks you.”
“I know that, John. I am not telling you to cover the mark. I’m just saying it doesn’t have to continue to mark everything in the future. You’ll carry those losses with you forever, but it doesn’t mean every time a situation is similar, it has to end the same way or that you must drive it in a specific direction. Damn it, John, controlling your environment won’t prevent tragedy, but demanding a specific result and accepting no variation will prevent your happiness.”
What do you say to that? It wasn’t something totally foreign to him. He had dwelled on those exact thoughts last night after he left Augusta’s. When he saw the defeated and hurt look on her face, he’d realized control was overrated. He’d spent the rest of the night trying to let go. It wasn’t going to be easy, but he was willing to give it a shot as soon as he figured out how.
Control and routine meant nothing without Augusta in his life. And he didn’t need to know where they were headed to make that happen anymore. For so long, he had to think and predict and try to live ten moves ahead before taking a step. He was living as nothing more than a pawn, trying to make it to the other side of the board.
“When did you get so wise in the ways of the world, little sister?” John stood and caught her in his arms. “Living like a chess piece is exhausting…and boring.” He added the latter just for her.
“Unless you’re the queen. She can move any direction, do what the fuck she wants, and you know she has a bitching shoe collection back at her castle.”
Ending the embrace, John quipped, “Jesus, Stacy, is everything shoes with you?”
“Yes. Shoes are life,” Stacy deadpanned. He studied her for a few minutes. She may have lost the old him, but Stacy was a constant in his life. She evolved and matured—well, that’s debatable—but she was always Stacy.
He took comfort in that. His thoughts were interrupted by Nickelback singing “Something in Your Mouth.” Stacy giggled, reached for her purse, and rummaged around for her phone. “It’s Dax, he must want a morning blo—”
“Do NOT finish that statement. I just ate.”
“You got Stacy here, tell me where you want it.” It amused John to hear Stacy answer in a bastardized greeting from Imagine Ink. Of course, Dax sounded more professional and less…suggestive when he answered the phones at his tattoo shop. Those two were so in love, it was borderline sickening. But he was happy she had found her happily ever after.
Now, if I can just find mine, I’ll call it a win. Two out of three ain’t bad. He missed Troy terribly, and he wasn’t sure how much of the guilt he could truly let go off that wouldn’t boomerang back, but Stacy was right, they had mourned enough. Mourning his losses didn’t have to be a life-changing event daily. It was meant to allow that grief to come out in a safe way.
This time will be the last. John waited to doubt himself, but he didn’t. This year, he would visit Troy, but it would be different. As it would be every year after this, too. This time, he would leave more than an empty bottle, tears, and flowers at his brother’s grave; he would leave his guilt.