Cautious in her approach, Alex pried Tyson’s door open and peered inside. Unsurprisingly, she found him sobbing softly—sitting on the edge of his twin-sized bed.
Creeping in and attempting to remain unobtrusive, she calmly sat next to him, placing her arm around his shoulders.
As he rested his head into her, she kissed him on top of it. “I’m so sorry, Tyson. It’s been one thing after another. I promise you this life has big plans for you…it’s just being a bitch right now. It’s been a bitch for a while now.”
Almost instantly, Tyson raised his head from his sister, making immediate eye contact. “Wha…what? Alex, no. Life is awesome. My life is awesome. My life is anything but a bitch.”
His expression assured Alex he was completely genuine in his assertion.
“You don’t feel shortchanged?”
“What? No, Alex, look at me. I haven’t been this healthy in years. I’m doing things now that I thought I’d never do.”
“I know, Ty, but we buried Mom today and Dad fourteen years ago. And you’ve been through so much—”
“We’ve been through so much, Alex.” Tyson took her hand with one hand and wiped his eyes with the other. “You’ve been there for me through everything. All the struggles and the near misses…they just make this time right now even better. I don’t say it enough, Alex, but I seriously love the shit out of you. I owe you so much—”
“Tyson—”
“Alex, please. When I was a freshman you handed over nearly all your savings just so I could play baseball. Look at everything you sacrificed for me while our mom was passed out on the couch. You were at nearly every one of my baseball games and at every single one of my appointments. You never gave up me. You put your own life on hold to give me what I have today and I seriously have never been happier. You’re my family, Alex. You’re the only family I need. I’m just sad for her…I’m sad for Mom. Not for me. I’m not crying for me.”
His words—confident and clear—sent a sense of pride coursing through Alex. Looking to her brother, she couldn’t help but feel proud of the kind, confident and ambitious young man she’d helped raise. “Tyson, I have never been more proud of you.” As she kissed his forehead she heard him inhale deeply.
“I promise you, Alex, as long as I’m breathing I’ll try my hardest to never let you down.”
“You could never let me down, Ty. It’s not possible.”
“Even if I told you I was starving…only an hour after our mother’s service?”
His smile almost involuntarily evoked a smile of her own every time she witnessed it. “Nope. I’m a little hungry, too.”
***
At the go-to café, Alex and Tyson completed their post-funeral meals with malts. Alex didn’t know whether to be offended or appreciative of Tyson’s comment regarding her ability to match his caloric intake. They’d both ordered large meals, and both completely polished their plates.
Relaxed in the booth, neither sibling seemed overly anxious to engage in conversation—as if each other’s company was enough regardless the lack of verbal communication.
Basking in the sun and silence, Tyson finally stretched and spoke.
“I think she did the best she could with what she had. Like, she loved us the best she knew how.”
“The best she knew how? Explain.”
“Like…I don’t know. She loved us the best that she could. It wasn’t her fault because she only had what she had.”
Alex found her brother’s comment laughable. The seriousness of the situation coupled with the day’s events anchored her from debating his generous theory, but not from offering some sisterly insight.
“Tyson…when I look at you now, or when you get home from class, or when I’m doing something that reminds me of something silly you’ve said or done, it makes me smile and reminds me of how lucky I am to have you in my life. It’s a natural connection…a bond that can’t accurately be described, and there’s really no need for a description—it just is. I’m thankful that you can find peace in believing that Mom didn’t necessarily have that natural bond shit. Maybe someday I’ll be at peace with it too.”
“I mean…that’s really what it comes down too. I don’t think she had it in her to be a mom.”
“Tyson…every time Mom opened her mouth I could be sure of one thing only; that was that whatever she was saying was either going to be exaggerated or fabricated all together. I could never use her as a credible source for information because she was entirely full of it. But you know what? That’s not what gets me. What gets me is that there were so many times where it could have gone bad—much worse than it did—all because of her inability to be an adult. I understand that maybe she couldn’t muster up enough affection to pretend to love her own children, but leaving us alone for days at time or forgetting to fill your prescriptions—”
“She’s dead now, Alex.” Tyson’s words were soft yet stern—much like his gaze. “She’s dead and now it’s just us and the world.”
“It’s always been just us and the world, Ty.”
“Yeah…but now we got a butt-load of insurance money headed our way.” His crass comment and boyish smirk left his sister’s mouth agape until finally she felt her own lips curling into a smile as well.
“You little shit.”
“What? We can talk about it. It doesn’t make us bad to talk about it.”
“No…it doesn’t. There’s the money and the house—”
“I don’t wanna move back into the house. We’re not moving back in are we?”
His piercing gaze annihilated any remaining ideas of repatriation to their childhood home. “Um…no. I think we’re good where we’re at.” Sipping from her malt, Alex watched her answer erase the worry from Tyson’s face.
“Me too. Sell that bitch.”
Nearly spitting her mouthful of malt out, Alex laughed. “Sell it? You hate it that much?”
Watching his smile fade and his gaze fall to the scratched booth table, Alex waited for his reply.
“It’s us and the world…not us and that house…and those memories.”
Her drink sat aside, Alex sat up confidently. “Okay. Consider it done. We’ll start boxing and selling and all that fun stuff as soon as the semester is over. Deal?”
“Deal.”