Kit
Over the next week, it’s hard not to hear Ben’s words in my ear every time I see him—you’re that, anywhere. And I do see him, a lot. We fall into a strange sort of rhythm, texting about our days, me ending up at the salvage yard or Ben stopping by to show me something for the house. There’s an easy, laughing cadence to the way we speak to each other, but we don’t shy away from the complexities of the business with Beaumont anymore, either. Last night, we’d debated for over an hour about corporate science—me giving Ben every example I could think of, from the food industry all the way to my own, where shoddy science had led to disastrous results, him offering an equal number of examples of for-profit scientists who’d changed the world, some of them, even, from Beaumont’s own ranks. Ben is smart, determined. He knows his company inside and out, and there are times, when he’s talking to me about what I could do at Beaumont, that I wish I could be someone else for him, someone who is going to give him a different answer.
But we don’t only talk about work. We also talk about my house, about ideas I have, about what’s at the salvage yard to help make it happen. On Tuesday, I’d even asked him to come by while I met with the contractor who would be doing the kitchen, and my favorite thing about that had been the way he’d stayed entirely quiet during the meeting—this was my house, these were my decisions, and he’d never let the contractor think any different. Once we were alone, though, we’d gone through the information together, strategizing about what questions I’d ask, what I might change. Today, though, I passed on Ben’s offer to meet up at the yard to check out some new furniture inventory they have in, because all my attention needs to be here, on getting ready for my most important, longed-for guest.
My brother is coming.
I’m more nervous than I should be for Alex to arrive, tinkering with every last thing in the house so it’s exactly the way I want him to see it. Despite the many miles that separate us most of the time now, despite the strain that’s been between us for the last six months, he’s the person I’m closest to in the whole world, and I want him to feel about this house the same way I had when I’d first seen it.
And I also want him relaxed, happy—because part of this visit is going to be tough. When our numbers came up, I’d called Alex in tears—tears of panic and relief and guilt, and I didn’t even have to explain all of that to him. We’d lived through the same things. He knew why I couldn’t just take the luck joyfully, why I had such a hard time accepting it. And because of all that, he’d known exactly what to say to make it okay for me to take the money and move forward. He’d been in Australia then, an extended job he was doing for a conservation trust, and the line had been crackly and unreliable, but he’d stayed on with me until I’d calmed down enough to make some semblance of sense out of having all my financial problems—past, present, and if I was careful, future—wiped out in a matter of seconds.
But as much as Alex was willing to listen to my panic, he wasn’t interested in listening to my proposal. Ever since I’d first floated it to him, he’d kept more-than-usual distance. Sure, we’d talked occasionally, standard check-ins we did about our dad, and he’d kept up with the emails we sent back and forth regularly since I’d left for college—short messages, photos snapped, links to interesting articles. It’d always been some small way of staying connected after so many years of being in each other’s pockets, or, I guess, me being in his, since Alex had always, always been the one to take care of me.
But six months was the longest we’d gone without him coming to wherever I was for at least a couple days’ visit, and even when he’d been in the States for three weeks two months ago, he’d not managed to make it here. And I don’t think it was because of his schedule.
I refold the blanket I have draped over the edge of the couch, smoothing it over the arm.
“Hey, Martha Stewart,” Zoe says from the dining room, where she’s setting out plates. “You need to chill. It’s not a head of state.”
“I know,” I grumble. Her presence is a balm but also another reminder of the stakes of this night. Despite the fact that Alex has been to town a couple of times before, he’s never met Zoe and Greer. So tonight, my surrogate and real families are finally coming together.
I look around the living room, feeling pretty satisfied, overall. With the floors refinished and the windows replaced and Packy’s new coat of antique white paint on the walls, it’s not the crumbling wreck that the rest of the house still is at this point, and just today I’d hung pictures on the wall, including a special one over the mantel that I can’t wait for Alex to see. In here, it’s got the look of a home—my home, and I want Alex to recognize that, to see that I’m getting everything I need. If he knows that, maybe he’ll be more open to taking what I’m offering.
I drift into the dining room, smoothing the front of my sundress, and Zoe sets down her stack of silverware and comes over to put an arm around me. “It’ll be fine,” she says, squeezing my shoulder.
I nod, swallowing a sudden constriction in my throat. “Have you heard from Greer?”
Zoe goes back to setting places, giving me the small comfort and then the distance that I need. “She’s on her way. She got stuck working on a group project at the library.”
This probably means that Greer was the only member of her group actually working. Greer’s one glancingly negative report about college so far is the age difference between her and most of her classmates, the fact that she often took work more seriously than them. But, true to form, she’d never really blamed them. “They’re young,” she’d told us. “I don’t mind, and anyways, everyone makes mistakes.” I swear, Greer would give Voldemort the benefit of the doubt.
“Okay. I’ve got everything set up in Alex’s room, and we’re set in here, and the food should be ready in”—I steal a quick look at my watch—“thirty minutes, so I think that’s about everything.” I catch the edge of Zoe’s knowing smile, and nudge her with my shoulder. “It soothes me,” I say.
Right then, the sound of the house’s old mechanical doorbell rings out, and I smile to hear it, wishing I could have caught Alex’s expression when he twisted the handle. I know he’d love that old detail about the house as much as I had.
When I open the door to him, it’s as if something fundamental shifts in my relationship to this house. I’d thought it was home before, but now, with my brother here on the threshold, I can really say, hey, this is where I live. This is where my life is. His jet-black hair is messy and his jaw is thickly stubbled, and he smells a little like airplane when I open my arms and wrap them around his middle, but I’ve never felt more glad to see him.
“Hey, Tool Kit,” he says, squeezing me back before pulling away to look down at me with bright green eyes that I’ve always envied. I’d only ever seen a couple of pictures of Alex’s mom, and she was a knockout, tall and curvaceous and eyes exactly the same as Alex’s. “You look too skinny.”
I laugh, just with the relief and joy I feel at having him say something so familiar, something he’s said to me since we were kids and he’d harass me about whether I was eating the lunches he’d packed for me.
I’m ushering him through the door, grabbing bags off his shoulder and setting them down in the foyer before pulling him into the living room, and I know I’m chattering away, pointing out details about the house that are totally irrelevant at the moment someone is trying to take in a place for the first time.
He hooks an arm around my neck and gently rubs his knuckles over my head. “Give me a minute, huh?”
Zoe comes into the living room to introduce herself, shaking Alex’s hand and winking at me. “God, Kit,” she says, with no shame in her voice. “All your friends must’ve had massive crushes on him when you were growing up.”
Alex smiles, his cheeks going briefly ruddy, and I laugh. “Oh, yeah. Massive.” This was partially true, since pretty much every girl in any one of my various high schools went silent and swoony whenever Alex showed up. But not many of those girls were my friends, since I was a temporary fixture everywhere, and anyways, I was too wrapped up in my schoolwork to think about anyone’s romantic interests. For a second, I have a distracting flash of imagining how it would’ve been if I’d seen someone like Ben Tucker in high school, of wondering whether he would have noticed me at all.
I shake my head and refocus. I have no room for thoughts of Ben tonight. Instead, I wait for Alex’s eyes to snag on the picture above the mantel, and when they do, I’m not disappointed. He looks at me, then back at it, and I see him take a deep breath. It’s the first picture Alex ever developed on his own, a shot he took early one morning after an ice storm had closed nearly everything in town. I still remember him lying on his back in his too-thin coat, pointing his camera up at the sky, catching the clear-blue of it as the backdrop for the ice-encased branches of the lone elm tree that was out front of the complex we’d lived in for eight months when I was twelve, Alex seventeen. Somehow, he’d made it look as if we grew up in pastoral bliss, as if we lived in the kind of place where the wonders of nature could be appreciated. I’d loved that picture since he’d first brought it home to show me, an uncharacteristic gleam of pride in his eyes.
“Looks good,” is all he says, but I can hear the catch of emotion in his voice.
Zoe is pretty much allergic to this kind of loaded moment, so she takes over, asking Alex about his flight and his travels while I go grab him a beer from the fridge. I’m glad not to be giving him a full tour right away, since I’ll have to do a lot of explaining about the condition of other parts of the house, and anyway, I’m enjoying seeing Alex sitting on my couch, talking and laughing with my best friend.
It’s about twenty minutes before the front door opens and Greer comes in, her hair mussed and her cheeks flushed pink, panting out, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Traffic was total shit, and I had to park three streets over, and then your neighbor’s dog was out in the street, and I was trying to chase it down…oh.” She stops, noticing for the first time that Alex has stood from his spot on the couch and is watching her with a smile.
“Alex, this is Greer,” I say, stepping around him to usher Greer farther into the room.
“I’m sorry!” she says again, her hand fluttering over her forehead. “I don’t usually use that kind of language.”
“That kind of…?” Alex says, confused, and I laugh.
“Greer, don’t worry. Alex has the foulest mouth of anyone I know.”
“I don’t,” he says, a little sharply, cutting me a look before reaching out a hand to Greer. “It’s nice to meet you.”
There’s a little ripple of silence while they shake hands, nothing like the easy joking that seemed immediate between Alex and Zoe. But I’m sure she’ll warm up. Greer has always been a little shy around new people, and Alex can be a bit intimidating.
I excuse myself to the kitchen to check on our food, but also so I can have a second to take a deep breath, to take in the feeling that’s overwhelming me. This dinner, it’s already how I imagine a real family dinner, with food I’ve made from scratch and in a house that’s mine, with people I love talking and laughing in the next room. It’s what I dreamed of every day when I was growing up, when Alex and I would sit by ourselves on the living room floor of the apartment and eat hot dogs he’d chopped up and mixed with macaroni and cheese.
I’m still nervous, but right now, I’m so happy I could cry.
* * * *
Things don’t really go to shit until much later.
Dinner is great, even though I think I’ve over-salted the potatoes, and even though Greer has stayed relatively quiet, telling us she’s just tired from a long day of classes. Alex has asked about one thousand questions about the house, and Zoe delights in telling him about how I’ve been getting help from the Tuckers in doing some of the finer points of restoration.
“Ben Tucker, from Beaumont Materials,” she says, with emphasis. “In case you want to google him. He knows Kit’s work. He wants her to move to Texas for some big job.”
“I’m not moving to Texas,” I say quickly, giving a vague sweep of my hand to indicate the house. “Obviously.”
“He’s over here a lot,” Zoe continues, as though I haven’t spoken. “I think he’s trying to woo her with all these knobs he brings over.”
Greer stifles a giggle behind her napkin, and Alex says, “What kind of knobs?”
“Just, you know. Hardware. For the cabinets and doors and stuff. His father owns a salvage yard here. They do a lot with the historic homes in the area.”
Alex narrows his eyes at me, then looks toward Zoe. “What’s he like?” This is ridiculous, but somehow, it gives me a warm feeling to see his protectiveness toward me.
Zoe opens her mouth to answer, but Greer speaks before she can. “He’s very nice. Very helpful and professional.”
“Also he’s got biceps like a comic book character,” says Zoe. “You should see him in a t-shirt.”
“I’ll pass,” says Alex, and I start picking up plates because I can feel my face getting hot. But he’s watching me with curiosity.
For dessert I’ve made a double-chocolate cake with a chocolate-mint frosting, and it’s so good it almost makes me dizzy to eat my whole slice. We’ve relocated back to the living room, where the conversation slows, but comfortably, no one seeming to mind the little silences that pass while we digest and grow tired.
“All right, Kit,” says Zoe. “Let’s do the dishes so I can go. Obviously I need to get up early tomorrow so I can run the ten miles that will be required to get rid of the cake I just ate.”
“No cleanup. I’ll take care of it. I want to show Alex around before he collapses totally.” I know he’s probably tired from travel, and now with a big help of sugar coursing through his system, he’s probably due for a crash.
We say our goodbyes, Alex offering to walk Greer to her faraway parking spot, but she demurs, insisting that Zoe will drive her over. She’s so adorably flustered at my brother that I have to hold in a laugh. Alex, predictably, has no idea of the effect he has on her, and when he goes in for a hug, Zoe and I share a speaking glance, both of us half-expecting Greer to faint with nerves and embarrassment.
Once they’re gone, I exhale loudly and smile at my brother. “Thanks. For spending time with them, I mean. They’re my people here. I never would have made it without them.”
“They’re great.” I beam under his approval. This is part of my dynamic with Alex—he’s always been the one I took my report cards to, the one I called whenever I had a paper accepted at a conference.
As we clear plates, I tell him more about the plans for the kitchen, figuring it makes the most sense to start the tour here. He’s interested, but I can tell he’s grown distracted now that we’re on our own, as though he’s anticipating what’s coming. After what’s probably about one hundred consecutive “uh-huhs,” I finally break, leaning back against the counter and crossing my arms. “Okay,” I say, taking a deep breath, “I was going to wait until breakfast tomorrow, but I can see you’re tense, so let’s do this now.”
“Kit, come on. Let’s not get into it.”
“It’s happening, Alex. It’s not something I want to argue about.”
He goes back out into the dining room, clearing more plates. But I can still see him, so I press on. “I’ve already met with my finance guy. Gifting the money gets expensive for both of us, with taxes and everything, but if I set up a trust—”
“No,” he says, his movements growing more hurried before bringing back in the stack of plates he’s collected. I try to barrel ahead, explaining what I’ve worked out for the trust, what paperwork he’ll have to be a part of, but he interrupts me. “I told you, Kit. I don’t want it. I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but it’s not what I want.”
“It’s what I want. You raised me, Alex. I want you to have half of this money. You took care of Dad on your own when I couldn’t, and I owe you this.”
“You don’t owe me anything. We both take care of Dad now, and I already know you’ve been sending him more in the last few months.”
“Right, but there were years when you were doing that by yourself,” I say, already frustrated. This has been a sticking point between me and Alex for years. In college, I tried to send some of the money from my part-time jobs to Dad, and Alex found out and sent it back to me.
“You were in school. I didn’t mind doing it.” His voice is gruff, impatient. But I know he minded. Alex’s whole life had been about taking care of our family. He’d worked full-time since he graduated high school, only leaving home to start photography seriously when I’d settled into my first year of college. He’d missed so many opportunities, sacrificed so much for me. I owed him everything—my safety, my education, what little stability I’d had growing up.
“Okay, you didn’t mind. But now I can do something for you. This money—it would make your life better. You could get a place, be a bit more stable.”
I’ve been too direct there—I can see it. Alex does not like to be mother-henned, probably on account of his not having a mother to have done it. But I hate that Alex travels all the time, that I don’t get to see him except for every once in a while. I hate that he sometimes goes to dangerous places, and I hate that he never seems to talk about anyone he’s close to—no friends, no girlfriends, no one except Dad, and that’s less about closeness than it is about obligation.
He clenches his jaw and inhales, turning toward the sink to start rinsing. I know he’s trying to stay calm, and I decide to give him a minute to cool off, so I go to collect more from the table. When I come back to the kitchen, he shuts off the water and turns to me, crossing his arms over his chest.
“I’m happy for you, Kit. I’m really happy you have this house, and your friends here, and that things are good for you. I know that’s what you’ve always wanted. But stability isn’t my dream. It’s yours.”
“But how do you know it’s not your dream? How do you know you couldn’t be happy if you settled down a little—”
He laughs, a snarky, clipped laugh, shaking his head as though he can’t believe what I’ve said. “I just know,” he says, and turns back to the sink.
“Okay, but what if I bought a place for you, something small and manageable, something you could come back to in between your trips? And then the trust could be used to maintain it, and—”
“Uh-huh,” he says, his tone still laced with sarcasm. “And where would this place be?”
I’m wringing my hands back and forth over a dish towel now, feeling childish in the way only my big brother makes me feel. But he’s pressing up right against the things inside me that are most soft and vulnerable, the things I’m always waiting for an opportunity to say, to make a reality. “Well, I guess it could be anywhere, but I mean, I don’t see why not here, if you think about it, because, you know, we’re family, and—”
“Kit, Jesus,” he breathes, setting down a plate too firmly in the drying rack. “No. No.”
“No, we’re not family?” I tease, trying to lighten his mood, trying to get us back to a place where we can talk without me touching every single one of his nerves. But he doesn’t respond, so I say, “Come on, Alex. Please. Please let me do this for you.”
“You don’t get it. I don’t want you to do anything for me, except to keep being okay, keep living your life. That’s what I want. I’m glad you have the money, because you can do that, and it’ll be so easy now, Kit. It’ll be so much easier for you with the money.”
“But I want it to be easy for both of us. We both deserve that, to be able to settle into a place and not worry about the next job, the next bill—”
“I don’t worry about that. I do fine, better than fine. Maybe you don’t understand that.”
I don’t, really. In my mind, Alex must be struggling to work as much as he does, to be taking jobs in these far-flung places, to be staying in short-term rentals whenever he does have an extended break. “I—well, it doesn’t matter. It’s still something I can do for you, and I want to. I really—I need to do this.” Ugh, I feel tears well up a bit, and I swallow them back.
Alex’s expression softens. I know he knows what I’m thinking. “You can’t feel guilty about this, Kit. You got lucky. You’ve got to take your luck when it comes.”
That last thing—it rings a bell for both of us. It’s one of the things our dad used to say, usually right before he’d lose a ton of money and then go on a multi-day bender. Alex turns away, looking embarrassed.
I don’t want that hanging in the air, so I go back to my earlier point. “Would it be so bad, though? To—you know. Slow down a bit? I thought if you stayed here for a while, got to know the city, maybe you’d think about—”
“I’m only here for a couple of days. I’ve got a job next week in Johannesburg.”
“But you said you didn’t have to travel again until August.” I hate the way my voice sounds, a little whiny.
“I got a call yesterday.” He’s avoiding my eyes, a little too focused on his dishwashing.
I’m angry now, knowing he’s lying to me. I march over to where he stands at the sink and shut off the water. “Don’t bullshit me, Alex. You’ve been avoiding me for months.”
“Because I knew you’d do this!”
“Do what? Try and share this great thing that’s happened to me with my brother? Yeah, I’m being such a dick, right?”
“It’s not—” he breaks off, clearly frustrated, and passes a wet hand through his hair, making it stick up in all directions. “It’s great that you want to share it. But I’ve told you, I don’t need it, and if I took it, you’d just—you’d expect things. You already expect things.”
“I don’t expect anything! Jesus, that’s a horrible thing to say!”
“It’s not. It’s the truth. You want me around, you want me living a life more like this, staying in one place, everything easy.” He spreads his arms out, gesturing to the house around us, making my pride and joy feel—plain. Insignificant.
“Oh, okay. I’m sorry this is so dull for you. I’m sorry it’s not a tent in the freaking Amazon or whatever. I’m sorry that I actually wanted to have a home, a place of my own to take care of—”
“Kit, for fuck’s sake. I don’t give a shit that you wanted this. That’s great for you. But don’t forget—I did this already. It might’ve been in shithole apartments with no heat and leaky pipes and cockroaches, but I’ve got plenty of experience making homes. I made homes for you since the day your mom walked out. I did stability. I had to do it, for you and for Dad. I don’t want that now. I don’t want this. I don’t want your fucking money, and I don’t want to be tied down to anyone, anywhere. I just—I want to be on my own.”
This hurts so bad that I wish I could bend over right where I’m standing to catch my breath. But I can see already Alex is registering what’s just come out of his mouth, and for a second he clenches his eyes shut before looking at me again, his eyes full of pity.
I don’t want his pity. I only want to be away from him right now.
“Hey, Tool Kit, listen, I didn’t mean—”
“No, you know what? You did mean it. And you’re—you have every right.” I’m trying but failing to keep the wobble out of my voice. “I’m tired. You can leave everything, and I’ll clean up tomorrow, okay?”
I’m halfway out of the room already, and Alex has tossed something—silverware, probably—in the sink, making a loud clatter. I don’t even stop. I call over my shoulder to him that his room is the second door on the left upstairs, that I’ve put out towels for him in the bathroom. He’ll see everything half-done now, without me explaining all my careful renovation plans, but I’ve stopped caring.
I don’t hear him downstairs when I get in bed, even though I listen for a while. Maybe I should be angry at what Alex said, at him throwing it in my face that he got stuck with raising me, or maybe I should be sad for him, that his response to the way we grew up has been to cut himself off from anything permanent. But mostly I feel embarrassed, embarrassed at how excited I was to show the house off, that I was stupid enough to even suggest that Alex think about making this his home base.
It’s late, but I know if I call Greer or Zoe they’ll answer. Except I don’t want them to think poorly of Alex now, not after we had such a good time, and even after what he’s just said, he’s my brother and I love him, and I want them to love him too. I think fleetingly about the night I asked Ben to meet Zoe and Greer at Betty’s—was that the same instinct, somewhere deep down, that I wanted them to like him, to feel okay about whatever I was—am—doing with him? I think about calling him, maybe I could think of some question to ask him about the light fixture I want for the downstairs bath, and I know he’ll take my mind off this. I know he’ll have some funny story about his dad or River that will make me laugh.
But that’s ridiculous, to call Ben.
I feel lonely enough to cry, but I don’t. I just roll over into a ball and pull the covers around me, naming the elements from the periodic table until I finally fall asleep.