(The Thing That Could Have Always Happened)

NOW

(Evan)

I sat in an old chair at the bench where I had been working. I was sorting through a pile of paperwork, trying to keep things organized. Sparks were flying feet away as Winston demanded that he keep working, his always shaking hands desperate to weld something. Sometimes it was hard to watch. I heard a thudding sound and looked up to see Uncle Davey standing in the doorway to the open garage, smacking his cane off the metal wall to get my attention.

I scooped up the papers, grabbed my laptop, and walked toward him. He crept forward some more and pointed his cane at the fridge.

“Grab two,” he said.

“Beers?”

“No, calendar girls,” Uncle Davey said. “Reach right into the calendars and make them appear.”

“See, you think that’s a joke,” I said. “But I could land those pretty girls. You’d have to pay.”

Uncle Davey laughed. “Keep your sense of humor. Because you’re going to need it when I rearrange your face with this cane.”

“Tough guy with a weapon,” I said. I opened the fridge and grabbed two beers. “Now what?”

“Come for a walk with me,” Uncle Davey said.

He led the way to the outside of the shop. He fought to throw his cane to an old table and put his hands flat to it as he caught his breath. Damn, there were days when Uncle Davey looked and acted old. Other days he just looked old but had the spirit of a twenty-one year old kid ready to fight anyone who looked at him funny.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Shut up,” he said. “Open that beer for me.”

I put everything on the table. I twisted the top and handed the bottle to Uncle Davey. He stiffened his back and turned, groaning as he leaned against the table. He took a drink of the beer.

“Now that’s good,” he said. “How about a smoke?”

“You got it,” I said.

I gave him a smoke and I took one for myself.

There was silence for a minute or so.

Finally, Uncle Davey looked over and nodded. “Using computers, huh?”

“Called a laptop,” I said. “Yes. Trying to get all the files on a spreadsheet.”

“Spread-what?”

“It’s to get organized better. Give me a better chance of showing clients what we’re capable of.”

Uncle Davey nodded and pointed to the building with the cigarette between his crooked fingers. “Can’t believe this is still standing. All these years later. And you’re turning it into something.”

“Just doing my job.”

“You want more, don’t you, kid?”

“I never said that.”

“But you do.”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“That’s the problem with your generation. You always want more.”

“The problem with your generation is that you won’t let go,” I said.

Uncle Davey laughed. “That’s a good one. I like that. You want this business, Evan?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s a pain in the ass.”

“I run it as it is,” I said. “You just get to stare at the money flowing in.”

“I haven’t spent money in years,” Uncle Davey said.

“Maybe you should,” I said. “Call it a career. Grab some cash, go to Vegas…”

“Evan, don’t ever tell me what to do,” he said to me. “Or I’ll bounce your ass out of here for good.”

“You can try that,” I said. “But you won’t get far.”

“So when you make a decision on wanting this place, you let me know,” Uncle Davey said.

“Does that mean I get it?”

“No.”

“Then why should I make a decision?” I asked.

Uncle Davey caught my arm. He squeezed tight. Damn, the old man had some strength. And he looked me dead in the eyes. “Because when you see something you want, you fucking work for it. No matter what.”

Now I had a funny feeling we weren’t talking about the shop anymore.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

Then right on cue I saw Adena at the front of the shop. She was in her car, parking, the driver’s door opening.

I lost all care and focus in what Uncle Davey had to say.

“Hey, did you do this?” I asked him.

“Do what?” he growled.

“Adena is here. And you’re talking about what I want…”

“I didn’t call anyone. Why the hell would I call some woman for you?”

“Right,” I said. I started to walk by him. Then I stopped. “For the record, Uncle Davey, that’s what I want… that woman right there… and I will do what is necessary to provide for her.”

* * *

“Hey, Dena…”

She turned and was crying. It caught me off guard. I stepped back, eyes wide.

“Whoa. What’s wrong?”

“This,” she said. She threw pieces of paper at me. “And this…” She pointed to the window.

I looked and saw a dress hanging up in the back seat of the car.

A dress… the dress…

“That’s the…”

Yes,” Adena said. “I found it in her closet. With this letter attached to it. She wrote me a fucking letter, Evan. And she never gave it to me.”

I collected the pieces of paper off the trunk of the car. It was a handwritten letter from Anna to Adena. Something I never thought I’d see in my life.

“When…”

“I don’t know,” Adena said.

“Can I read this?” I asked.

“I don’t care,” she said. “But I have something to say first.”

“Anything,” I said. I folded the letter and placed it back on the trunk.

Adena opened the back door of the car and grabbed the dress. She threw it to the top of the car. “That was my dress. I was supposed to wear that dress and you were supposed to see me in it.”

“I know that.”

“You know that,” Adena said. “What else do you know, Evan? Because Anna wrote a lot in that letter. And I’m learning more and more about Anna… you… me…” Adena sucked in a breath. “Anna felt like she killed Aunt Beth.”

“Shit,” I said.

“She did,” Adena said. “Okay? She did. Everything Anna wrote was true. And never once did she apologize. Which meant she was being honest. That’s the most honest Anna has ever been. What if she wrote that letter the night she died? Huh? What if she wrote that letter… then got into her car…”

“No, no, no,” I whispered. I closed in on Adena. “Dena, sweetheart, please don't do that to yourself. You know how she was. She could have written that letter any time. It didn’t have to be that night.”

I touched her arms and she quickly broke away from me. She backed up and pointed at me.

“You… the night you left, Evan,” she said.

“What?”

“All those years ago. What happened?”

“What happened…”

“Yeah. Because Anna wrote about it. Is that your next secret? Your next lie?”

“Lie? I’ve never lied to you, Dena.”

“No? You never told me that Tommy’s father wanted you to keep Anna out of trouble. You never told me if you and Anna slept together. You never told me the whole pregnancy thing wasn’t yours. Or the engagement thing. What else, Evan? Huh? What other deep secrets have you kept with my sister?”

She was slicing the air with her hand but it felt like she had a knife, cutting up my heart. Cutting up everything that was left for me to try and fix.

“I was young and stupid,” I said. “Everything with her… most of the time I couldn’t keep up with her stories and lies so I went along just to make her happy… for good reason, Dena…”

“Oh, right, it was for me.”

“It was. Christ, Dena, it was always for you.”

“I hate you, Evan. I hate you for saying that. For trying to make that make sense. Tell me what happened that night. Huh? You were jealous of her and Joey, right? She got into that car with him. Then you came to the hospital and you left. You left me standing there. You just left. And you never came back, Evan. Not until Anna was dead.”

I nodded. “Right. That’s what I did. That’s exactly what I did. I left and lived a life of luxury, Dena. Look at me here. Just swimming in the good life, huh?”

“Fuck you,” she said. “What did you do that night?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t want this to happen like this.”

“Well, it’s happening.”

I turned and slammed my hand to the letter.

Even in death, Anna was fucking things up. Sticking herself between me and Adena, causing problems.

“I was never jealous of her and Joey,” I said. I shook my head. “I just knew Joey was going to be the one that got her hurt or killed.”

“At least he died, right?” Adena asked.

I leaned against the car, shaking my head. Then I looked at Adena. It was the deepest and darkest secret of my life.

So I spilled it to her. “Dena… I killed Joey and almost killed your sister that night.”

* * *

I grabbed the letter and stuck my hand out. I wanted to read nothing Anna had written. I regretted even asking to begin with. But now I was standing in the fire and there was no getting out of it.

Adena stared at me in disbelief.

“She couldn’t keep away,” I said. “He was the ultimate bad guy of all bad guys. And believe me, Dena, there wasn’t an ounce of jealousy. If there was, it was from the idea that he could connect with her in a way I couldn’t. There were rare moments when Anna let her guard down enough to allow me to see the real her. That night… that was the party where the guy tried to fight me with a sandwich.”

“What?” Adena asked.

“You know that part of the story. Well, your sister wandered off and Joey decided to come by. He was already wasted out of his mind. He had one thing on his mind, and that was your sister. They’d been together before but he was too messed up. I tried to peel her away and she threw herself at me. She wanted…” I raised an eyebrow.

Adena’s cheeks turned red and she looked away.

“Of course nothing happened between us. That was going to be my last resort. If that got her to just stay there.”

“How reassuring,” Adena said.

“Just listen to me, please. I got her outside and I went after Joey. I put him up against a wall and told him I would kill him if he touched Anna. If he tried to drive with her in the car. He was so drunk and high he couldn’t even fight back. He reached into his pocket and took out a baggie with pills in it. He told me to have one or two and just chill. That we should bury the hatchet… and then…”

“And then what?” Adena asked.

“It involved Anna,” I said. “Something I would never do.”

Adena hugged herself.

“I should have taken the baggie off him,” I said. “I should have stepped on the pills, flushed them, whatever. I don’t know. But I was so fucking mad at that point, I told him to give me two of the pills. So he did. I had them in the palm of my hand. And you know what I did? I slammed my head into Joey’s face. I busted his lip open. He fell to the corner of the room. People around us started chanting fight! fight! fight! like we were in the hallway at school or something. He dropped to his ass and I slammed my hand to his mouth. I told him to take two more and fucking pass out… or die…”

I looked up. I remembered the night like it just happened last night.

“So he swallowed the pills,” Adena said.

“Yeah, he did. I don’t think I gave him much choice. I thought he would take the pills and pass out. Or chew them up and spit them out. I don’t know. I thought I was making my point very fucking clear. Okay? I walked away and went to find Anna. I went to the back of the house, to the backyard. She wasn’t there. She walked around to the front as I was around back. She found Joey and helped him up. He told her he wanted to leave. So she left with him.”

“No,” Adena said.

The guilt squeezed my heart like it was a stress ball with no letting up on the pressure.

“Yes, Dena. She got into the car with him. He was drunk, high, and had even more shit in his system thanks to me.”

“Evan…”

“When someone said she left with him, I got in my truck and chased after them. I was drunk too. I shouldn’t have been fucking driving either. And from there? I think we all know how the story ends, right? Joey passed out behind the wheel and crashed the car. He was killed. Anna was thrown from the car and barely made it out alive. When I was at the hospital and I saw you… there was so much I wanted to say, Dena. So much I wanted to confess right there. But I saw Beth’s face. Your face. Then the alarm or whatever started going off. Someone was dying. I thought it was Anna.”

“It was Joey,” Adena said.

“I know that now.”

“They found the faintest trace of a pulse at the accident scene,” she said. “They hurried him to the hospital and tried to do what they could. But between being messed up on booze and pills… and the accident injuries…”

I slammed my hand to the letter again. “So there it all is, Dena. That’s why I left for good. I thought if Anna was going to die then, you’d be better off. I had no business back here. I had fucking failed everyone. And I was done. I couldn’t do it anymore with her. I couldn’t see the look on your face anymore. That sadness was so deeply rooted…”

I started to walk away. I didn’t want Adena to see me get emotional.

I felt something grab my shirt.

“You don’t get away that easily,” Adena said.

I stopped. “What?”

“You should’ve told me everything. A long time ago.”

“Can’t go back now, sweetheart.”

“No, we can’t.”

I glanced over my shoulder. “Now what?”

“I want to burn the dress and the letter,” Adena said. “I want to sell the house. I want to start over.”

I turned and took Adena’s hand. “You should, Dena.”

“Then let’s…”

“Wait. You should start over. One hundred percent over. Including without me.”

I broke away from her and had no real idea what I just said. In some way, it made perfect sense, didn’t it? She was free of Anna now. Completely free. Including the dress. Nothing else was left to be said or done. And then there was me. She knew everything. No more secrets. Nothing left for me to say either. I could survive the rest of my life with a broken heart if it meant Adena could go live a happy life somewhere else.

“Evan,” she called out. “Evan!”

I started to turn my head, knowing if I did so I’d probably end up meeting her halfway for a kiss that would seal the rest of her damn life. Why would she want to mess up the rest of her life with me? It made me angry but made me love her even more.

“Evan!” I heard another voice yell.

I snapped my head back forward and saw Winston standing a few feet away, the look on his face something I never wanted to see again.

He started yelling something else but my mind went blank.

I looked down…

… and there was Uncle Davey, on his side.