Chapter Twenty-Nine
Zack
When I went up to Kelli’s apartment the next morning, I expected her to come flying out with her usual hug and tackle. But when she opened the door, she looked like she had just gotten out of bed. She hadn’t bothered to put up her hair yet, and dark circles lined her eyes.
“Hey,” she said. “You wanna come in?”
I pulled out my phone. “We need to get going in about twenty minutes. You almost ready?”
Kelli looked annoyed at the question. “Yeah, I’ll be ready.” Without offering me a drink or anything to eat, she turned and walked back to her room.
I figured she was just stressed from packing and traveling and resolved not to antagonize her. I hadn’t eaten anything but a granola bar on my way out the door because Renee had a habit of feeding me anytime I came over. But this morning, Renee was nowhere in sight. Her absence added to the feeling of tenseness in the room. I thought back to Kelli’s unusually unkempt appearance when I had first come in and wondered if they had been fighting.
I snuck a cookie from the jar on the table and waited for Kelli’s return. A few minutes later, she came walking back out, dressed in a pair of high-waisted jeans and a Totoro t-shirt with matching Totoro socks. She would’ve looked adorable if she didn’t seem so grumpy. She was dragging along a single suitcase on wheels and carrying a brown leather bag.
“You ready?” she said curtly, grabbing her keys off the table. Without a word, I rose and followed her out the door.
We made it through luggage check-in and past security with no trouble, and Kelli’s spirits began to lift a little as we waited at the gate for our flight to begin loading. A group of about a dozen nuns sat by the window chatting joyfully with a couple of teenage girls, one of whom was holding a large pretzel. Kelli pointed me to a boy a few seats down who couldn’t have been more than six and who was peering eagerly through a pair of binoculars, as if afraid he would miss the planes otherwise. A young woman in a flight attendant’s uniform with a silk bow in her hair winked as she ran past me.
“Did you see that?” said Kelli, shaking my arm. “That woman was totally flirting with you!”
I shrugged and returned to the book I was reading, a James Patterson thriller. “I don’t have time for women,” I muttered. Kelli smiled in disbelief and held onto my arm the more tightly.
Once we were onboard and safely seated, she asked me to tell her about my family.
“What would you like to know?”
“Well, what are they like? What are the things I should know before I get there so there won’t be any problems?”
She threw me an anxious look. I wondered if maybe this was what had been bothering her when she woke up: the fear that she would say something wrong, that she wouldn’t fit in, that the rest of the family wouldn’t like her. It was the fear of my platoon all over again, only now she had projected it onto my family.
“Maybe you oughtta just go and have a good time and let the river carry you.” I leaned back in my seat, feeling relaxed.
“You’re not going to tell me anything?” Kelli asked in a sad, pleading tone. It was the sort of tone I had always been powerless to resist, at least when it came to her.
“So there’s my mom and dad,” I said. “My dad’s in his late sixties, and we’ll be celebrating his birthday while we’re down there. My mom is an old sweetie who loves tea, loves to cook. She doesn’t get offended easily, but there are a couple things—try not to cuss or talk about sex in front of her.”
“I would never,” said Kelli, shaking her head with vigor.
“My dad don’t say much, and it’s hard to get him really angry. Just be yourself, and I suspect he’ll like you.”
“K, k…”
“Now, my brothers—this one’s tricky because I don’t know which of ‘em are going to be there. Curtis basically lives on the farm, and he’ll probably be in and out of the house while you’re there. Braxton’s been in and out of jail over the past couple years, and it’s anyone’s guess where he’ll be when you get there. Him and Darren have some longstanding feud that I don’t pretend to know the details of, but they’ve been at each other’s throats since they was little. It’s a wonder one of ‘em hasn’t killed the other by this point.”
“Yikes,” said Kelli. “Sounds dangerous.”
“It is, a little,” I conceded. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell who Mama is more ashamed of: Braxton or Darren. One of ‘em will probably end up in prison, and the other spends most of his time playing Halo and can’t be bothered to settle down and get married, not that any girl would have him. Compared to them two, Marshall’s done alright for himself.”
“What does he do?” Kelli asked with genuine interest.
“Runs a few casinos over in East Sulphur Springs,” I replied. “We’re pretty sure he’s mixed in with the mafia, but I wouldn’t bring it up in front of him, as it tends to set him off.”
“K, got it,” Kelli said in a low voice.
“Anyway, that’s my family. Out of all the brothers, I’m the only one who got out into the world and made something of myself. Curtis could’ve gotten out if he’d wanted to, but he enjoys the life of a farmer, and I think he’s mostly happy with where he is right now. I can easily see him and Allie settling down and having a few kids.”
When we touched down in Dallas a couple hours later, we found the family huddled together at baggage claim waiting for us. Dad and Mom were there, and so was Darren, who came running forward and gave me a high-five.
“And who’s this woman?” asked Dad, coming forward and shaking Kelli’s hand eagerly. Kelli stood silent, grinning with her mouth half-open.
“Are you lost?” said Darren. “Do you need us to help you find your real boyfriend?”
“Kelli, this punk is my brother, Darren,” I told Kelli. “He’s the one we don’t talk about, and this is my mom and dad.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” said Mama, her eyes gleaming. I knew she was too polite to say anything, but I could tell she was studying Kelli’s thin features disapprovingly and wondering why I didn’t take better care of her. “Every time Zack calls home, he talks about you.”
“Good things, I hope,” said Kelli, sounding breathless.
“You ought to hear some of the things he says about you,” said Mama.
“Do you do that?” Kelli asked in a sarcastic tone, shaking my arms roughly. “Do you say nice things about me?”
I shrugged. “I think you’re alright sometimes.” Everyone laughed, including Kelli.
Dad and Mama drove home together while Kelli and I threw our bags into the back of Darren’s truck and piled in beside him.
“Kelli, I know we’re in Dallas now,” Darren said as we pulled out of the parking lot, “but in a few minutes, we’ll be leaving behind pretty much all vestige of civilization. I hope you’re prepared.”
“Ooo,” said Kelli uncertainly. “Sounds very spooky.”
“He just means we’re going into the country,” I assured her, kissing her once where her bangs met the tops of her eyes. As if to emphasize the point, Darren turned up the radio: an old Hank Williams, Jr. song was playing.
“WOO!” shouted Darren, rolling down the window and sticking his hands out. “Girl, I hope you love barroom dancing!”
“I’m sure she’ll love it with me,” I replied, with emphasis on the last word.
“Is he always this excited?” Kelli said quietly.
“Pretty much always, yeah. You should see him at Waffle House at three in the morning after he’s had three cups of coffee. I have a feeling they got rid of the jukebox because he kept stuffing it with quarters and letting it play all night.”
“Wow,” said Kelli, in the tone of a teacher praising a child’s scribbles. “Where did you even find all those quarters?”
Darren beamed proudly; he wasn’t used to having this much attention, especially not from a pretty girl. “Tell you what, it’s been a long time since I was this excited to have one of my brothers home for the week. We are gonna party till the sun comes up.”
“Darren, I’m an old man,” I said in a world-weary tone. “You asking me to stay up past eleven is asking too much.”
Darren raised his hands in mock surrender. “Y’all can do what you want. I’m just gonna be over here celebrating having the best damned brother in the world back home in the best country on earth!” He let out another “WOO!” and pounded his fists on the steering wheel while Kelli glanced up at me in delight and alarm.