“No, I guess not,” Sandy said. “More wine?”
They drank a little more, and Sandy changed the subject back to my dad. Where did he fit in the picture? she wanted to know. What was his outlook like? My mother sighed, put her hand to her head, massaging her temple. She didn’t know, she said, and looked at me again. This time I asked Steamboat what his plans were for tomorrow. If the weather was right, how did he feel about a walk? Steamboat’s ear perked up, and my mother resumed her talk.
She didn’t know about my dad, my mother said. She wished she did. She took another sip. She said the worst was — it was this moment. There was a time, right after we learned I was, you know. Again. We were both lying in bed, watching some bad movie he rented, and I said, I don’t know why, that maybe I shouldn’t … see it through. It was something I’d been sort of thinking about for a while. I mean, we were living in a nice-enough house, but we had no money. So I started to think, about where we were headed, what our future looked like, and what I saw was us barely getting by for the rest of our lives. I saw myself never going back to school, staying in this city, in that house forever. As soon as I said it, though, I knew I could never go through with it. The words, they left this terrible taste. Still, they were already out there, waiting for a response. He paused the movie, sat up, and looked at me. He put his hand on my stomach and told me absolutely not, that I’d regret it for the rest of my life. And those were the right words, and he said them the right way, but something was wrong. I could tell he’d thought about it before. I could tell he was imagining it now. A life without … restrictions. In his mind he’d written an entirely different story for himself, one in which he could be anything, go anywhere, where the decisions he made didn’t follow him around every day, nipping at his heels. I knew then he was ready to escape.
The room went silent. Under the table every leg was still. Steamboat got up, licked his chops. He stretched his back legs and went over to his empty dog bowl. He whined.
“Oh, hush,” Sandy said. “You’ve already eaten.”
“I’ve thought the same thing, to be honest,” my mother said. “I mean, we were so young … but I never acted on it. That’s the difference.”
Steamboat walked over to Sandy and whined. “What? I don’t know what you want,” Sandy said. “You’ve had your fill. Go on.”
“But now I think … I mean, I just don’t know how long we can live like this. What if something goes wrong? What if the van has quit for good or something happens and we need to go to the doctor?” Sandy took my mother’s hand. “We just, we need help,” my mother said. “That’s all.”
“I know you do,” Sandy said.
Above them the ceiling fan whirred. Steamboat put his head in Sandy’s lap and whined, until she scratched his head and said OK. It’s going to be OK.
* * *
When the wine box was empty, my mother said we should get going. She had an angry son at home.
“Do you want to call a cab?” Sandy said. “You don’t want me driving.”
My mother said no, she didn’t have the money for that. But it was fine, she knew whom she could call. He should be off by now. Sandy showed her the phone in the living room, returned to the kitchen, where I was petting Steamboat. She asked me if we ever had a dog, and I said yes, but not anymore.
“He was a German shepherd,” I said. “His name was Baron.”
“How nice,” Sandy said. “Was he a retired police dog?”
“I don’t know. He was old.”
“Well, I’m sure you were very kind to him. I bet you treated him like a brother, didn’t you?”
My mother returned.
“He’s on his way,” she said. She gave Sandy a big hug, told her she could never thank her enough. Sandy said to hang in there and walked us to the door. She petted the side of my head like I petted Steamboat.
“I know it might not seem like you have much,” she said, “at times. But you have this beautiful boy. And a bigger one just as good.” She flipped on the porch light, so it wasn’t so dark out there. “Let’s let that count for something.”
* * *
Outside, the rain had stopped. The sky had cleared in parts, forming small pools of stars, and a bright white moon lit the path ahead.
The van was where we left it, the way we left it, broken and alone. I rubbed its side mirror and said I was sorry for leaving it behind. I promised it wouldn’t happen again.
Rick showed a few minutes later, windows rolled down, bad music blasting.
“Look who comes crawling back,” he said. He grabbed a flashlight and some tools out of his trunk. “You two stay on the curb. Let Rick the fix-it take a look.” But Rick didn’t have any better luck than my mother, though he did know a good mechanic, someone who owed him a favor and would tow our piece of junk for free. He put his tools away and opened the door for my mother and me.
The back of the car was a disaster, full of greasy clothes, golf cart parts, used or stolen pro shop supplies. An air freshener in the shape of a racecar hung from the windshield, but did little to mask the strong smell of gasoline. At the golf course, I once saw Rick show up early for his shift to fill gas cans he must’ve brought from home — pumping from the same white tank used for the golf carts — and sneak them off to his car when no one was looking. I never told my mother this or discussed it with my brother, imagining that if I ever got in trouble with Rick down the road, this information would be valuable. That I could somehow use it against him.
My mother sat in between Rick and me, so I could have the only working seat belt. After we got on the road, Rick put his arm around my mother and pinched my neck. “I thought testicles traveled in twos. Where’s your bro?”
“At home,” my mother said.
“Doing what?”
“Waiting.”
“Oh, I get it. You’re bonding with the baby,” Rick said, and flicked my other ear, much harder than my brother ever would.
“Cut it out!” I yelled.
“Whoa, look at this guy. Look at how upset he gets when he’s away from his brother. Do not separate the two.”
My mother put her head back and closed her eyes. “Rick, my head is killing me.”
Rick sniffled. At the golf course he always complained about his allergies, saying you had to be pretty stupid to make someone work a job they were allergic to. Then he’d laugh and say, but hey, that’s the government for you.
“You didn’t let me finish,” Rick said. “I was gonna say him and his bro are lucky. I had a brother growing up, but we weren’t thick as thieves like them two.”
I tried to imagine a younger Rick, a Rick with a brother. I pictured the two of them riding around in Rick’s cart, chucking water balloons at little girls and laughing.
“We were always at each other’s throat. My dad used to throw shit at us, we got so loud.” He sniffled again, wiped his nose on his arm. “My mom said we would grow out of it, but we never did. I hated my brother and I still do. I don’t know where he is, and I don’t care. If I saw him today, all he’d have to do is grin that shit-eating grin and my hate would be just the same.”
We took a right at a stoplight, onto Limit Street. When we were a couple blocks away we saw a police car’s reds and blues lighting up a family’s driveway. An officer was talking to a father on the front step. A boy and a girl watched from behind the screen door, clutching their pillows as if they were precious treasure.
“Did your brother visit you in prison?” I said, and I could feel my mother open her eyes, alarmed at my question.
“No,” Rick said. “Nobody did. That shit only happens in movies.”
“What about your parents?”