“Your place?”
She shook her head. She didn’t want to go back there and face Nick. She couldn’t. She’d buried their mother today, and she’d done it alone. Nick hadn’t bothered to show. They may have had different opinions of Charlene, and Nicki could understand that. What she didn’t get was how Nick could have bailed on her. Charlene was dead. It didn’t matter what he thought of her anymore. But Nicki was still here. And today she had needed her brother.
Sean tugged lightly on her hand, leading her to a set of concealed steps on the side of the garage office. Another few punches of a cleverly hidden control panel and he was leading her upward.
She’d never really given much thought to what kind of place Sean would have, but if she had, she would have pictured this. His apartment spanned the entire length and width of the garage below, an airy, open space. It was sparsely furnished, but what was there was oversized and comfortable, the colors dark and rich. A huge U-shaped couch faced one of the biggest flat-screens she’d ever seen, with a gigantic glass and black coffee table in the middle. Beneath the wall-mounted screen was a bank of equipment that housed more electronics than the local Best Buy. She recognized a Blue-Ray and a DVR; she couldn’t even begin to guess what some of the other stuff was.
Off the living room was a octagonal game table with raised seats all around. Beyond that was a small kitchen of white tile and stainless steel, separated from the larger space by a half-wall and several barstool type seats. Directly to their right was a bathroom that, judging from the little bit she could see, was almost as big as the living room of the apartment she shared with Nick. And beyond that - a closed door that most likely led to his bedroom. She tried not to think about that.
On the walls hung an eclectic mix of framed pictures in various shapes and sizes. Nicki recognized Sean in quite a few of them, along with several other men of similar build and coloring that she guessed to be his brothers and father. The photos spanned his lifetime, with some pictures clearly having been taken when he was no more than a boy. The most recent looked like it had been at some kind of celebration – Sean with all of his brothers, their wives, and their children. She even recognized Lina and Kyle.
It was a world as foreign to Nicki as outer space, but she took comfort in the fact that Sean was surrounded by people who loved him. She’d only ever had Nick, and, as today had clearly proven, that was not always a sure thing. But these people, they made a real family. It was the way they looked at each other; in their smiles and in the love captured in time by a camera lens. She was quite sure that when they lost one of their own they would be there for each other, and she was glad for that.
Sean took her jacket and hung it on one of the dozen or so hooks just inside the door, then guided her over to one of the barstools while he pulled a stack of take-out menus from a drawer, placing them in front of her.
“Whatever you want,” he told her, reaching down to extract a bottle from the small bar that must have been on the other side. He poured a few fingers of a deep, amber liquid into two glasses while she made her selection, then called it in.
“Did, uh, Nick make it in today?” she asked as they settled in to await the food.
Sean frowned. “No. I assumed he was with you.”
“No.”
“Ah, Nicki, I’m sorry,” he said, reaching over to pull her against him gently. She offered no resistance. She probably should have, but it just felt too damn good. “You should have called me. I stayed away because... ah, fuck, baby. I’m sorry. No one should go through that alone.”
She sniffed a little, then nodded. She would never have called him, but she appreciated the sentiment just the same. And he was here now, holding her, lending her his warmth and strength. It was more than she’d ever had before.
For whatever reason, she started telling him about the urn she had selected, the pretty one with the engraved roses. Charlene had always loved roses; when Nicki and Nick were little and their mom was in one of her infrequent sober phases she talked about having a home someday where they could plant all kinds of rose bushes.
Nicki told him about the quaint little chapel and the nice, white-haired minister who had spoken a few words on her mother’s behalf. Nicki had never been inside a church before; she had no idea if Charlene had ever belonged or even believed, but it had seemed like the right thing to do.