I smiled at him and waved through the windshield as I found my parking spot, seeing Andy wave enthusiastically back.
I had two days off a week and essentially worked two jobs, so I didn’t have a lot of time.
But anyway, Andy felt safer in the home, had been living in one for as long as his brain could competently remember, so it was a different kind of home to him.
Even so, I liked to get him out of it. Give him something else. New scenery. A shake up of his routine that wouldn’t freak him out. So I tried to get out there one or two nights a week to take him out to dinner or bring some to him.
And we had our Sundays.
I always took him out on Sundays, and that day, while the weather was still good we were going to have a picnic on the river then go to my house to watch a movie and after that hit Tony’s Pizzeria in Yucca. Once we’d had all that excitement, I’d take him back home.
Occasionally, he spent weekends with me, but since I sang Fridays and Saturdays, that was only when Gemini had another act in town.
All this worked for Andy. We talked on the phone in the evenings, he got to take some adventures and he was good where he was all the rest of the time. It would also be good if he got a work placement. He liked people, he liked variety in the people he saw, and if it was steady and he knew his schedule, he settled in pretty easily.
But now he was good with the way things were.
Since it worked for Andy, it worked for me.
He was in my door the minute I opened it after I’d parked.
“Hey, buddy,” I greeted, jumping down.
He just wrapped his arms around me and twisted his neck so he could rest his cheek on my shoulder, facing out.
He was a big guy. At least six feet. And at twenty-four years old, obviously, he had the body of a man.
If life had been different and he cared about things like keeping in shape, he’d also be different. Maybe his shoulders would be broad, not sloped. Maybe his little belly not there, but flat.
But things hadn’t been different. He hadn’t gone on to be that football player that started for the varsity team his sophomore year (he was that good), his dedication to his sport building his body into the man he’d become.
He was this Andy.
I hugged him back and he jumped away, grinning big at me and saying, “Comics.”
I turned to the car, reached in, grabbed a plastic bag thick with comic books off the passenger seat and turned back to him.
He snatched them from me.
“Candy,” he stated.
I grinned up at him, did the turn and grab thing and he snatched that bag from me.
He opened it, looked inside, and his face lit up when he turned his gaze to me.
“Snickers.”
He was excited. When he was excited, he’d have word-finding problems.
He could speak full sentences and communicate well, unless he was excited, scared or having an episode.
“Of course, Snickers. They’re your favorites. And Reese’s and Butterfinger.” I socked his arm. “I take care of my baby bro.”
He nodded and jumped into me, giving me another hug where he put his cheek to my shoulder.
I rounded my arms around him, closed my eyes and took him in.
Not yet, my brain reminded me. Not yet, Greta.
When he pulled away, I ordered, “Take those to your room, buddy. I gotta stop at reception real quick. Then we’ll go. That good for you?”
“Yeah, Ta-Ta.”
Ta-Ta.
He’d called me that from way back.
It had been his first word.
When that became uncool, it was shortened to Ta.
It was bittersweet having Ta-Ta back.
He loped off three steps before he turned back to see if I was following.
I looked him over when he did.
I had no idea who his father was, like I had no idea my own, and the simple matter of that fact was that Mom probably didn’t either, on both counts (or at least I’d trained myself to think that way instead of her actually knowing and never telling either of us, something she’d flatly refused to do to the point I’d quit asking).
But unlike me, who looked a lot like Mom, Andy had dark hair and dark eyes, a strong jaw and great cheekbones.
He also had a scar that puckered his skin from his right temple, separating at the side of his eye like a bolt of lightning, one end going up and over, obliterating the outer edge of his thick eyebrow, the other end going down and carving into his cheek all the way to his upper lip.
That scar ran into his scalp under his hair too, what with it being where his head had slammed into the side window, shattering it and going through.
Though just as much damage had occurred when his head was bounced violently around on his neck, his brain slamming back and forth into his brainpan as the car lifted and rolled, only for the other car to hit them, stop them rolling, but making Andy crash his head into the front windshield.
The side impact had ripped open his skin and fractured his skull.
The front impact had just added insult to injury.
His right side had been crushed, so I knew, under his clothes there were a bevy of scars I couldn’t see.
Mom, on the other hand, had sustained a severe concussion, a fractured wrist, and seven broken ribs.
It didn’t help matters for Andy that it had taken firefighters almost an hour to cut him, unconscious, out of the wreckage.
Once they’d gotten her out, Mom had walked away on her own two feet. Gingerly, I was sure (I wasn’t there, just there for the aftermath).
But she’d done it.
His smile at me took my attention from my thoughts, and when he saw I was following him, he loped to the building and went through the door.
I did too, pulling an envelope out of my purse.
As I made it through the doors, I saw the staffer who’d been outside with Andy walking down a hall but doing it turned to me.
“Hey, Greta,” he greeted.
“Hey, Sean,” I called back. “Thanks for waiting with him.”
He gave me a, “Never a problem,” with a brief wave and kept walking.
I went to Renatta at the reception desk.
“Hey, Greta,” Renatta said.
“Hey, girl.” I slid the envelope on the shelf above her desk to her. “This month.”
“Cool,” she replied, reaching out to take it. “We’ll get this processed. Thanks.”
“Thanks back at cha.” I went on as she made a move to get out of her seat, “Have a good one.”
“Will do, and enjoy the picnic with Andy,” she returned, getting up and moving to the office at the back with my envelope that had in it my monthly invoice and the check to pay it. “He’s been talking about your picnic all week.”
“Awesome,” I replied. “Glad he’s looking forward to it.”
“He always looks forward to his big sis,” she said on a smile and disappeared in the office.
I looked down the hall where Andy’s room was.
It was clean, wide, well-lit and had nice pictures on the walls, bulletin boards covered in notices on bright paper and stuff the tenants had made.
I couldn’t have this, if not for Keith. If it wasn’t for him, I could likely never give anything this good to Andy.