Keith and I had been dating for eight months when Mom had nearly killed my brother.
And from the impact of that car right into Andy’s door then after, Keith had taken care of everything. Hospital bills Mom’s shitty insurance didn’t fully cover. Physical and occupational therapy her shitty insurance also didn’t fully cover. Then his first home.
He’d asked me to marry him two months into Andy’s recovery and two months after that we’d had a small affair in Vegas that was quick, classy (or as classy as Vegas could be) and led to a four-day honeymoon that started there and ended in a cabin by Lake Powell.
That had been my decision. Keith was taking care of Andy, I didn’t have the money for a big to-do, I wasn’t in the mood for it with what had happened to my brother, so I didn’t want Keith spending the money even though he said he didn’t care. He just wanted me to have what I wanted.
That had been Keith.
He always just wanted me to have what I wanted.
But he was the hotshot, genius house flipper who’d made a mint from the first house he bought, gutted, renovated and turned over when he was twenty-two and kept doing that to more and more houses with bigger and bigger teams until that very day.
I was a hairdresser.
He was great with Andy, before and after the accident. He hated my mother with every fiber of his being (also before and after the accident).
And he loved me.
But I felt it. How much he could give. How much I couldn’t.
He kept giving and giving.
I knew I’d use him all up.
And I did.
But it was Keith who’d felt guilty about it. Guilty enough, he forced a divorce settlement on me that I didn’t want, at first refused, but after he sat me down and laid it out, I knew not only did he need to do it, I needed to take it.
This meant my house in Glossop was paid for. The furniture in it was paid for. So was my Cherokee.
And I had enough to pay for Andy’s home for a good spell.
In the meantime, I had so low overhead, if I was careful, and with the extra I got from Gemini, I could keep that balance healthy and therefore keep Andy safe for a long time. Not only doing that, but having a decent life for myself in the process.
So Keith looked out for me even though Keith was gone.
And he looked out for Andy the same.
In fact, he’d been out three times since I’d moved there, leaving behind Lawyer Barbie, coming to visit with Andy and check in on me.
He’d also arranged with staff to pay the monthly bills all three times he’d come and had taken Andy out to buy new clothes.
That had upset me. He was already paying those bills even no longer married to me.
But that was Keith. He got annoyed when I confronted him about it so I shut up because the least I could save him was that.
Andy came out of his room, taking me from my thoughts, and we walked out, both of us calling our good-byes to Renatta as we went.
We climbed into the Cherokee, buckled up and headed to the river with me telling Andy what was contained in the picnic in the back.
He approved.
Then he said, “Football.”
I glanced at him. “Football?”
He looked from out the windshield to me. “Football, Ta-Ta. It’s on TV.”
“Yep,” I said. “’Tis the season.”
“Can we go and watch a game?”
My heart lurched, my hands on the steering wheel tightened, but I forced my voice to light when I asked, “You wanna go to one at the high school?”
He’d never asked me to do that. Keith had taken him to Broncos’ games, just the two of them, but Andy had never asked me.
And I’d never gone with Keith and Andy because I couldn’t. I couldn’t hack it. I hadn’t been to a football game since the one I’d watched my brother play in the day before my mother picked him up from a party, drunk out of her brain, and shot into a dual carriageway she should have stopped at, getting hit by a car that was probably going about sixty miles an hour, only to fly into the oncoming lanes and get hit there too.
“Yeah,” he answered excitedly. “Can we?”
“Sure, honey,” I said softly. “I’ll find out the schedule and talk to Gemini.”
“Okay.”
I glanced at him again and saw he was looking back out the windshield.
He spoke when I aimed my gaze the same way.
“Can we go see Gemini again?”
On an outing, I’d taken him to the club so he could see where I sang. He’d met Gemini. And at Gemini’s invitation, we’d been back several times.
Gemini was almost as good with Andy as Keith.
Then again, that was Gemini.
“Sure. I’ll sort it all out.”
“Okay.”
“I forgot to give you Lou and the girls’ hugs,” I told him.
I felt his gaze when he replied, “You can give them to me at the river.”
I grinned. “Will do, buddy.”
“Give them back,” he ordered.
“I will.”
“Okay.”
And that was that.
I kept grinning, only part of it forced, as I asked, “You want me to get you a Glossop Raiders sweatshirt to wear to the game?”
More excitement, this time a lot of it, from his, “Oh yeah!”
I stopped grinning in order to smile at the road and marked on my mental to-do list to go by the drugstore that had a section of fan gear at the back.
Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad.
Because I’d be there with Andy.
“We’ll eat hotdogs and nachos and drink big Cokes,” Andy continued.
“Yup, baby bro, we’ll do all that.”
“And Lou and Snow and Maple can come with us.”
Snow and Maple.
Lou’s daughters.
Bill’s names.
Lou had just been glad her husband had been so involved with wanting to name his daughters that she didn’t fight too much what, exactly, he’d wanted to name them.
And in the end, as these things do, Snow and Maple became Snow and Maple. Snow, with her smile that sparkled like glitter, and Maple, who was sugary-sweet.
“Definitely.”
“It’ll be fun,” he declared.
“Absolutely.”
“Okay.”
My brother fell silent.
I drove.
I did it not thinking about the fact that he’d started to drive, got his learner’s permit, but he’d never handled a car on his own.
And he never would.
But the life he’d been supposed to lead had ended in one.
I did it thinking the fried chicken in the back that came from the deli at the grocery store in town was Andy’s favorite.
And he was going to love it.
We had our picnic.
Then we went home and watched The Man from U.N.C.L.E. on my TV.
After that, we went to Tony’s Pizzeria, got a big pie and Andy got a huge bowl of spumoni ice cream that was triple the regular bowl but at the same cost, what Tony always sent out for Andy.
I took him back, got him sorted in his room, gave him a big hug, got one in return, and he had dug into his comic books before I’d walked out of his room.
He’d always been a reader and liked writing too. His grades in English Lit and Comp had been top-notch.