Over there was code for Iraq. Jim never said the word. It was always over there.
I dropped the dirty pan and carried my coffee to the table.
“Is that your way of thanking me for the bacon?” I asked.
“Nope,” he said. He drank more coffee.
“You could have hurt yourself last night.”
“I know.”
“How is that fair to me? I get to come home to that. If I was twenty minutes later you could have choked on your own puke.”
“Isn’t that how rockstars die?” he asked with a shit grin. “I could have been famous.”
“Jim…”
“Well, I guess I’ll never be famous. Even when I got hurt over there, I did it the wrong way. Losing a leg is so twenty years ago.”
I just sat there, refusing to speak to his baby nonsense.
We were in silence again for a few minutes.
“That tree is still out back,” I said. “The one that fell in the storm a month ago. I can call someone…”
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Jim snapped.
“It’s just sitting there,” I said. “You don’t have to worry about stuff like that, Jim.”
“I’ll cut it.”
“When? You keep saying it.”
“When I fucking feel like it, sis.”
I swallowed hard. “It looks like shit. And that’s my side of the yard.”
Jim grinned. “We have sides?”
“Yes, we do.”
“Wow, if Mom and Dad could see us now. Fighting over the yard they wanted so badly to fill with kids and grandkids.”
I felt like someone sucked the wind out of my lungs. I lurched forward and my eyes went wide. That comment really hit home. Bad enough I had lost my parents, I felt terrible that their later-in-life dreams never came true.
“What?” Jim asked. “You don’t like the truth? Poor thing.”
“Fuck you, Jim,” I said. I stood up. “I’m not bailing you out anymore then. If you don’t want to cut down the tree, I’ll call someone to do it. If you don’t want to do the dishes in your place, I’ll pay someone to come clean. The loudest person ever. Anything to piss you off.”
“Piss me off?” he asked. He showed his teeth. “You’re doing a great job now, sis.”
“Glad I could do something right,” I said.
“I’ll go get an award,” Jim said.
That’s when I had to get out of the kitchen. There was no use in trying to argue with Jim. He would just get nastier until he got what he wanted - which was for me to cry.
I saved the tears for my own privacy.
I went to my part of the house, up to my bedroom, and I took a shower.
After showering and getting dressed, I looked at myself in the mirror, brushing my hair, my stomach growling. I was freaking starving and coffee for breakfast wasn’t doing the trick.
I had a text from Maggie.
She wanted to meet up.
I texted her back and said I’d meet her at a diner in thirty minutes.
I walked to the window and looked out at the damn fallen tree. Some random thunderstorm had taken it down. Jim said he’d take care of it. That he’d make firewood out of it. We didn’t get cold weather. We didn’t get snow. We were in California. Having a fireplace was not necessary but my father put one in the house. For the ambiance of Christmas and Santa Claus. More so, we used to have big fires outside.
Not that any of it mattered as the fallen tree was still intact, just fallen.
Jim was outside, staring at the tree. He reached for a thick branch and pushed at it. He took a stuttering step back and grabbed for an ax. He lifted it up and looked wobbly. He brought it down, hit the tree, and then fell to his right. I gasped, thinking he was going to hit the ground. He kept his balance but grabbed at his right leg - his prosthetic leg. Jim was supposed to go to therapy and learn how to use his leg, but he never did. Too stubborn to do that.
He stepped toward the tree and shook a fist at it. Then he raised his middle finger and turned away. I watched him walk back to the house and I lowered my head.
“Fuck,” I whispered.
It was sickly ironic how Jim went to war to protect freedom at home, yet I was the one now at war and stripped of freedom.
Life… sometimes it just didn’t make sense.
five.
(duke)
I opened the door to the conference room and everyone was already at the table. I had been back in my room getting my shoulder patched up again. And, yeah, the reliever might have stayed on her knees for a few extra minutes as I gave her a mouthful of a reward for helping me out.
Everyone at the table rose up and started to applaud me.
I stood there like I had won some fucking movie award or some bullshit.
I walked into the room and Max made a fist and punched me in my good shoulder. Austin patted me on the back and nodded. I stepped around the table and Cade grabbed my chair and pulled it back for me.