Best Friend's Brother (4 page)

“I do remember that. Dad was furious. He told her
she was grounded until she was legally old enough to drive and then he would
“re-evaluate the situation.”

“Yeah, and then he called my dad and I got grounded
for two weeks. My dad was mad, but he wasn’t the one with the dinged Camaro, so
I got off light.”

He suddenly looked really sad again and he said,
“She loved to drive. She even made me let her drive the golf cart when we went
out to the club with Dad.”

“Yeah, she did,” I said. “I’m going to miss her so
much.”

He didn’t cry, but his eyes were suddenly a watery
blue as he said, “Me too.”

I stayed another hour. Ian and I swapped more
stories about Emma. It was nice, he was the first person that I’d talked to
since she died that knew her the way I did. I didn’t really know him…but I felt
connected to him in a way. When I got ready to leave I told him, “I can give you
my number…in case you feel like you want to talk, or if any of you need
anything.”

“Sure,” he said, “Thanks.”

He took mine and gave me his and then I said, “I
wish there were words to tell you how sorry I am for your family and how much I
loved her.”

“I know,” he said, “Me too.”

CHAPTER
FOUR

IAN

 
The week
after Emma’s funeral was as depressing and surreal as the ones leading up to
it. I was sitting at the kitchen table in my parents’ house about a week and a
half after she died, staring down at a bowl of cereal I’d poured, but didn’t
really want to eat. I was wondering if things would ever be normal again. No
one seemed to know how to move on. My mom spent most of her time sleeping. That
was crazy because she was one of the most active people I’d ever known. I think
it just helped dull the pain or pass the days…it was her way of coping, I
guess. My dad was the opposite. He worked for a newspaper in the printing room.
He was the manager, actually so he wasn’t expected or required to work more
than his forty hours. Hell, he wasn’t even expected to be back at work yet. He
told me he had to go. He couldn’t stand to be at home. All he did when he was
home was remember that he’d never see his little girl again.

My grandparents went home, but my Aunt Karen stayed
to look after Mom for a while. I was grateful for that, because I hated leaving
her alone when Dad was at work…but I know
myself and a
caretaker
, I am not. I didn’t know what to say was the biggest problem.
I wanted to talk about her, but it made my mom sad and my dad uncomfortable. I
hoped that eventually they would be able to remember her out loud. Emma lived
her life out loud and she should be remembered that way. I tried talking to
some of my friends, but it wasn’t the same as talking to someone who knew her.
She had this really quirky sense of humor and this weird way of chewing her
food and her favorite animals were zebras, she had a whole collection of
stuffed ones in her room. Things like that were the things I wanted to remember
about her and talk about, but it was hard to do with people who didn’t know
her.

I thought about Alexa. I had thought about her a lot
since the funeral. She was the only one since Emma died that I had actually
been comfortable talking to about my little sister. She was sad like the rest
of us, but she also seemed to want to remember and talk about the good times. I
considered calling her but there was a part of me that felt weird about it. I
didn’t really know her. She had been in and out a lot over the years with Emma
but she was a kid and I was more often than not, wrapped up in my own issues,
so I never paid much attention to her. Emma and I only got really close the
past couple of years. I’d always been protective of her, but I hadn’t ever
really taken the time to get to know her until after we were both grown. Once
again, I’d have to blame that on how wrapped up I’d been in my own problems.

“Hey buddy, how are you doing?” I looked up. My Aunt
Karen had come into the room.

“I’m doing alright,” I said. “How’s Mom today?”

Karen poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down
across from me. “She’s doing as well as we can expect her to for now…I think. I
just cannot even begin to imagine what she’s going through. As much as we all
loved Emma…there’s no pain comparable to that of losing a child.”

“Yeah, I can’t imagine either. I wish I knew what to
do for her.”

Karen reached over and put her hand on mine. “You’re
doing everything right, Ian. We are all so proud of the way you’ve been here
for your mom and dad through all of this.”

I raised an eyebrow and wondered if they all really
thought I wouldn’t be here for them. I guess I deserved it if they did. The way
I lived my life had always been less than conventional and it had caused my
parents more than one sleepless night, I’m sure. “Thanks,” I said. “But, if I’m
doing everything right, it’s by accident. I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m
lost, Aunt Karen.”

“I know honey, I feel the same way. You just have to
try and get yourself back into your normal routine…day by day until you’re
living again. It feels disrespectful sometimes for us to go on living when
someone we love hasn’t had the chance to do that. But whether we go on living
or not, life is going to go on around us.”

“I have a fight tomorrow night. I wasn’t sure if I should
go. I know this doesn’t make sense, but sometimes just walking out of this
house and noticing that it’s a nice day outside seems wrong.”

“It’s hard to go on living when we lose someone we
love. But you have to remember your sister. Emma wouldn’t want you to feel that
way. She was crazy about you, you know? She really looked up to you and every
time I talked to her she would tell me how well you were doing with your
fights. She would want you to go and live your life.”

I had to chuckle at that, “She wouldn’t come to any
of them. She didn’t watch me fight a single time. I used to really get upset
about it. It hurt my feelings. I wanted her to see how good I was and be proud
of me.”

“She was proud of you…but she also was your little
sister. She couldn’t stand the thought of watching someone hit you or kick you
or…whatever you do in that cage.”

“I win,” I told her with a grin.

She smiled back and said, “There’s my cocky nephew.
Emma loved you and she was proud of how you lived your life honey…so go, live
it.”

I got up and kissed her on the cheek. “Thanks Aunt
Karen.”

“Sure honey. Where are you going?”

“To the gym,” I told her. I need to get ready for
that fight tomorrow.”

She winked at me and said, “Good boy.”

I went to the gym that I loved with the intentions
of working my normal routine. Just getting out of that house and not having to
breathe in the sadness and despair made me feel better as I drove across town
to the gym. I walked inside with my bag and suddenly, all activity in the place
seemed to stop. My very presence seemed to cast a pall across the place and
before I could even get to my station I was approached by three “very sorry”
people. I accepted their condolences and thanked them and then I left. I
couldn’t work-out while people were staring at me with sorrow in their eyes.

I went back to my parent’s home and spent another
day in the silence of a house that had suddenly lost its hope. I sent Aunt
Karen home, telling her she needed to go take care of her family and I would
handle things here. She argued with me, but I knew she missed her family. I had
been staying here instead of my apartment since that first night anyways. There
was no reason for her to stay.

 
I did three
loads of laundry and cleaned the food from the funeral out of the refrigerator.
That left it empty almost, so I went grocery shopping. We lived in a small
town, so everywhere I went,
people
looked at me sadly.
Some of them asked how my parents were doing and some of them offered
condolences…and some only stared. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

When I got back to the house, I made dinner for my
mom. She cried and told me that I was amazing. She didn’t eat a bite. I left
dinner in the microwave for my dad and heated it for him when he got home from
work. He said, “Thanks
buddy, that
was real nice of
you.” He didn’t eat it either.

The only thing I saw that night that indicated just
maybe they were moving towards beginning to heal was that my mom slept in her
own room with my dad again, instead of Emma’s. After they went to bed I went
into my sister’s room. I found a stack of photo albums and I lay on her bed and
looked through them. I flipped through the, page after page of my sister’s
pretty smiling face, watching her grow up again right there on the pages. There
were a lot of photos of her and Alexa and it made me start thinking about her
again. I wondered how she was doing and if this was getting any easier for her
yet. I stretched out and thought about how nice it had been talking to her and
being able to laugh and smile about the things we remembered about Emma,
instead of so many tears. I fell asleep sometime in the early morning hours and
that was how Mom found me the next day.

“Ian honey?
Are you okay?”

I was startled and disoriented. I sat up and looked
around and once again I had to remember that Emma was dead. It was always the
worst time of day. I looked at my mom then, surprised to see that she was
dressed and she’d done her hair. Besides the day of the funeral, it was the
first day she’d done any of that since Emma died.

“Hey, Mom.
Yeah…I’m okay. Are you okay?”

She actually smiled. It was a genuine smile and it
made me remember how pretty she was. She reached over and touched my face and
said, “Yeah baby. I’m doing okay today. I made you some breakfast. Why don’t
you come out and eat it while it’s hot.”

It suddenly felt strange to me for my mother to be
herself again…almost. I got up and washed my face and went out to find she’d
made me boiled eggs and turkey bacon and she had even juiced some vegetables
for me and made me a drink. “Wow Mom, you didn’t have to do all of this.”

“I know, but I needed to. You’ve been taking care of
us all week. It’s time for me to remember that I’m still a mother.” I went over
and hugged her. She hugged me back tight and said, “Things aren’t ever going to
be the same, Ian…I’m sorry. But I’ll do my best to make sure they’re not always
so weird.”

I laughed and said, “Weird is what we do best around
here anyways, isn’t it?”

She poked me in the ribs and dried the tears that
had started to spill again. “Eat your breakfast,” was all she said. I ate and
watched her go through the motions of her day. I knew she was trying and that
warmed my heart and made me feel sad at the same time. After breakfast I went
for a run. When I got back, Mom had left a note for me that said Uncle Brian
picked her up and she’d gone to
Aunt Karen’s
. My aunt
probably worried that she’d wither away without someone to nag her into eating.
That was good, now if we could just get my dad to take care of himself too. Mom’s
note said she called dad already and she would be back in the morning. The
house was even quieter then, just knowing I was alone with Emma’s memories.
After I showered I finally sat down and called Alexa. I couldn’t stop thinking
about her.

“Hi Alexa,
it’s
Ian.”

“Hi. How are you?”

“I’m hanging in there. What about you?”

“I’m okay,” she said. She sounded sad still. “It
comes in waves, you know. I start doing something normal and then I feel guilty
because I think, “How can I just be going on with my life when Emma’s not here
anymore?” It’s all just so weird.”

“I feel you,” I told her. I told her about going to
the gym and leaving before I did my work out and about feeling like I should
cancel my fight.

“No, don’t do that. Emma used to brag about you and your
fights all the time. She thought it was really cool that you did that. I don’t
think she would want you to cancel it.”

“That’s what my aunt said. She really bragged about
me?”

Alexa laughed. I liked the sound of it. “Yeah, she
said you were really good. She also said that you were a little bit crazy and
getting your head knocked around probably didn’t help that any.”

I laughed too. That sounded like my sister. “I was
looking at some of her pictures last night. I found the album that she made
that was all of the two of you. You had to be around a lot when you guys were
kids. Why don’t I remember that?”

“Maybe I’m just not that memorable,” she said.

“I doubt that’s it,” I told her, honestly. So far, I
was finding her very memorable. “Maybe I was just too wrapped up in my own
stuff to watch my little sister grow up.”

“Don’t do that, Ian. Don’t beat yourself up. She
loved you. She knew that if she ever needed you, all she had to do was call.”

“Well, I’m glad she knew that, but I wish I would
have done things differently.”

“We all do,” Alexa said. “I was supposed to go out
with her that night. I wonder sometimes if things would have been different if
I had gone…”