Bruiser (15 page)

The Gortons drive Brew and Cody over early on Wednesday evening. Mrs. Gorton is all teary-eyed as she hugs Cody, as if she's either sending him off to summer camp or handing him over to agents of Satan.

They chat with my parents briefly. Brew shakes my parents' hands tentatively as they welcome him. Cody doesn't bother with such formalities; he's already raced in and has made himself at home. All the while I notice the Gortons never make eye contact with Brewster; and when they tell him good-bye, there's a chilly formality to it, like they'd rather not say anything to him at all. They hurry to their car, they drive off, and there it is: Brewster Rawlins, creepy dude deluxe, is now my foster brother.

This is the first time we're seeing Brew face-to-face since his uncle died. Not a big deal for me, but I know it's a big deal
for my sister. He stands at the threshold sheepishly, holding a small suitcase that contains all the worldly possessions he chose to salvage from the farmhouse. He faces Brontë in our foyer in a guarded standoff in which nothing much is said.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah, you?”

“Yeah.”

Walking on eggshells cannot begin to describe the moment—and the dinner that follows is the very definition of discomfort…or at least it starts that way.

The mood is set right away by Cody, who can't stop talking about how they found Uncle Hoyt. “He was all pale, like the blood been sucked outta him.” To hear him tell it, you'd think the man got attacked by a chupacabra—and I'm sure the story gets wilder every time he tells it. By now Cody has had a haircut, compliments of the Gortons, and he looks semicivilized. Still, he keeps shaking his head like he's trying to fling hair out of his face. That habit's not going to go away for a good while.

“And his eyes,” says Cody, “they was open and all bulgy, like he saw a ghost!”

“It's very sad,” Brontë says. “Would anyone like some milk?”

“Did you hear everything in the house was all broke up?” Cody says. “Nothing left—like he blew it apart with
his
mind
before he died!”

“That's enough, Cody,” Brewster says under his breath; but my mom gently pats Cody's hand.

“Talk about it all you want, Cody,” she tells him. “It's very cathartic to talk it out.”

I can see Cody mouthing the word
cathartic
with a grimace, like it's a verbal Brussels sprout; and I wonder if our parents are going to inflict him and Brew with a daily power word, too.

If nothing else, this has forced Mom and Dad to sit at the same dinner table again—and Mom has actually cooked a meal. Okay, so it's lasagna from Costco, but at least she turned on the oven and put it in!

“I know you've had a rough time of it,” Mom says, mostly to Brew, “but from here on in, you don't have to worry about anything.”

“More lasagna?” says Brontë. I think she believes that if everyone's mouth can be kept full, there's less chance that someone will say something unfortunate.

“How's your basketball coming?” Dad asks Brew.

“Haven't played since that time with you guys.”

“Well, we'll have to do it again.”

It's as if our parents have begun a new competition to see who can be more compassionate to troubled youth.

“I hope you boys are okay with the guest room,” Mom says.

And I say, “So, where will you sleep, Dad?”

I just meant it as a simple question, but then realize that this is one of those unfortunate moments Brontë has been trying to avoid. I shove some lasagna in my mouth, but it's too late. I glance to Mom, who fusses with her napkin rather than look at me. The fact that no one has discussed with Brontë and me how this is all going to work is yet another symptom of the downed communications line within our family.

“Well, Tennyson,” says my father, “I suppose I could room with you….” He tries to be flip and funny when he says it, but he can't mask the tension thundering in just behind his words.

“Sure, whatever,” I say. I think this is the first time in years I've used the expression “whatever,” as it's on our family's list of banned slang; but when I say it, there's an audible breath of relief from both of my parents.

Then Brontë says, “You and Mom have shared a bed for seventeen years; I don't think it'll kill you to share it a little while longer.”

He takes a few moments to chew, and then Dad says, “True.” I can sense no emotion in his response either way.

Brontë, who was so determined to shut everyone else up just a minute ago, is still not done. “I mean, we have a situation, and we should all make the best of it; isn't that right, Mom?”

“We'll work things out to the best of our ability,” my mother says. She really should run for Congress.

“Now, you know this isn't permanent,” Dad reminds us all.

“Yes, sir,” says Brew.

“But we are more than happy to have you here for as long as it takes,” Mom adds.

“Yes, ma'am,” says Brew. No one in memory has ever called my parents
sir
or
ma'am
.

“I'm sure they'll find a more appropriate family who'd be willing to take both of you in.”

“And,” adds Dad, “who aren't quite as strange as us.”

“Don't worry,” Brew says, looking over at Brontë with a grin. “I like strange.”

She gives him a playful love-hit, which sends Dad to prickly, uncomfortable places. “The guest room has its own bathroom,” Dad says. “It's convenient—you'll never need to go upstairs.”

Brontë drops her fork on her plate for effect. “My God, Dad, why don't you install motion sensors on the stairs to make sure he doesn't come up at night?”

“Don't think we haven't thought of that, dear,” says Mom in her I-can-be-as-impertinent-as-you voice, and for a moment—just the slightest moment—things feel almost normal.

An hour after dinner, I can hear Mom and Dad in their bedroom discussing Cody-and-Brew-related details.

Their
bedroom.

I like the fact that I can say that again. This is the most Mom and Dad have said to each other in weeks. It must be a relief to have someone else's crisis to take the place of their own. I suppose surrogate stress is a kinder, gentler form of trauma. As I listen to their muffled voices, I feel confident that things will be okay. Brew and Cody have been here for just a couple of hours and already their presence is making a difference. I can only hope that those good feelings stay.

Cody has already taken root in the family room and plays video games. Mom removed all games that remotely suggest violence and death—but Cody's doing a good job of making harmless cartoon characters suffer in fresh and inventive ways.

“This game sucks,” he says, “but I like it.”

Brontë's in the spare room, which I guess isn't spare anymore, talking to Brew in hushed tones. They stop the moment I enter.

“I was just briefing Brew on the state of the union,” Brontë informs me.

“As in the nation?”

“As in our parents.”

“I'm sure he can see it for himself.”

There's an unrest in Brew's face that borders on sheer terror, so palpable I can almost feel it like heat from a furnace. It stands in stark contrast to my own growing sense of well-being. I wonder if Brontë sees it too or if she's just so happy he's here, she can't see how it's affecting him. The question is
why
? What is he so worried about?

“I'd better go,” Brontë says, “before Dad finds me in here and decides to lock me away in a tower.” She gives Brew a quick kiss and leaves. I don't think she ever notices just how deep his fear goes.

“Do you think she's still mad at me for not calling her right away?”

I think about how to best answer him. “She wasn't mad,” I say. “Just worried.”

“I didn't mean to worry her.”

I put up my hand to stop him before he launches into an apology. “I'm sure Brontë understands, but she's a chronic
fixer. She freaks out if she's not allowed to repair a situation.”

“She couldn't fix this.”

“Actually, she did,” I remind him. “I mean, you're here, aren't you?”

Then Brew looks down, nervously picking at his fingernails, and asks the million-dollar question. “Do your parents know about…about the
stuff
I do?”

I shake my head. “No—and unless they start smacking each other with two-by-fours, I don't think they'll find out.”

“But if they get a bad cut, and it suddenly goes away…”

“Let's hope they don't,” I tell him.

He unpacks his bag slowly and methodically. “People in school are talking about what happened, aren't they?”

I know he's worried about going back to school. I'm about to tell him that there's no problem; but I don't want to lie to him, so I just shrug like I have nothing to say.

“They think I killed him, don't they?”

I can't escape the question, so I tell him the truth as tactfully as I can. “There are some imbeciles who have come up with their own version of how your uncle died,” I say; “but most people aren't that stupid. Still, they might be a little standoffish.”

“I'm used to that.” He crosses the room to put some clothes in the dresser, and I notice he's limping. In fact, he'd been favoring his right foot ever since he arrived. It's different from the limp he had when he took Brontë's sprained ankle.
I wonder what that's all about, but I don't want to ask.

He looks into the open drawer for a moment, his thoughts elsewhere. “Tennyson…,” he says, “…I didn't kill my uncle.” And I can see how desperate he is for me to believe it.

“I never thought you did.”

Yet he doesn't seem relieved. Maybe that's because I'm not the one he's trying to convince. As the conversation is headed toward dangerous rapids, I make a quick course correction.

“So…how were the Gortons?”

“I didn't like them,” Brew says.

“Yeah, they did seem a bit cold….”

Brew closes the dresser drawer. “No—I mean I
couldn't
like them. Because if I did, I'd have osteoporosis, arthritis, varicose veins, and who knows what else.”

It takes me a moment to understand what he's saying, then the truth dawns on me. If he had liked them, he'd have ended up taking on all of their infirmities—even the ones he didn't know about.

“I had to do stuff to make them hate me right away,” Brew says. “Steal things, break things on purpose. It was easier to dislike them if they didn't like me first.”

“Sort of a preemptive strike,” I say. Only now do I begin to really understand how difficult it must be to carry the weight of his strange ability. He has to live his life in an emotional bubble—never caring—or he'd never survive. It's a huge deal that he's let Brontë and me into that bubble. I think back to
the very first time he shook my hand—how he hesitated as we stood there in his kitchen. I had no idea what a huge decision he was making at that moment.

“Well, don't start breaking stuff around here,” I tell him, “or you and I are gonna have to revisit that black eye.”

“I won't,” he says.

“I mean…you do like our family, right?”

He hesitates—just as he did that time he shook my hand. I feel like the fate of the world is resting on his answer, and I don't know why.

“Yes,” he finally says. “Yes, I do.”

“Is it true? Because I won't believe it unless I hear it from your mouth—did the Bruiser
actually
move in with you?”

“Yeah,” I tell Katrina. “Him and his brother.”

It's lunchtime on Monday—Brew's first day back at school. Katrina sits across the table from me, gaping like she might expel the salad she just ate. “That's just insane!”

“It wasn't my idea,” I tell her, and get mad at myself for lying. Why do I feel I have to lie to her about it?

“Well, I hope you lock your door at night, because I don't want to be interviewed on CNN or something about how my boyfriend was murdered in his sleep.”

I squirm on the bench, feeling like I've developed a nest of ants under my skin; but it's just Katrina. “Leave the guy alone,” I say; “he's not so terrible.”

“No? Well, Ozzy O'Dell says—”

“I don't care what Ozzy O'Dell says; he's a moron.”

Katrina's speechless, like she's the one I just insulted. “I'm sorry,” she says, finally realizing that Bruiser-bashing is not a sport I engage in anymore. “If it'll make you happy, I'll tell everyone what a perfectly, wonderfully normal guy the Bruiser is.”

I wonder if she even remembers his actual name. Did I know his name before Brontë started dating him? “You don't have to do that either,” I mumble.

She cocks her head and studies me, screwing up her lips. “Listen, I know what you're going through. When
my
parents got divorced, I was all stressed-out, too.”

“My parents are
not
getting divorced.”

“Divorced, separated, whatever—the point is, temporary insanity goes with the territory, so I understand why you're so snippy, and it's okay.”

Hearing that just makes me feel more “snippy,” because maybe she's partly right. But on the other hand, my parents have stopped fighting, and there's a sense of balance returning to the house. Well, maybe not balance, but a kind of cushioning—like we're all inside a big bounce house, and no matter how hard we hit the wall, we'll just rebound.

“I'm fine with my parents,” I tell her. “And they're fine, too.”

She sighs. “Denial is normal. You'll get over it.” She gives me a slim grin and a knowing nod, then says, “So, are we studying tonight?”

“Not tonight,” I tell her. “I've got too many things going on at home.” Which is true on one level and false on another. I don't have anything specifically that I have to do; but lately I've been feeling more and more like a homebod—not wanting to go out—and when I am out, I want to get home as quickly as possible. Maybe Katrina's right. Maybe the turmoil in my family is affecting me. All I know is that, in spite of it, when I'm home I feel safe, like nothing can hurt me.