At Peace (5 page)

Sam stopped hugging me so he could wrap
all of us in his arms and his head tipped back so he could shout,
“These are my girls!”

I looked up at my brother, his beautiful
face; his warm, brown eyes; his light brown hair (that needed a
cut, I noted) and my hands slid from his neck to wrap around his
waist, I planted my face in his chest and held on tight.

“Most beautiful girls in the world!” Sam kept
shouting. “That’s right! Drink it in! Sheer gorgeousness!”

I tilted my head back because he seemed to be
talking to someone instead of shouting at no one and I saw his head
turned to the left, toward Joe’s house.

My head turned that way too.

Joe and his woman, not locked in a make out
session but instead simply standing close to each other, were
looking our way.

“No female on earth prettier than this pack!”
Sam declared. “You hear what I’m sayin’?”

I looked toward Sam. “Honey –”

He ignored me, still addressing Joe and his
companion who were still watching Sam’s show. She was smiling, I
could tell. Joe was not.

“
You’re fine, must admit,” Sam tipped his
head to Joe’s female friend, “but nothin’s finer than my
girls!”

Keira giggled. Kate got up on her toes to
kiss his cheek. I started pressing my huddle toward the kitchen
door. My brother Sam was also tall and he was no slouch, he could
probably hold his own with, say, Morrie, Feb’s brother. I doubted
he could last a round with Security to the Stars and he might buy a
round if he talked about Joe’s woman like that.

“Let’s go inside,” I coaxed.

Sam wasn’t done with Joe and his friend
though. I knew this because he felt the need to announce to them,
“Havin’ dinner with my family. All
fuckin’
right!”

“Sam!” I snapped, finally forgetting Joe and
his partner. “Hello? The f-bomb is off-limits around teenage
girls.”

“Mom!” Keira cried. “They say it at school
all the time.”

“
Maybe so but they don’t say it in my
driveway or,” I looked at Sam, “in my house.”

“Relax, shit,” Sam smiled, dropping his arms
but turning and throwing one around my shoulders as he used his
other hand to guide both Kate and Keira into the house in front of
us like he herded teenage females for a living.

“Shit’s off-limits too,” I told Sam and he
looked over his shoulder toward Joe’s house.

“Violet’s uptight! I’m here five minutes and
she’s lecturing me,” he shouted and I shoved him through the door,
turned toward Joe’s and started shouting myself.

“Sorry, really sorry, show’s over!”

“No probs!” the woman shouted back
good-naturedly.

Joe seemed to be staring at me and he didn’t
say a word.

I scooted inside and closed the door.

“He texted me!” Kate told me practically
before the door closed. “At school, said he was coming to town and
wanted to surprise you.”

“Took a long time gettin’ home, Vi-oh-my,
waited frickin’ forever,” Sam noted. “What, you live at that garden
center?”

“I was doing overtime,” I answered as I
shrugged off my corduroy coat. I turned to put it on a hook by the
door, an action which served double duty of allowing me to avoid
the look Sam gave me.

“Uncle Sam made his world famous spaghetti
carbonara,” Keira announced. “I was lookout. We shut off the lights
when I saw your car on the street.”

I turned again to look at the kitchen and saw
that my brother did make spaghetti carbonara and he also made the
mess that came with it.

Kate rushed up to me and grabbed my
forearm, pulling down on it, informing me, “He’s staying a couple
of days. He’s gonna meet
Dane
.”

Lucky Sam, he was going to meet the
awesome
Dane
.

“If that’s cool with you, Vi,” Sam said.

Like he had to ask.

It was cool with me. It was cool he stayed a
couple of days or a couple of years. That wasn’t loneliness
speaking. That was how much I loved my little brother.

“That’s cool.”

“
Excellent!
” Keira shouted.

“I’ll get the stuff for the pull out,” Kate
offered then ran from the room.

“Keira, honey, set the table,” I told my
other daughter.

“Sure,” she agreed, moving to the cupboard
and Sam got close to me.

“We’ll talk about overtime after dinner,” he
said quietly.

My eyes shifted to the side and up, caught
his; I nodded and walked into my house.

* * * * *

We ate spaghetti carbonara at the dining
room table and I only felt a twinge of hurt when Sam sat in Tim’s
chair instead of beside Keira where he usually sat one of the
million times he was around for dinner when we lived close to him
in Chicago. I wondered if my girls felt this same twinge but
watching them through dinner, I figured they were too excited by
Sam’s visit to notice.

Sam made garlic bread and a big Caesar salad
to go with the spaghetti and the whole thing was delicious, not
only because it wasn’t dinner for one or I didn’t have to cook it
but because Sam’s spaghetti carbonara could be world famous if the
world was lucky enough to get a taste.

I was sipping my wine as the girls were
finishing up eating. Both had been talking about their new school,
their new friends and Kate, of course, shared a great deal about
the fabulous
Dane
. Therefore
they weren’t paying a lot of attention to their food.

I watched as Sam got up and walked to his bag
which was on the floor by the couch in the living room. Bending at
the waist to paw through it, he came back to the table with
something in his hand as Kate popped the last piece of bread in her
mouth and Keira finished her last bite of spaghetti.

Sam moved to stand beside Kate, slapped
something on table and said, “One for you,” he slapped something
else down and went on, “another for you.” He moved around the table
as Kate picked the somethings up, inspected them, her eyes got huge
and her mouth dropped open. Standing beside Keira, he repeated this
process using the same words. “And one for you, another for
you.”

“
Oh my
God,
” Kate finally breathed, the cards held close to her face
as if she could not believe her eyes and needed close proximity to
the wonders she was viewing for them to be real. Her eyes were
huge.

Sam came to me, put something by my plate and
finished. “And for you.”

I looked down at the gift cards next to my
plate as Keira shouted, “Five hundred dollars at Lucky!”

“And two hundred at MAC!” Kate put in on a
yell, waving her two cards around.

I looked down at my gift cards. One was for
five hundred dollars on a disposable credit card; the other was two
hundred dollars at MAC.

In shock, I looked up at Sam but the girls
had sprung from their seats and were jumping up and down again with
their arms wrapped around him, jostling their uncle as they
jumped.

“You gotta earn ‘em, babies,” Sam said,
holding them close in his arms and kissing the tops of their heads.
I watched him give them a squeeze before he ordered, “Clear the
table and do the dishes, yeah?”

Kate didn’t mind chores. The minute she
was asked to do something, she did it, didn’t procrastinate, she
got it out of the way and moved on. Keira hated them and would
procrastinate as long as humanly possible then bitch the entire
time she was doing it. But for seven hundred dollar gift cards to
her two favorite stores, she’d do the dishes. Hell, who
wouldn’t?

Therefore, they both agreed on shouts,
“Yeah!”

Then they raced around the table, grabbing
plates and Sam grabbed me. He took my arm and lifted me out of my
seat, nabbing the bottle of wine from the table as he did. I
snagged my glass and Sam’s hand slid down my arm to curl around my
fingers. He picked up his glass with practiced ease, carrying it
and the bottle as he guided me to the study.

I’d put Tim’s old desk in there with our old
computer and the girls sometimes studied in there at their Dad’s
desk. I’d also put the two recliners Tim had in his man cave at
home in there at angles in the corner and that’s where Sam took me.
I curled into a recliner, my feet in the seat, knees to the armrest
and Sam topped up my glass then his own then sat in the other
recliner.

“Sam, the gift cards –” I began, knowing he
didn’t have that kind of money.

Sam cut me off, saying, “Dad.”

I felt my mouth go tight.

“
Vi, don’t,” Sam warned, “just take it and
use it for somethin’ stupid. You know that’d piss Mom off
most.”

It certainly would. Mom hated anything
frivolous, most especially frivolous spending, and trendy clothes
and makeup, for that matter.

“She know Dad gave you the money to buy those
cards?” I asked.

“She will when she balances the
checkbook.”

“Dad’ll catch it.”

“Dad doesn’t care.”

I looked Sam in the eye. “And I don’t care
either. Too little, too late.”

“Vi –”

I shook my head. “Too little, too late,
Sam.”

I looked toward the kitchen watching the
girls tidying up, their thick, healthy, long, dark hair gleaming
under the overhead kitchen lights; their flawless, youthful skin
glowing; their thin, coltish but blooming teenage girl bodies
moving with unconscious grace. I took in my girls as they moved
around, girls who had very little to do with their grandparents
after my parents disowned me when I got pregnant at seventeen,
announced I was keeping the baby and marrying the father, something
they disapproved of immensely, or at least Mom did, then I asked
Sam quietly, “Dad want them to know it’s from him?”

“That’s your call.”

I sighed, thinking I’d tell the girls, it was
only fair, but I wouldn’t like it.

“Vi,” Sam called and I looked at him. “Why
you workin’ overtime?”

This made me sigh again.

Then I answered, “Because Kate’s got Dane,
she’s wrapped up tight in him, even though they’ve only been dating
a few weeks. And Keira’s made friends with the entirety of the
eighth grade class. They’re not home much and I’d rather make some
extra cash putzing around a garden center than come home to an
empty house.”

I watched my brother’s eyes go soft and
looked away.

Sam read me and changed the subject but he
chose one that was no less uncomfortable even if it was not nearly
as sad. “You hear from him?”

“Nope,” I answered instantly.

“Nothin’?” Sam sounded surprised.

“Nothin’.”

I felt Sam lean into me so I looked at him as
I took a sip of my wine.

“I been snoopin’ –”

I felt my body grow tight, fear clutching my
insides and I leaned into my brother. “Sam –”

He shook his head. “Someone’s gotta do
somethin’. He’s not done with you.”

“That someone doesn’t have to be you.”

“Vi, someone’s gotta do somethin’.”

“Let the police deal with it.”

I watched Sam clench his teeth, seeing his
jaws flex out at the sides and it was his turn to look away.

“Sam, promise me you’ll let it go,” I said
softly.

“Can’t.”

“Sam –”

His eyes locked on mine and he repeated,
“Can’t.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I’m bein’ careful.”

I leaned in further and hissed, “You don’t
mess with this guy.” Sam didn’t answer and I put my hand to the
armrest and got even closer to my brother. “You know, you
know
, what
happened to Tim, and he was doing his
job
… you know you do
not
mess with this guy.”

“So I let him mess with my sister?”

“He’ll forget about me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Bullshit.”

“Sam –”

“Bullshit, Vi.”

“Think about Melissa.”

“She agrees with me somethin’s gotta be
done.”

My brother had been with his girlfriend
Melissa for ten years. They lived together for nine of those ten
years but never married. They talked about it all the time but they
were always enjoying their lives too much to get around to doing
anything about it. Mel and Sam had both been close to Tim, adored
him. Sam felt like Tim was his brother, Tim had felt the same. We
were all tight. When Tim died, they took it hard, nearly as hard as
me and the girls. And Mel had attitude, just like Sam. I knew that
Sam spoke the truth when he said Mel agreed something had to be
done, not only because they’d loved Tim but because they loved me
and the girls.

“Talk to Barry,” I suggested.

“I’m talkin’ to him.”

“What’s he say?”

“He understands a brother’s gotta do what
he’s gotta do.”

Yes, Barry would understand that. Barry
was as crazy as Tim
and
Sam.

“Sam, Barry’s a cop and he said he won’t rest
–”

“And he isn’t.”

“Then let Barry do his work.”

“That doesn’t mean he doesn’t need help.”

“Not from you.”

“Just leave it, Vi.”

I looked into my brother’s hard face for a
few seconds then I turned away, swallowing and thinking maybe it
wasn’t good we were so close. Maybe it wasn’t good I loved him like
crazy and he felt the same way. Maybe it wasn’t good Melissa
thought the world of me and my girls.

I pulled in a breath, let it out and took
another sip of wine.

Then I let it go. I had no choice and I knew
it. Sam was stubborn, always had been, so I whispered, “Tell Mel to
come down with you next time, yeah?”

“Will do,” Sam whispered back then changed
the subject again. “Who’s the big guy next door?”