Cross My Heart (4 page)

I flash those still eyeing me a quick smile. Everyth
ing is absolutely un
der control.
Parker Whalen is
not
avoiding me. Not on purpose
, anyway
.

I si
t down at the di
nner table, watching as my soon-to-
be o
fficial nephew, Joshua, shoves
his hand deep inside
a
plastic dinosaur bowl
, grasping and mashing
. Oatmeal dribbles
over the sides and
plops
onto the tray of his high
chair.

“I hope you’re eating some of that,
young man,
” my mom warns
.

Joshua grins
,
revealing
the
impossibly tiny baby teeth at the front of his mouth.
With a smile like that? He’s the only one of us who can
, quite literally, get away with everything.

“D
inner!” Mom
calls
.

My two older brothers
materialize from the living room
,
still dressed for work
,
their white socks
speckled
with mud and their short, brown hair pressed flat against their scalps: what we
generally refer
to as
“hard-
hat head.”

“Hey,
little man,”
Daniel, my oldest brother, says. “
Gimme
five.” He
extends
his hand.

Joshua giggles, and smacks
it several times.

Daniel stares
at the
sticky, brown
oatmeal splattered across his palm. “Great.”

“Pass me those,” my other brother, Phillip
,
demands
, nodding toward the
baked
beans.

“
No way.
That
’
s
the
last
thing
you need,” I say
, rolling my eyes.

Phillip pushes his shirt sleeves up his arm
s
, past his elbows, frowning.
“Just hand them to
me.”

“I’m thinking about the collective good of this family.”

“Shut up,” he replies
, his voice rising
,
“
a
nd
think about passing me that pot.”

“Are you
gonna
say ‘please’?”

He
exhales loudly,
stan
d
s
,
and
leans across the table, snatching
the stainless steel
dish
. A
trail o
f steam chases
as it moves
.

“
Phillip, c
an you
please
not say that
?” Sarah, Daniel’s
fiancée
, begs
. “
I don’t want Josh picking up those things.
Because it would be pretty horrible to have to document
his
first word and it’s not
‘
Mama
’
or
‘
Dada
’
but
‘
shup
.
’”

The four
of us
watch
as
Joshua examine
s
a glob of oatmeal on his fist, his eyes crossing momentarily.
He shoves
the entire
thing in his mouth, then pulls
it out, covered in spit.

“Impressive,” Phillip says
, mouth full
.

“Takes after his uncle,” I
say
.

My dad
, an older, grayer version of Daniel,
si
t
s
down in his chair
at the head of the table,
scooting it closer
as Mom enters
with
the rolls.
I ca
n’t quite pin-point when it
happened—the
wiry, gray wisps of
hair and
creases
around the eyes—if they’ve
always
existed
and I
never noticed, or if becoming grandparents somehow triggered the changes automatically.

“Is this everyone
?” she asks
, swiping he
r auburn hair (same shade as mine)
away from her face.
She frowns.
“Phillip, can’t you wait for the rest of us?”

Every seat at the table is occupied, and Joshua si
t
s
in his high
chair between my mom and Sarah: a typical dinner at the
McEntyre
house.
There a
re seven of us in
all. My mom and dad, of course;
Dani
el, Sarah, and Joshua, who stay in
the middle bedroom upstairs; me;
and Phillip
, who’
s yo
unger than Daniel by two years, and
two years
older than me
. A true middle child.
We’re nothing if not a full house.

“Daniel, Phillip,
how was
work?” Mom asks
.

“Good,” Daniel replies
. “The house on Oak Street is almost ready to be painted.”

She stabs a pork chop with her fork, and passes the plate
on
to Sarah.
“That soon
? It went up fast,” she marvels
.

“Chalk it up to the good winter weather we’ve been having. I don’t think we’ve had
to take off a single day,” says
Dad.

My
eyebrow
lifts instinctively
as
I
reach
for my sweet tea.
I don’t know what he means
by “goo
d winter weather,” but the days
we’ve
been having lately—
cold, dark, and miserab
le
—a
re not good, in my opinion.
I mean, I’m generally a glass hal
f full kind of girl, but I ca
n’t remember the last time
I saw
the sun shining.
And since when did he
ever
take a day off?

I clear
my throat.
“You know, Dad, the faucet o
n my bathroom
sink
is still
kinda
screwed up.”
“
Kinda
screwed up
”
is an understatement. There’s
a pipe
instead of a nozzle protruding from the porcelain
. I can’t get cold water unless I use a wrench, and who wants to brush their teeth with hot water?

He reaches
for his knife an
d
cuts carefully, tearing
off another
piece of meat
. “
I kn
ow
,
s
weetie
. It’s on my list,” he assures
me, chewing.

My dad’s the owner of
McEntyre
Construction. It’s like, a family thing. His dad started it, my dad took over when he retired, and eventually, when they grew old enough, my two brothers climbed aboard. My grandfather could fix anything. He built houses by hand then taught my dad everything he knew. Only, when my dad became president, he adopted a “why do something yourself
you
could pay someone
else
to do?” attitude.

Be
cause of this, Mom and I change
every burnt-out light bulb; replace
d the front steps after Daniel
stepped through one, splitt
ing it completely in half; and took a flat-head screwdriver to all the windows painted shut by the famil
y before us. This is why, ev
en after living in our Victorian
“rest
oration” home (where nothing
is
rest
ored) for several years, I can
still only get cold water by using
a wrench. And even then there’s no guarantee I’ll
be able to tighten the pipe enough to keep the fa
ucet from leaking, which i
s a pain a
t two in the morning, when I awa
ke to an incessant: drip . . . drip . . . drip. . . .

This is why the hardwood floors in my
bed
room still need
bracing, wh
y the front living room stay
s
closed off during the winter (
there’
s an insulation problem, and
the cold air seeps
through the
walls), and why my mom still does
n’t have
the screened-in back porch she’s
alwa
ys dreamed of, even though we a
re, by definition, living in her “dream
house.” At first, I assumed
my dad and brothers would get around to making all of these little “improvements”—but it never happened, and
at some point along the way I
stopped holding my breath.

I speak
carefully.
“I know . . . it’s just that . . . it’s been on your list for a while now, and it
’s getting
kinda
hard to turn
on with that wrench you let m
e borrow
. . .”

“Jaden,” he interrupts
, a tinge of annoyance lacing
his tone.
“I’ve barely had a weekend to myself in months. The boys and I are stretched thin . . . the
Bennetts
are anxious to move
in
. . .”

A cell phone rings
,
severing the conversation
. My dad,
Phillip, and Daniel all
forage around
their
pockets
,
removing
phones
one by one, inspecting the screens
. It’
s Dad’s.

“This is the painter
with my estimate,” he explains
. “I have to take this.” He
stan
d
s and walks
out of the room,
pressing the phone to his ear just before he disappears
. “
McEntyre
Homes,” he says
. Business Friendly.

“Who’s supp
osed to be calling you?” I ask
Phillip.

“None
of your business.”

“I can tell you,” Daniel teases
, a mischievous grin plucking
at the
edges of his mouth, reaching all the way to his eyes.
“Unless Phillip would rather do it.”

Phillip
tilts his head back, groan
ing
.
“You remember Becky
Summerlin
?”

“Wasn’t s
he a year behind you?” Mom asks
.

“She graduated last
year,” I confirm
, picturing the shy girl who’d
been part of the yearbook staff,
her mousy brown hair and
comfortable
eyes.
“She was
quiet, but she seemed really sweet. What does she want with you?”

He rolls
his eyes.
“Ha. Ha. Anyway, we ran into each other last week. Sh
e was visiting her parents. We
decided to
meet up next time
she came to town,” he explains
.
“That’s it.”

“Why is she
calling you, then?” Sarah asks
. “Why aren’t you calling her?”

“I did!” Phillip answers,
shoulders squaring. “I left a message. Now I’m waiting for her to call me back.”

“How long hav
e you been waiting?” I ask
.