Finding Liberty

by B. E. Baker

  I run him through my assessment, and then hop off the phone, ostensibly to finish digging through our leads. Instead I find myself pulling up the purchase order I recently approved to Franklin Graham Honda, Rob’s Honda dealership. Sixteen Honda Accords to use for company cars. My eyes stop at the address.

  I should not even consider flying out to Atlanta and giving Rob a piece of my mind. Trig doesn’t need my help.

  Even so.

  I pull up the same purchase order twice. Then I google the dealership and work out a plan to get there. I don’t have a car in Atlanta, and I have a little control over my lower limbs, but not enough to drive myself without a modified car. I need at least a push pull or I’d be a total hazard on the road.

  I mentally shake myself like a wet dog. I need to let this go.

  Trig doesn’t need me to get involved. I force myself to review the files, but every time I close my eyes, even for so long as a blink, Annelise’s face flashes in front of my eyes.

  I was better than her. So much better than her, but I didn’t win a single solitary gold medal, much less three. I’m a loser stuck in a metal chair. I can’t ski. I can’t walk. I can’t even crawl using my knees. The best I could manage in a pinch would be dragging my body behind me like crazy Ivar the Boneless in that History Channel show, Vikings. The only value I add to the world now is in analyzing companies to determine whether they’re a good investment.

  Which is exactly what I should be doing right now, instead of imagining I might storm Rob’s office in Atlanta and let him have a piece of my mind. I evaluate the file and type my recommendation for Trig. I send it through the ether and glance at the photos on my desk. Trig swinging me around at a dance recital when I was twelve. Trig photo bombing at my high school graduation. Trig and I on the slopes, his arm slung around my shoulder.

  My mother is a power vampire who hammered Trig and I like a drill sergeant. If anything, she’s grown scarier with age. My father hasn’t been in the same room as her for more than thirty minutes in years, and we usually have to photoshop us all into the same photo for Christmas cards.

  Dad, on the other hand, always purchases lavish gifts, like a jet for my birthday, or a Porsche Cayenne for Christmas. He even gives gifts for things no one else does, like the Fourth of July, but I wouldn’t bet on him remembering my middle name, much less listening to me lament about matters of the heart. I’m not sure he even realized how the accident led to the ruination of my hopes and dreams. He hasn’t once asked how I’m doing since I lost use of my legs. I’m sure he cares about me, I’m just not sure he thinks about me much.

  In the industrial strength vacuum left by my parents’ multitudinous shortcomings, my brother Trig stepped up. He came to every dance recital, every swim meet, every spelling bee, and every important ski run of my life. He cheered me on, he buoyed me up, and he stayed up late to commiserate when things didn’t go my way. Trig has been there for me from birth until present day, showering me with love and affection for more than twenty-seven years. He bought me my first pair of skis, and paid a fortune for a custom-made titanium wheelchair when I wanted to curl up and die.

  The more I think of everything Trig has done, the more worked up I get that Rob would do anything to hurt my brother. I may not be able to compete in the Olympics, but I can sure as heck survive an unplanned trip out to Atlanta.

  Robert Graham is going to rue the day he was so inconsiderate of Brekka Caroline Thornton’s brother’s feelings.

  2

  Rob

  I run my hand along the satiny finish of the end table and beam like an idiot. At least no one in the world can see that I’m grinning like a loon. I’m just so excited that I finally got the temperature perfect to dry the new polish I concocted. I haven’t been satisfied with the last four tries.

  It’s nice to do something perfectly, even if it’s just a piece of furniture.

  A bang on the door at the back of my shop brings me back to reality. I spin around to face the intruder. My dad glances from the end table to my face, his expression quizzical. “I figured you’d be at work by now.”

  If he thought I’d be gone, why did he come over? I don’t bother asking, because I know it’s his passive aggressive way of telling me I’m not going in early enough. “I’m about to head over. I had a few small things to fix here first.”

  Dad glances at the end table. “It already looks nice.”

  “That’s because I’m done.”

  “Well, it’s a real good one.”

  He’s said the same thing about everything. From my clay pinch pots in first grade, to my winning Pinewood derby car in fifth grade, to every piece of furniture I’ve ever made.

  “Thanks.”

  I close up my sealant and shut off the lights. My dad follows me out. “Are you planning to go to auction next week? Bob mentioned the Pre-Owned stock is a little light at the Marietta location.”

  “Bob always complains about the quantity of cars on hand. That’s his standard excuse when sales dip.”

  Dad shrugs. “Maybe, but he might be right this time. And no one has as good an eye as you do at auction.”

  I don’t roll my eyes. I don’t groan. I just nod. “Sure, I’ll go Monday.”

  “Perfect.”

  Dad grills me on a few more things before I walk him out of my house so I can head in to my office at our flagship location. I never once mention that I might not need his guidance because our sales have doubled since I took over four years ago. I don’t breathe a word about the fact that our profits have tripled. He already knows all of that.

  “I’m proud of you, Robbie. You may not be a salesman, but you’re the best manager in the family.” Dad pulls me down for one of his signature bear hugs. I climb into my old truck and wave bye.

  I dread going into the office every day, but at least my family appreciates my sacrifice. It’s not like most people in the world love their jobs. My dad always told us, ‘they pay you because it’s work, son.’ And his words are true, after all.

  Even so, I pause outside the door to my office and breathe in and out through my nose once, and then twice. Finally I force myself to go inside and squeeze a little more profit out of our family business, tabulating which cars we need to order based on current inventory and profit margins, and which cars I should look for at auction for the pre-owned department.

  I’m halfway through the sales numbers from the last week when I hear a commotion outside my door. I’m convinced that Stacey, my seventy-one-years-young secretary, trained in the CIA’s black ops division. She scares the pants off of me, and I sign her paychecks. I feel terrible for everyone else who isn’t her boss. If someone is tangling with Stacey, there must be something major going down. I’m about to go out to see what it might be when my door opens. I’m shocked when it’s not Stacey’s white-haired head peeking around the door frame at me.

  In fact, I have to drop my gaze nearly three feet to even find a face, and it’s the face of a tiny woman in a wheelchair. Her hair’s pulled back into a high ponytail and her golden eyes flash like a cat about to pounce on an unsuspecting bug.

  “Robert Graham?” She pins me with a baleful glare.

  I reassess based on that glare. It could melt sand into glass. She reminds me more of a small, angry dragon than a cat. I can’t quite help the smile that pulls the corners of my lips upward. “Yes, I’m Rob. Who are you?”

  She inhales and straightens in her seat, shooting toward me in a blur of dark metal and ire. “Your secretary tried to tell me I didn’t have an appointment.”

  “Do you have an appointment?” I glance down at my calendar. Empty until a meeting at eight-thirty a.m. tomorrow with my general managers.

  She tosses her head. “Of course I don’t. But I don’t need one, because I’m not here for business. This is personal.”

  It’s personal? I can’t quite help the swell of curiosity her words evoke. What does this adorable woman want from me that isn’t business related? “How exactly did y
ou get past Stacey?”

  “Is that the octogenarian Nazi’s name?”

  I raise my eyebrows. “She’s only seventy-one.”

  “Her hair is utterly white and she’s pretty quick to grab that cane,” she says. “I won’t lie and say she didn’t make me a little nervous, but this chair hasn’t failed me yet.”

  “Your wheelchair hasn’t failed you?” I ask.

  She nods. “People almost never get in my way when I play the wheelchair card.”

  “Exactly what does that look like?” I ask. “The card, I mean? Is it paper, or plastic?”

  She compresses her lips into a tight line and glares at me. “Neither. It’s hypothetical. I told her I was working for the ACLU.”

  I laugh. “Which you aren’t, I take it?”

  She crosses her arms. “I am not with the American Civil Liberties Union, no. I am here to tell you that you’re an inconsiderate idiot.”

  She’s not wrong there. I wonder what stupid thing I did to make her mad, in particular. “You’re planning to elaborate on that, I hope?”

  “Your best friend is who?”

  “My best living friend is a woman named Geode Polson.”

  She smirks. “You don’t hesitate to pull the dead comrade card, I see.”

  I grin at her. “I guess I don’t.”

  She frowns. “I’m Trig’s sister Brekka. Trig won’t tell Geo, but it bothers him that you two are so close, almost inappropriately close. He feels left out of your super special dead compatriot club. And since they’re getting married, I came to tell you to get over Geo and let her be happy.”

  I fold my arms across my chest. “I didn’t realize I was impeding her happiness in any way.”

  “Oh be serious. You have to know what I mean.”

  “I do?”

  “A few days ago you slept with her.”

  I nearly choke. “Excuse me?”

  She looks at the ceiling as if asking for divine help in being patient. “I guess I’m being too literal. You spent the entire day together, excluding her fiancé, and then you fell asleep in one another’s arms. Does that sound more accurate to you?”

  I sit down in my desk chair and lean my forearms on my desk. “Have you ever lost anyone, Brekka?”

  “Two grandparents,” she says.

  “I hope you won’t take offense when I tell you that doesn’t really count for the purposes of this conversation. If you haven’t lost someone before his or her time, if you haven’t lost someone you felt was a part of you, then you probably won’t understand what I’m talking about. I appreciate your input, I really, truly do. But the time I spent with Geo had nothing to do with eros.”

  Her eyebrows knit together and her lips compress in the most adorable way when she frowns. “Excuse me, eros? Is that like erotica?”

  I snort. “Uh, same Latin base, but otherwise, no. There are four types of love. You’re familiar with that concept?”

  She stares at me without comprehension, so I explain. “Storge, pronounced store-gay, is one you probably can identify with. Familial love, like you feel for your brother Trig. That’s the kind of love and affection that drives you to fly from, say, Colorado to Atlanta to yell at someone because they caused pain to a loved one. Whether the yelling is justified or not, you’re reacting to your desire to help someone you love in a familial way.”

  She sets her jaw and her eyes flash at me. I adore her scowl, but I don’t mention that.

  “Philia is the type of love you feel for friends, also considered Christian love. Pronounced fill-ee-uh, but spelled with a ph. You could think of this as brotherly love, but it’s not for brothers. It’s love between really good friends.”

  Brekka lifts one narrow eyebrow. “Did you have a point?”

  “I’m getting there. Agape is like God’s love. Pure, undefiled, unlimited. But the last love I haven’t yet defined is eros. Romantic love, including sexual tension. I’m telling you that my time with Geo had to do with philia, and even storge, but not with eros. So you and Trig have nothing to be worried about.”

  She rolls toward me and rests her arms on the opposite side of my desk, leaning over it so our faces are less than three feet apart. “I don’t much care what you call it. You can’t spend all day with Geo and then let her fall asleep on your hot body any more. Got it?”

  I can’t quite help the grin. “You think I have a hot body?”

  She seethes. “Try to listen, meathead. Whether you want to kiss her or not doesn’t matter. The point is, she loves her fiancé. That love works because they turn toward each other when things are difficult. If she’s turning toward you, Geo and Trig aren’t getting closer. They’re not bearing one another’s burdens, if you want to use Bible speak. So, if you want to keep phillying and storgying my future sister-in-law, figure out how to bring Trig into your little party. Or I’m going to call the cops and get your party shut down.”

  I lean back in my chair, a little bit floored. Because this spitting dragon isn’t wrong. She’s spot on. I love Geo, but she’s picked Trig, and that means she loves Trig. She’s building a life with him. Which means I can be around, but I can’t be her support, not like I used to be.

  I was out of line.

  I hate being wrong, but I always admit when I am. “You’re right. I need to figure out how to bring Trig into the knot of pain so he can heal it instead of the two of us just wallowing.”

  Brekka opens her mouth and then stops, her lips dangling open. She snaps it shut. “Okay, then.”

  “That’s it?”

  “I guess so. I didn’t expect you to agree with me.”

  “I didn’t agree with you until I realized that Geo needs to let Trig in with all this stuff. If she can’t talk to Trig about the past pains that had nothing to do with him, it’ll hinder their future.”

  “What makes you so wise?” Brekka leans back in her wheelchair, which I notice for the first time is not even approaching standard issue. It’s not painted black like I thought. The metal itself is black. What’s it made of?

  “I’m not wise,” I say, “but I’ve spent a lot of time studying trees. Have you ever heard of inosculation?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Have you seen intertwined trees, two trees that have grown together?”

  “We had one that needed to be cut down in our back yard in Colorado. Our gardener said it wasn’t safe to have around since it was two trees, not one, and could come down in a storm.”

  I close my eyes. “Your gardener sounds like an idiot.”

  “Excuse me?” she asks.

  “When trees conjoin, it’s because they have entwined and the wind causes the bark to rub away. Once the cambium, also known as the main growth layer, of the two trees touch, the trees begin to grow together. As one. It doesn’t weaken them, it strengthens them. Your gardener probably meant your tree had a fork, and if bark was growing in the juncture, it might have been unsound.”

  “Uh, sure. Why do you know a bizarre and unbelievable amount about this stuff? Are you a secret arborist?”

  I chuckle. “Let’s call it a hobby.”

  “Uh, okay. Or an oddity. Both words end in y.”

  “That may also be true. My point is still a sound one. Once you pointed out the error of my ways, I realized I needed to course correct.”

  “I’ve never met a man who . . . course corrected so quickly.”

  I flex my biceps a little and smirk. “I’m a unique, and some might say hot, guy.”

  “I can see that,” she says. “Well, if you agree that you need to start including Trig and maybe not pining for Geo, then I think my work here is done.”

  She wheels backward and starts to turn and something tugs at the corners of my heart. Something I haven’t felt in years and years. Something I haven’t experienced at all on dozens and dozens of dates.

  I don’t want her to leave.

  I want to spend more time with her. She might burn me, or she might scratch me with her shiny claws, but I lik
e this tiny, bright-eyed dragon.

  I hop to my feet and jog around to the closed door. “Leaving already?”

  She looks up at me. “I am.”

  “If you agree to let me take you to dinner, I promise I won’t mention trees once. Not a single, solitary time.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “No, I’m sorry. I really don’t talk about plant life that much. I’m not sure what came over me. And since you had to fly all the way out here to talk some sense into me about Geo and Trig, the least I can do is buy you dinner.”

  She squares her shoulders. “I didn’t fly all the way out here for you.”

  “Oh, you didn’t?”

  She shakes her head. “Of course not. That would be childish. I had a meeting.”

  Duh. Of course she wouldn’t fly all the way to Atlanta just to talk to me. I’m really shoving my entire foot, work boot and all, right in my mouth today. “Look, you said you wanted me to forget about Geo. What better way to divert my attention than having dinner with the most beautiful woman in all of Georgia?”

  She blushes and ducks her head and I realize I’ve said something wrong again, but for the life of me, I don’t know what. “Brekka, throw me a bone here. It’s hard to ask a woman on a date, and even harder when she’s both drop dead gorgeous and absurdly smart.”

  “I can’t go to dinner with you.” I can barely make out her words. What happened to my fire-spitting dragon?

  “Why not?” I reach down and use one finger to tilt her head toward me. “What did I do wrong this time? We’ve established that I’m open to course corrections.”

  She leans into my hand and breathes in and out slowly. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I just can’t go to dinner. I’m sorry.”

  When she maneuvers past me, opens the door and rolls away, I want to kick something. What did I do?

  3

  Brekka

  Rob is way, way hotter than I expected. I knew he’d have big muscles and great hair, but that’s all he was to me, a meaty former Marine who sold cars. I was prepared for a winning smile, delicious biceps… and an empty head.