by Shey Stahl
Just as I’m thinking I should get off the ground, Red approaches, shadowing the sunlight from me. It seems appropriate for how I see him, always in his shadow, him always looking down on me.
“Why are you lying on the ground?”
Just like that, at the sound of his voice, I’m back to being the smartass he knows me to be. “Seemed like a good idea at the time. You’re getting remarried soon, why are you talking to your dead wife?”
Red shrugs, eyes unfocused in the distance. “It’s not weird. I don’t think. Is it weird your lying on the ground?”
“No.” I stand up and brush the dirt from my legs. “Why are you still talking to her?”
He rubs his hand along his jaw, focusing on her grave. “Don’t be an asshole, man. Just because she died doesn’t change the fact that I loved her. Nothing will. I still love her, even now. It’s just different. She’s Nova’s mom, and I never want her to forget that. It’s not like she chose to leave us. She was taken. Marrying Lenny is what I want, but I’m never going to forget what I had with Nevaeh.”
I actually respect Red for what he’s doing. Despite the cards he was handed, he’s still shuffling the deck so to speak, instead of folding like I did.
Red literally went through the unthinkable with Nevaeh and watched her die. Two years later, he watched his father die in front of him and never once has he veered off the track he’s on. Yeah, he was unsteady for a while and you knew a breakdown was coming, but it never did. He stayed strong and pushed through life.
Whether I want to admit it or not, Red is in many ways a father figure to me. Always has been. Maybe that’s why we’ve never got along. We were never really brothers. It’s always been him telling me what to do, not guiding me along like a brother would or being there for me.
One thing’s certain, I can’t discount what a good father he is to Nova and the way he keeps Dad’s business running. I know why he didn’t leave it to me. I would have fucked it up the first week. Happened to Beck. When his dad died, he left him his construction company. Beck managed to keep it going for a month and then it went under. He knew nothing about construction nor did he care to run the family business. It’s sad really, all that hard work his dad put in down the drain over careless decisions made by an eighteen-year-old kid.
“How do you do it?”
He finally looks my way, his eyes cloudy, as if he has been lost in deep thought this whole time. “Do what?”
“Be you. Hard working, noble… a good dad… all of it.” He makes everything he does seem effortless in his unwaveringly beliefs.
“I’m glad you see it that way but from my view, I’m constantly struggling not to drown and make ends meet. I didn’t plan to be a dad at twenty-three no more than you planned to be. It’s not like I didn’t think it would ever happen, I wanted kids, but fuck, I met Nevaeh at a concert, had sex with her in the backseat of my car and a month later she showed up pregnant at the shop. I had nine months to think about it, prepare for it. In that respect I had an advantage, not this, ‘surprise, you have an almost one-year-old son.’”
I nod, but I don’t say anything as I take in what he’s saying.
“I get it, man. It’s not easy, but the moment I knew I was going to be a father, I knew I had to be a man and do what was best for that child.”
He looks at me, probably expecting me to say something, but I’m at a loss. I have no idea what to say to him because in the last few years, this is the most we’ve ever talked.
His gaze falters for the briefest of moments, but it’s enough. I see it. “Rawley….” He shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’m not going to tell you how to live your life. It’s not my place.”
Our differences, they’re ivy weaving around our words like poison, polluting our thoughts and leaving behind no reason. Do we even know why we don’t get along anymore or is it just a difference in opinion?
Like shackles attached to my soul, I struggle to get the words out and I want to scream them in his face, ask him why I was never good enough to be his brother or even remotely equal to him, but I don’t. Maybe because I’m here, sitting next to our father’s grave. My voice is like a child’s when I ask, “Why do you hate me?” I hate that I can’t be more stern with the words, more direct like him but the truth is, I really want to fucking know what it is that sets him off about me.
“I don’t hate you. I may not respect you, but I don’t hate you. Quite the opposite actually. You’re my brother and you don’t know how proud I am of you that you did what you set out to do with your music. I even bought your CD the day it came out.”
The emotion, the idea that he wanted to hear my music makes my heart beat heavily, the sound pulsing in my head as I attempt to swallow the lump that rises in my throat. Like it or not, I want Red’s approval.
But I know his reasons are coming. The heavier ones.
“What I don’t like is your careless disregard for those around you. You can be selfish and respect from me is earned.” His hand finds his hair as he shakes his head slowly, eyes on the gravestone in front of us. “I rode you so hard when you worked for me because you never stopped to think about anyone else but yourself. While I could respect your hard work and dedication for your music, you never stopped to think about who you were hurting in the process.”
He’s right. I didn’t. In everything I’ve done in the last three in a half years, I’ve had one person on my mind. Me.
“Why are you home?”
Bringing my hand to my mouth, I nervously chew on my thumb nail. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
Red shakes his head. “You treated everyone like shit the night you left and honestly, after that night, I didn’t care if I ever saw you again. That’s how bad it got. So after everything you said to me, and everyone else at that party, why would you want to be here for my wedding?”
I’m at a loss for what to say because he’s absolutely right. I wouldn’t have come back if it hadn’t been for Beck and Linc. I just wouldn’t have. But then again, the text my mom sent me of “If you don’t come home, I swear on your father’s grave I will never talk to you again,” haunts me. I don’t think she was serious but still, I think deep down I knew it was time to show my face.
“Mom wanted me home for it.” There’s more to it. He knows. “And shit happened in Seattle with the boys, and here I am.”
He raises his eyebrows. He respects I’m finally being honest with him. “So what happens when you leave?”
He’s referring to Sophie and Lyric. He doesn’t have to say it.
“I don’t know yet. I’m taking Sophie to dinner on Tuesday. I figured we’d talk then.”
“Don’t break her heart again. She’s been through enough.”
“I know that.”
“Do you? I was there the night Lyric was born. The night she had no one there for her but me. I saw the hurt in her eyes when she so badly wished it was you holding her hand and not me. I’ll kick your ass if you break her heart.”
He’s serious, but I don’t reply to it and ask, “Is moving on hard when you still love her?” I nod to Nevaeh’s grave in the distance, changing the subject. It’s what I’m good at. Getting the conversation off my own shit.
Red holds my stare, and I can tell he knows exactly what I mean. My question has more to do with how do you move on from anything? That much he understands by the cryptic question. Despite getting married, and being in love with Lenny, there’s a part of his heart that will forever be with Nevaeh. He can’t help it. How does he separate the two so he can move forward?
Drawing in a slow breath, his chest expands with the motion, his eyes moving to her grave with a sense of sadness I’ll never understand because I haven’t experienced what he has. “Nevaeh would have wanted this for me, for Nova. She wanted us to be happy and I believe….” He shakes his eyes, his eyes misting with tears. “I know she sent Lenny to us for a reason. We weren’t the only ones in need of a happy ever after. Lenny was too.”
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I knew Lenny didn’t come from the best of circumstances and from what I understood, her ex-husband was a real piece of shit. Maybe Nevaeh sent Lenny to Red because of who he is, a man willing to do anything to stand up for what he believes is right.
“There’s nothing wrong with forgiving someone, Rawley. To let go doesn’t mean you’re forgetting to think about it or even ignore it. It won’t take away the anger or the regret. It’s not about your pride and it’s not giving up. It’s about learning from the past and moving on. It’s about growing up and realizing what’s in front of you is important, not what’s behind you.”
Looking at my brother, a sense of calmness takes over. It’s something I’ve only ever felt around my father. It’s like he’s standing right next to us, a place where both his sons are struggling with how to let go of the past to see the future in front of us.
His shoulder bumps mine. “I have a favor to ask of you.”
I turn to look at him but don’t say anything.
“My buddy, Lane, he got called out on deployment and can’t make the wedding.” He swallows, his brow pulling together. “Can you fill in as one of the groomsmen? I don’t want Sophie to have to walk alone at the wedding.”
Though his request certainly takes me by surprise, it’s the way he’s thinking of Sophie that makes me understand how much she means to my family. I also know that after everything we’ve said to one another today, he doesn’t mean it as a backhanded comment that’s supposed to piss me off, even though it does. I can’t even tell you why it makes me angry, just that it does.
My adrenaline spikes, my heart racing at the idea I’ve left her alone so much in her life it’s a standard thing. But I know I can’t this week and the last thing I want is her walking alone at a wedding.
I clear my throat before I say, “If you want me to, I will,” keeping my eyes on the ground because I can’t look at him any longer.
Out of the corner of my eye I can see that he nods, his own stare on the ground now. “I want you to.”
Every morning since I’ve been home, I wake up in my old room in a familiar blue-dawn glow. I stare at my ceiling and see how different I am here rather in Seattle.
I glance at my phone on the nightstand. It’s four in the morning yet I’m wide-awake, watching the night give way to dawn, stars replaced with diluted pink glow that reflects the bright orange and red of the tree outside my window.
Back in the city I’d wake up next to some chick I didn’t know and roll out of bed around two in the afternoon for rehearsal at four.
Here, I’m falling asleep early and waking up at the ass-crack of dawn to stare at my fucking ceiling. Lately, I have no desire for drugs or other women and I’ve had maybe four beers since I’ve been back. I have no idea what the fuck happened, or what’s going on with me.
Maybe that’s why I’m staring at a gray ceiling hoping for answers.
There’s a noise at my door, a scratching sound.
Turning my head, I see tiny little fingers slipping under the door between the wood and carpet.
Chuckling, I slide out of bed, throw on a pair of sweat pants and crawl over to the door. Tentatively I stick my finger under the door and touch his. I know it’s him because when he touches my finger, it’s wet with drool. And there’s no other babies in the house at four in the morning.
I wiggle two fingers on the other side and he laughs lightly, but it’s there. He thinks I’m funny and tries to grab my fingers.
Carefully, I crack the door open to see him sitting up, smiling at me.
“How’d you get out of your crib, buddy?”
Bright eyes too wide for 4:00 a.m. stare back at me, but he’s still smiling.
Picking him up, I carry him to his room across the hall and peek inside Sophie’s room. Her door is slightly open so she can hear Lyric, but she’s out cold, sprawled out with half the blankets on her and half on the floor. She always slept crazy. Think kidney punches and knees in the balls about a half a dozen times.
Smiling at the sight of her, I run my lips over Lyric’s forehead, holding him close. “Mommy must be tired.”
He smiles, grabbing a handful of my hair.
Walking inside his room, I place him in his crib only to have him frown at me and hold his arms up. I back up a step to see what he’ll do and his bottom lip jets out immediately as tears surface.
Oh God, no.
I don’t want him to cry. That will wake Sophie and Mom up.
I snatch him up out of his crib and notice his diaper is pretty full.
“Are you wet, buddy?”
Naturally he doesn’t say anything but smile and bounce himself in my arms. There’s a changing table beside his crib with diapers. Debating whether I should change him or not, there’s a moment when I wonder if she’d get mad if I did. I know how, but would she want me doing that?
Staring down at him, I decide I’ll just change him and then put him back in his crib.
Laying him down on the changing table, I keep one hand on his stomach and reach for a diaper. “Here’s the deal, little guy.” He kicks his legs at the sound of my hushed voice. I attempt to undo the buttons of his pajamas but he never stops moving and I have to keep both hands on him so he doesn’t roll off the table. “I’ve changed a diaper before… but it’s been a while,” I admit.
Again, he smiles as if I’m telling him he can have anything he wants in life.
I chuckle. I’ve never seen such a happy kid. I’ll probably give him anything he wants in life. Now I know why my brother’s such a fuckin’ push over with Nova.
I manage to get his pajamas off and the diaper on but once I try to put his pajamas back on, that’s where he draws the line and stiffens his arms and legs like go ahead, try it now, Dad.
“Okay, so no clothes. Got it.”
Picking him back up, I try to put him back in the crib only to have the tears surface again.
“You’re playin’ me right now, aren’t you?”
He grins wider.
“All right, but if we get in trouble for this, I’m blaming you.”
Tiptoeing across the hall, I take him into my room and push the door nearly closed so we don’t wake anyone.
Placing him on the bed, he looks around curiously like he’s taking in every detail of my room. I wonder if he’s been here before, like maybe Sophie might have brought him in a time or two. I could see her now, lying on the bed with him as he sleeps on her chest to be close to me. She always loved my room and my sleepy pillows, as she called them.
We stare at one another for a moment and I see Sophie in him right then. He may have my eyes, but when he smiles, I see her.
He yawns, his tiny mouth shaping into an O but barely enough to take the smile from his face. Reaching for my guitar beside my bed, I bring it to my lap thinking he might like music and maybe it might put him back to sleep.
The moment I have it in place, he crawls toward me. It cracks me up, but he worms himself between the guitar and my chest to sit on my lap like Nova used to do when I’d play for her.
Lyric puts both hands on the guitar and smacks it a couple of times. It makes a hollow thump and he does it again.
Carefully, I strum my fingers over the strings once to see what he’ll do with it.
Peering around the side, I want to see his face as I sing in his ear. “You should be sleeping, but you’re not. I should be sleeping, but I’m not.” There’s no rhythm to my tune but the sound of my voice excites him and he laughs, his hand reaching back to grab my lips like he’s trying to figure out how I did that.
I play a variety of tunes, trying to remain quiet but the more upbeat ones I play, he laughs and I know any minute Sophie or my mom is going to wake up.
Sure enough, I’m halfway through a rock version of the alphabet I used to play for Nova and he’s belly laughing when my door opens and hits my dresser behind it. “Oh my God, Rawley. I nearly had a heart attack when I heard him laughing and he wasn’t in his room.”
I stop, my hands flat on the strings silencing the music, and I look back at her. “Sorry. He crawled in here.”
She looks at him in just his diaper on my lap. “He did?” she whispers, eyes so earnest and bright. I want this look, always, forever.
I nod. “Yeah. I heard a noise and he was sticking his fingers under my door so I let him in.”
Sitting down on the edge of my bed, our knees touch and she reaches out to him, her arm resting on my knee. Her touch sends a jolt to my heart and my breathing speeds up. “Buddy, where’re your clothes?”
He must understand what she’s saying because he looks down at her, and then his body and then back at me. “I changed his diaper and he wouldn’t let me put them back on.” My voice is soft. I’m not sure how she’s going to react to me changing his diaper.
“Oh,” she says, her eyes widening in surprise. “You did?”
Lyric reaches for her so she takes him and sets him on her lap. “He was wet so….” My voice trails off watching her hold our son. I wonder then if she gets that same pain in her chest when she sees me holding him.
I stare and stare, my mouth tightening. God, do I want to hold her. We’re being stubborn in a sense, neither one of us giving up and talking about the noose around our necks. I smile weakly, my teeth finding the inside of my cheek, determined not to think about leaving her, or him.
“I should feed him,” she says distractedly, her eyes flitting around my room before coming to a standstill on me. “Want to join us?”
I smile despite the internal battle going on inside my head and set my guitar aside. “I’d like that.”
We’re in the kitchen, inches apart and I’m messing with the coffee pot I launched through the kitchen window when I was nineteen for no particular reason at all. I’m sure there was a reason, but I don’t remember. I was high at the time.
When it’s finished brewing coffee and Lyric’s in his high chair, Sophie’s beside me again, our bodies nearly touching. I pour a cup of coffee while Sophie pours creamer into hers.
“Your mom said she’d watch Lyric tonight for us.” She smiles, the weariness in her eyes seeming to lessen every day.
