family
We rolled up to the B-Town drive-through and I had to cover Lucy’s mouth to hear the speaker box.
“Welcome to Burger Town, can I take your order?”
Sandro was in the back seat, yelling. “Bullshit! BULL. SHIT.”
I tried to get their attention, but Lucy argued through my fingers. “It is NOT bullshit. Mayonnaise is DISGUSTING and I WILL NOT—”
“But how can you say that if you’ve literally never—”
The speaker crackled and I rested my head on my seat belt. I was regretting my suggestion to spend a Saturday together, just the three of us. It had been twelve straight hours of arguing. Over what? Couldn’t tell you.
Lucy whipped around to face her opponent. “Have you tasted shit?”
“Okay.”
“Okay, but you know you don’t want to eat it?”
“That’s not the—”
“THAT IS THE ENTIRE POINT, YOU BIG BITCH. Seb, come get your friend.”
“Back me up, B.”
The two people I love most in the world were looking at me, waiting to see whose banner I supported. So, I turned to the speaker box.
“Yeah, can I get a Number Three, extra cheese, no onion, and a small Sprite, a Double Chicken with B-Sauce, large curly fries, and a root beer, and I’ll get a Number Seven combo with sweet potato fries and a Diet Dr Pepper.”
I sunk back into my seat. They were still looking at me. Lucy smiled. “Awwww. He knows our orders.”
“I’m a good waiter.”
Sandro rubbed my shoulders from the back seat. “...Sweet potato fries are fucking nasty, bubs.”
Lucy shot him another dirty look. “You have terrible taste.”
Sandro just snorted and rubbed my head. “Eh. I’d argue we got the same taste.”
Thankfully, that got a laugh out of my ex. I smiled at the worker in the pickup window as Lucy and Sandro fought over napkins. I handed them their food and listened to my best friends go. B-Town got our order wrong and we ate in the parking lot, but it was the best dinner I’d had in a long, long time.
On a less tender note, Sandro just about puked up that burger the next day. Since track season started, it’s been my personal mission to get my workout buddy excited about running. It’s not that Sandro’s a bad runner. It’s just that he’s not good at it. He runs how I’d imagine an unmotivated T. rex would. Head forward, arms tucked up, and making weird noises throughout. On this particular run, he bailed after one loop around my block. My warm-up, mind you. We passed the duplex and he veered straight into my front lawn. Fell face-first into the grass and pretended to die. I jogged circles around his corpse.
“Come on! One more block.”
“My foot hurts.”
“You have no stamina.” He mumbled something presumably dirty into the ground and laughed at his own joke. I stopped. “No wonder you only throw things.”
“I also wrestled for a minute.” He grabbed my ankle and tripped me with his shoulder. Before I had time to cuss him out, he was sitting on my chest. “Plus, two older brothers.”
He slapped my cheeks. I had the instinct to give his giant ass my lunch money then I heard a door close.
“Kinky.”
I looked up to find Lucy on her porch. I tapped out and Dro rolled off me. We both jumped up, at attention, like we’d been caught throwing a football in the house. She told us to cool it and I invited her to dinner at ours. Del wanted to congratulate us all for getting into our first-choice colleges and I’d insisted on a Cajun theme. My mom grew up in Louisiana so I was raised on a steady diet of peppers, okra, and shrimp.
“But y’all can’t be bickering the whole time, okay? Del’s sensitive.”
Lucy rolled her eyes and linked arms with Sandro. “We don’t bicker, Sebastian. Bickering implies both parties are incorrect.”
Sandro agreed, happy to let Lucy save him from finishing his run.
I’ll give it to them, they kept it civil for the rest of the evening. Just to be safe, though, Del and I handled most of the cooking. We thought it best to keep Punch and Judy away from knives and fire.
After some superb fried okra, some okay catfish, and a banging gumbo, we took a break to digest. Del and I got to our usual dishwashing routine while Lucy and Dro ate ice cream in the living room. They weren’t bickering, but we would pick up the occasional outburst.
“Get off the floor! What are you doing? Sandro.”
Sandro does this thing when he’s full where he lies on the ground like a starfish. Got the idea from Ms. Parente’s class terrarium. Apparently, lizards rest on hot stones after big meals. Helps with the digestion.
Del laughed and passed me a plate. “They seem to be hitting it off.”
“I know. It’s scary.”
“Worlds collide.”
We paused to hear their argument boiling up.
“You’re wrong. You’re very wrong.”
“No, gelato’s just cream. Custard has egg, Froyo has milk, but gelato’s ALL cream. That’s the dif—”
“You are so wrong and I don’t know why you won’t admit it.”
I laughed and shook my head. I knew it was a mistake leaving them alone with that ice cream. I put the dry plate away and Del handed me another. “They’re both wrong and both right at different moments. Funny.”
“It’s been like this all week. They’re both wildly stubborn about food.”
I almost dropped the plate when they started yelling.
“BOY! YOU ARE ITALIAN! YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT GELAT—”
“I AM ITALIAN SO TRUST ME WHEN I TELL YOU—”
I had to smile. Because by all accounts, Sandro and Lucy’s only real connection is a gym class they shared in eighth grade but, somehow, they act like they’ve known each other for ages. Like brother and sister. They had a rhythm. Maybe that’s just how it is with the right people. All that groundwork just appears.
I’m glad it was easy for Dro. I know how hard it’s been for him to make friends. He caught me up on how the whole Ronny/Phil situation blew up in his face. It’s tragic really ’cause, even if you strip away the sex and the love I feel for him, Dro’s still the best friend I’ve ever had. And it sucks that the world doesn’t see that. Everyone could use a friend like Sandro.
My train of thought slowed my drying and, of course, Del was watching me. “I swear to God if you keep staring at me...”
Del laughed and shook his head. Got back to washing. “They’re showing my uncle’s cabin up in Maine soon. I thought we could visit before it sells. Go fish or swim or whatever. If you want.”
Maine. Del’s family. The last leg in this relay we seemed to be running together. We still hadn’t talked about how I couldn’t bring myself to go to his uncle’s funeral. How I’d rather let him go mourn alone than come along as Del’s Dead Wife’s Kid.
So, I took the baton and set my sights on the finish line. “Will your family be there?”
Del nodded. “Brett should be.”
He said the name like he’d mentioned Brett a thousand times. It killed me that I didn’t know who he was. There was so much about Del I didn’t know. This man who raised me when my own dad couldn’t bother. Who held me when I cried and never pushed me when I pushed him away. He was my family. It was time to know my family.
“Which one’s Brett?”
Del smiled. “Older brother.”
“Oh. How many brothers do you have?”
“Just him. He raised me. Him and my uncle.”
We got back into our dishwashing routine and the conversation got moving.
Brett worked in New York for years in advertising. Then he up and quit one day and became a writer. Over the past decade, he’s published three nonfiction books about illegal hunting practices in the Northeast and he loves to ski. Del thought the world of Brett. Wanted to be just like him growing up. The way he talked about his older brother made me pissed I was an only child. The pride in his voice.
“He started renovating the cabin early last year. They’ve been living up there since the funeral.”
“Who’s they?”
“Justin and the kids.”
“Who’s Justin?”
“Brett’s husband.”
I stopped drying my plate.
So much I didn’t know. So much I could’ve known. All this time I wasted, watching. Falling off the face of the earth. How much easier my life could’ve been if I just talked. Asked questions. How much easier my life could be.
As if to guide us along, we heard Sandro’s laugh boom in from the living room. It filled the silence hanging around us. And I nodded. Just enough to answer what Del already knew. He nodded back. We did what came naturally to us and said it all with a look.
“...I’d like to meet them.”
“Yeah. I’d like that too, Seb.”
I thought about one of the last things my mom said to me. It was about family. What we owe to those who know us.
Del calls me Seb. So does Lucy. This kid that I wasn’t anymore. This kid I could still be. It wasn’t too late for Seb.
Del told me he’d finish up and to go see my friends. He patted me on the shoulder and I thanked him. I think I’m gonna be thanking Del for the rest of my life.
That night, Sandro slept over. He fell asleep pretty quickly, happy to be my little spoon, but I stayed up watching him. Something I’ve been doing since I got him back. Take in his face at rest. Try to guess what he’s dreaming. I know it’s weird, but I missed him. Leave me alone.
I’ve been thinking a lot about dreams lately. What they mean and why I have them. Why some nights my memories replay. Those nights when the dreams about my mom are calm and normal, it’s like my brain is rewarding me. It lets me live in those quiet moments with my mother again. I’m helping her cook. We’re driving. She’s painting the living room and I’m reading to her. There’s always a moment where I realize that I’m dreaming but, when it’s quiet, I can stay in the dream a bit longer. We can buy ourselves more time. It’s that afterglow that’s most interesting to me. The calm moments after I realize I’m dreaming but before I wake up.
Living in a dream.
That’s what it feels like, watching Sandro and Del laugh together. Listening to Lucy and Dro argue over something pointless. Having all these people I love together and talking and laughing. All these people who love me.
I felt myself drifting. And for a second, I wondered if I’d locked my bedroom door. Something I’d always double-and triple-check before. Dro had slept over dozens of times but tonight was different. Because he wasn’t my workout buddy anymore. At least in the duplex. Sandro wasn’t my best bro to Del and Lucy.
I kissed his forehead. He smiled in his sleep.
“I love you, Sandro.”
Under my roof, I had a boyfriend.