“What was the meltdown about? I mean, besides what I already know?”
“It’s dumb, but it started when I couldn’t get my tennis shoes tied. That started the tears. Then I felt like a bad mom complaining about that when it means that she’s growing and is healthy. That morphed into me standing and looking in the freezer and realizing I have no lefse and all I really wanted was some warmed up lefse with butter, cinnamon and sugar. That’s where Ma found me. It all kind of spilled out of me when she asked. So she did what she does. She dried my tears, tied my shoes, calmed me down about you, and told me she was taking my bowl, going to the store, and was going to make up some lefse tomorrow to stock our freezer with.”
Oh these pregnancy hormones are most definitely becoming more and more of a roller coaster every day. But that’s a thought I’ll be keeping in my head because I like my balls where they’re at.
“Well, gorgeous, maybe we need to break out those lined clogs someone got you so you don’t have to try to tie your shoes. You are an amazing mom already. Our daughter couldn’t have a better mom taking care of her.” This earns me one of her amazing smiles.
“Wait, I thought you guys only made lefse once a year, and it takes all day and like a hundred pounds of potatoes?” She gives me the look that Ma gave me just twenty minutes ago.
“When we do lefse day, we’re making like twenty or more batches of the recipe, so everyone gets some to freeze to have for the holidays. That day is months away still. Ma loves me and our daughter so she’s going to make one, maybe two batches, just for me. She gets my cravings and there’s no substitute for it. She also gets there’s no fucking way I can wait that long to have some.”
“Well, I’m glad she’s taking care of that for ya. I will do anything to help with your cravings but making that is beyond my limited cooking knowledge. Let’s get going and get you some dinner and hit the road.”
“Can we stop for some more Red Hots and Lemonheads?” Does she not know I keep stock of both?
“Baby, I already have a container of each in the SUV. I never let us run out of either.”
Kierstie
We just got off the highway and are heading into the part of town that I used to avoid when I lived here. Okay, maybe I do get why he hadn’t brought me up here before. But still, I’m his wife, and this is about his brother. I don’t think I was wrong in at least wanting to see what he did to look for Tyson. I mean, after all, the man is my brother now too.
Shane makes a turn and drives down a street with a few older homes and duplexes. He slows down in front of a small home. You can tell it once was nice and would’ve been welcoming. He pulls over to the curb. He sighs and shares more than I think he’s ever done before.
“This is the house I grew up in. Tyson and I used to sit on that porch sometimes when we heard my mom and dad arguing. It was covered so we could hang out and not get wet. When I was about twelve, maybe thirteen, things got worse with his drinking and the fighting increased. It got so frequent that I kept a box of snacks and stuff under the bench outside so if dinner time came, we’d at least have something to eat. I was actually thankful when my dad didn’t wake up that one day when I was fourteen. He’d just started to grab my mom when he was drunk. Before that it was always just throwing things around. The last time he grabbed at her, I stepped in and he shoved me through the front door. Tyson and I went to stay at Grant’s for a week after that. I think Grant gave Mom a talk and told her things had gone too far. From her journal, I think she was thinking about leaving when his body gave out from all the alcohol. She followed him just five years later when she dropped from a heart attack. That’s when I had to go through all her stuff. I discovered the box of papers that said he wasn’t my dad. Tyson’s birth certificate had his name on it but mine didn’t. I found out my legal last name was her maiden name. In her journal, she mentioned a guy that sounds like he was actually my father. This all happened when I was nineteen and Tyson was almost eighteen. He graduated school, and we moved out of the house and into Grant’s. I was a prospect then. I had already signed up for the Army before Mom passed, so I was heading out to boot camp. I saw Tyson on every leave I got and we emailed back and forth. For a few years he seemed to be doing fine. He even moved out and got his own place up here ’cause he’d gotten a great job or so he said. I re-upped again so I could take time to decide if I wanted to make the Army my career. Halfway through that time, I lost all contact with Tyson. When I came home on leave, I went to his apartment and then the job he told me had. He’d been evicted from the apartment months before. The manager said he hadn’t seen him for months before that. The job he was so excited about? He deserted it after only a couple of months. The number I had for him had been disconnected. I looked for him that entire leave. Max, Grant, Saxon, and Samson helped. I returned to where I was stationed and I spent all my off time for the last six months I was there calling anyone and anywhere I could think of. Since I’ve been back, I’ve gone out at least a couple times a month searching. I’ve never talked to him, but I know he’s around somewhere. I think I saw him a couple of times but he took off before I could talk to him. He’s an addict. I know he’s not ready for help, but I feel like I failed him. Like this is all my fault.”
Oh, my sweet, sweet man. I can’t help the tears that fall down my face, but he needs to realize this shit. I squeeze the hand I’m holding.
“Look at me.”
He looks at me with the saddest face I’ve ever seen him have.
“You have to know this is not your fault. You were a kid yourself. From everything I’ve heard from you, your cousins, and Grant,youwere more a parent to him then your parents were. He was an adult when you went away. You can’t control what another adult does.”
He looks at me for a minute and lets go of my hand to wipe my tears away.
“I’ve been working on realizing that these last few months. When I found out you were pregnant, it shifted somethin’. It made what Grant and Pres kept tellin’ me finally make sense. You can’t help someone who doesn’t want the help. He knows where Grant is. He’s got my number ’cause it’s never been changed. He knows he could go to the club and find any of us who would help him. He knows and doesn’t want it.” He moves his hand to his head.
“I know that and I know that it’s not my fault here, but here, I don’t think I’m ever going to completely believe it.” He moves his hand to his heart.
“That’s ’cause you’re a good man with an amazing heart, my love.”
“I dunno about all that. I just know that the minute I found out it was you and then that you were pregnant, you two became my whole world. Our little nuclear family is everything to me.” He puts the SUV into gear.
“You wanna drive over to the couple of encampments I usually check out?” Looking at him as he asks me, I realize that just these last few minutes gave me all I needed to know.
“We can go home. I don’t need to see it.”
He shakes his head at me.
“We drove all the way up here. Let’s just drive over there. We won’t get out or anything. I wanna stop and get a couple of burgers for a couple of vets who stay out there but don’t want help. They always take the food I give them, though.”
“You’re a good man, Mr. Brock. I’m the luckiest woman to be able to call you mine.” He chuckles.
“Gorgeous, I don’t know what those pregnancy hormones are doin’ to ya, but I’ll let you live in your delusion tonight.”
After we pick up the food Shane wanted to get, we drive for about ten minutes over to an area of a few abandoned warehouses—the kind that the roofs came down a decade or so ago and most of the structure is long gone. In its place are tents, many made out of a combination of tarps and broken apart vehicles. Shane slows down and stops in front of a barrel that has a fire in it and it looks like maybe four or five people around it. He rolls down the window and sticks his head out of it.
“Sergeant Booker! It’s Corporal Brock!” One of the men around the fire walks over to our SUV. When he gets close, it looks like he’s maybe in his forties or early fifties.
