He was. Avonlea was in New York with her mom this weekend, wedding dress shopping. He had decided to go to the restaurant and restart the business, on his own and with no idea of what hewas doing. “It’s our heritage,” he told me, very grandly. “It’s our legacy.”
“Max, the last time you worked there, you told me that you thought you were allergic to the iodine in our salt so you couldn’t serve fries.”
“I talked to Dad. He’s willing to sign over the business to me,” he said. “Avonlea has a lawyer that’s going to make it legal.”
“And you’d assume all the debts? Was Dad honest with you about those?”
He was silent for a moment and then asked, “Are you going to help me or not?”
I looked up at Shane and held the phone against my hip to block my next words. “Would you mind making a quick stop at the restaurant with me?” I asked him. “Would you please come?” I really wanted to get him out of the house.
He didn’t object so I told Max that I was on the way. I was prepared to continue the discussion about Shane’s new job prospects in the car…but that wasn’t what happened.
“So, about a different career—” I started saying when we were pulling away from the duplex.
But he was already interrupting, before I’d even finished the sentence. “I’m very happy with my current career as a football coach. That’s my dream.”
“I had asked you that,” I reminded him. “I wanted to know if you had always pictured yourself as a coach and you said maybe. It wasn’t really a goal, that was what you told me.”
“Well, I’ve changed my mind.”
“And you could change it again!” I answered. “There are so many things that you’d be good at. You’re amazing with people, for example. You totally diffused the fight between Roshni and Isaiah when we were at dinner and they wanted to throw down over him missing the toilet when he pees.”
But it had been a bad idea to bring up that night and specifically, that couple. “He still has the stitches in his arm,” Shane noted. “He’ll have a scar there.”
“I bet that he won’t care. His wife has been texting me and she says that he’s fine. It was not a big deal,” I reminded him again. “It’s not even sore anymore. And she said that the whole thing also made her stop to think about how quickly life can go wrong, so they both needed to ease up on the arguing and appreciate what they have. Isn’t that nice?”
He didn’t answer.
“What if I had hit that tray?” I asked. “Or what if I had done something else, just a mistake but it ended up with someone injured? Would you blame me and say that I was dumb and careless?”
“No, I sure wouldn’t. But if you had an issue which made you a danger to others and then someone got hurt because of it, then you would feel pretty bad about it. Saying ‘I didn’t mean to’ isn’t a good defense.”
“But…” Well, he hadn’t meant to. “It was so dark in that bar and with all the lights flashing, it could have happened to anyone. They should switch to plastic cups!”
“I don’t really understand your angle,” he told me. “You’re trying to excuse me from blame over hurting Isaiah but you’re also trying to get me to quit the job I just got because you don’t think I can handle it.”
“That’s not true,” I said quickly, but I wasn’t sure how to proceed after that. What exactly was my angle? Before, I had said that I was going to step back and let Shane be in charge of his own life. So what was I doing?
I was butting in and trying to control him, exactly what Max had been mad about when we’d had our last, failed family meeting. I had alienated my brother by acting that way and I was going to do the same thing now with my friend, if I wasn’t careful.
On the other hand, we were currently driving to Walter’s Café to help my brother because suddenly, he needed me and my controlling ways. Was I supposed to be hands off, carefree and unconcerned? Or should I have been hands on, gripping and directing? It felt like I was going to lose either way but the most important thing was that Shane had to get better. I had to get him that way.
“I think you’ll be good at your job but I can tell that you’re worried about it. I also don’t want you to feel bad about the accident with Isaiah’s arm,” I said. “You’re refusing to leave the house and it’s scaring me.”
“Oh. I get it.” We drove for a few moments in silence. “You don’t need to worry that I’m going to be like Morgan. I promise that if I start to go down that road, I’ll get help for myself. I saw it withmy sister, too, and I don’t want that to happen to me or to the people who care about me.”
I did not believe him, not in the least. He was actively refusing to ask for help with his vision issues, so why would his mental health be any different? But I also couldn’t drag him into therapy or shove medication down his throat. “Ok,” I said. Then we drove the rest of the way to Walter’s in silence.
My brother, on the other hand, was actively seeking help. When we pulled in, we found him sitting on one of the old utility poles that my grandpa had tipped over to mark the edges of the parking lot. His head had been in his hands but he jerked it up to frown at my car.
“Where’s the key? How do I turn the lights on?” he demanded when Shane and I got out.
“Hello. Let’s go see how bad it is,” I answered. I had the key to let us in, and we were greeted by a terrible smell. The power was definitely off (apparently, my mom had given up on paying the utility bills, which didn’t really surprise me). It was very dark and I immediately turned to check on Shane, but he was busy trying to force open windows (there was no way, not with the water damage to the frames after we’d had the flooding). Weeks before, I had been here to collect some of the inventory, things we’d been able to cook at home, but our residential fridge hadn’t had the space for much and someone else was supposed to have thrown away the rest…
“Max, you never cleaned out the coolers! It was the one thing that Mom asked you to do,” I said. I pulled my T-shirt (Shane’s T-shirt) over my nose but it did little to block the odor.
He pretended like he hadn’t heard me. “Do you know anything about construction?” he asked Shane.
