“They’re amazing together.”
I smiled. They really were.
“So… why do you think he’s like that, when you turned out so nice?”
Am I? Guilt crowded around my thoughts. I hadn’t been totally nice to Sam. But I was trying now.
I picked up my sandwich again and took another bite, considering his question. I was pretty sure I knew the answer. I sighed. “Anthony takes after my dad. He was a dick too, though he’s softened up as he’s gotten older. Actually, it was mostly after Mom divorced him that he got better. He fucked it up and he knew it. But growing up… I just remember he resented everything my mom loved. Like the flower farm.”
“Flower farm?”
“Didn’t I tell you I grew up on one?”
Sam shook his head. “I didn’t realize that was a thing. But I guess I never really thought about where flowers came from.”
I smiled. I liked this about Sam. Everything was a direct pipeline from head to mouth, and his thoughts were so pure. Or at least, not shitty or judgmental. He didn’t ever seem to worry about how he sounded, either, aside from looking deeply embarrassed when asking about breast pumping. I twisted my mouth so I wouldn’t start cracking up about that again. I’d loved his goofy questions, though. I loved even more that what you saw with Sam really did appear to be what you got.
“So you grew up on an actual flower farm. Like, skipping through tulips?”
“Peonies and dahlias mostly,” I said. “But yeah, pretty much.”
I told Sam how it was Mom’s lifelong dream. I was eight when she quit her corporate job and bought it. At first she commuted there to work. But it was around ninety minutes from where we lived. That lasted about six months. Then Dad said we might as well move there, since there was an old farmhouse on the property. I think he just didn’t like that he had to pick up so much of the slack with Mom gone more.
I recrossed my ankles under the bench. “The minute we got there though, all he ever did was complain. Everything was a problem.”
“But it was his idea to move?”
“Yup. Anyway, Anthony seemed to pick up on that. He idolized my dad. So he just kind of took that resentment and ran with it. Picked on me, treated me like shit, honestly. If Mom was around she’d interrupt it, but Dad never would. He was completely checked out.”
Sam looked genuinely upset. “I’m so sorry, Ellie.”
I laughed, maybe a little bitterly. “Yeah. I’ve got stories. Little things, like him tricking me into drinking from a mughe’d poured my mom’s compost water into. And bigger things, like making oinking noises every time I came into the kitchen.”
“The fuck?”
Bitterness curdled the food in my belly. I looked down at the end of my sandwich. “He used to laugh at me when I wore shorts and short sleeves, especially once I hit puberty. The whole summer I was thirteen, I just didn’t. I sweated through long-sleeved clothes and pants. Mom was so worried I was going to get heatstroke. But he never did any of his shit around her, so she thought I just had low self-esteem.”
I felt Sam’s eyes on me, and my stomach clenched with embarrassment. I hadn’t meant to share all that. When I looked at him though, he looked pissed. I’d never seen him look mad before.
His jaw clenched. “I know when people complain about their family you’re not supposed to agree with them. But your brother sounds like a fucking tool.”
I laughed. “Yeah. He was. Still is. I’m fine now, though.” Sort of. “I eat with impunity.” I threw the rest of the sandwich in my mouth, swallowing it down. “It took a lot of therapy to unpack, but now I wear shorts all the time. Fuck him. I love shorts. I love shorts on me.”
“So do I.”
His voice was so appreciative something flipped in my stomach. I didn’t wear shorts for other people, but to know Sam liked them? But I wasn’t supposed to want this from Sam. We’d established that.
He must have seen it on my face, because he said, “I meant that in a supportive friend way. Shorts are good when it’s hot out. Better than pants.”
I couldn’t help smiling. I decided to let myself enjoy the compliment. It was like a nice warm hug after revisiting those shitty memories.
I wanted to tell Sam more, like how even as an adult Anthony didn’t let up. He called me a ‘stupid slut’ when I got pregnant with Tommy, and now couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to bring my kids anywhere near him. But I didn’t want this turning into a pity party. Besides, I really was better now. I was grown, and my brother absolutely was a tool.
“I don’t let Anthony speak to me like that anymore,” I said, wiping my hands on a napkin. “I don’t really speak to him at all. It’s better that way. But I just find it funny how people talk about daddy issues all the time and no one talks about big sibling issues.”
“They should,” Sam said.
I glanced up at him. “How about you? Did you torture your sister?” I meant it to come off as a light joke, but my hand clenched around my napkin. I really needed to know. Maybe Sam had been a nightmare. Maybe he had a shadow side, specifically in the place I got hurt. It would make things a whole lot easier if I knew that about him.
