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“Yeah. Where to?”
“To pick up my new sex-mobile?”
I sit up on the couch and rub my face, rolling my eyes even though he can’t see me.
“Your what?”
“I got a car. It’s waiting at the used dealership in Sheridan,” he says.
I can tell by the sound of his voice, Jesse is bouncing off the walls with excitement. Jesse’s been saving up for a long time to be able to afford a car. Jesse and I are practically brothers. When he was left without any real caregiver, my parents helped him out. They offered more than once to buy him a car, but he was insistent on buying his own. I don’t think he realized how long he’d have to save up for one. I let him know I’ll be there to get him in ten minutes and end the call.
When we pull into the used dealership, there’s a car out front with a big red bow on it. I shouldn’t be surprised, but I still laugh.
“You didn’t,” I say between laughs.
Jesse grins at me like a kid who’s been given permission to say a bad word and jumps out of the car as soon as I have it in park. I get out and follow him over to his new car. A bright yellow, MINI-Cooper. It’s hideous, but Jesse is beaming, so I won’t rain on his parade. The car salesperson shakes his hand and holds out the keys to him. We both laugh when Jesse does, in fact, hit his head trying to get in.
Once he finds his way inside the tiny car, he gives us a big two-thumbs up and I lose it. I’m doubled over, I’m laughing so hard. I nearly hyperventilate when he honks the horn as he pulls away and it makes a high pitched beeping that reminds me of a TV clown car. After catching my breath, I walk back to my car and head home.
“Emily, are you home?” I yell when I come through the front door.
I don’t get a response, but I can hear pop music coming from my little sister’s room upstairs.
Emily and I have always been close, even though I’m almost a decade older than her. If the guys on the team knew how many times I’ve been roped into playing tea-party over the years, I’d never hear the end of it. She and I haven’t spent any time together recently though since I stopped letting her visit me in the hospital. I didn’t want too many of her childhood memories plagued with seeing me weak and frail in the oversized bed, with tubes and wires attached to every available surface.
I knock on her door and finally get a “come in,” response yelled from inside her room.
I open the door and she’s sitting on her bed, scrolling through her phone. I cringe when I think about what I was doing on my phone a few hours earlier. What if my sweet, innocent, baby sister is put in some jack-holes phone one day the way I put girls in mine? Now I’m even more glad I deleted them all.
“Wanna go get ice cream?” I ask her.
“Yeah!” she says, jumping off her bed and hurrying to put her shoes on.
We end up at the diner because Emily says she wants onion rings and a milkshake. Madison’s working and Emily runs up to her, giving her a big hug as soon as she sees her. I know Madison and Henderson took Emily out for little adventures while I was sick; shopping trips at the mall in Sheridan and afternoons here at the diner. Emily clearly got attached to Madison and by the look of the smile on Madison’s face and the way she hugs Emily back tightly, I’d say the feeling is mutual.
We sit down at the counter and order two chocolate milkshakes and an order of onion rings to share. Madison makes a fake gagging noise when she sees us dip the onion rings in the milkshakes. Emily finds this hilarious. It’s so nice to hear her sweet laugh again.
“Are you gonna die?” Emily asks out of the blue while she dips another onion ring into her shake.
I nearly choke on my own milkshake.
I know Mom and Dad have been pretty honest with Emily. She’s not quite a little kid anymore and they knew she could handle the truth, but this is still surprising.
“Why would you ask that Emily?”
“Because Brixley at school said her grandpa had leukemia, and he died.”
She’s still not looking at me, but I’m not going to make her. And what the hell kind of name is Brixley? I never thought about kids at school reacting to Emily having a sick brother and the problems it might cause her.
“We’re all going to die eventually, Em, but I’m not dying right now,” I tell her, because according to my doctors, it’s the truth.
“Okay,” she says and continues dunking her onion rings in her shake, satisfied with my answer.
A little while later, she asks for quarters for the jukebox. She puts on an Elvis song and I smile. Madison is clearly responsible for this new taste in music. Emily dances around in the diner and soon Madison has joined her. The two of them are twirling around and bumping hips. I watch them, laugh and think about how much I need to make more time for finding the joy in little moments like this. I need to find and capture the joy while I still have the chance. I don’t want to call this a second chance, because that doesn’t feel right, but I don’t want to waste another minute of my life being anyone or anything but the best version of myself.
And that starts with joining these two in their ridiculous dance party. I get up and shake my hips, poorly and embarrassingly I’m sure, all the way over to Emily and Madison, who are now luring me to them like I’m a fish they’ve caught. It’s a small moment in time I hope I remember for the rest of my life, however long that is.
Chapter ten
