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My heart rate kicks up when Knox grins before announcing, “He refused to get a haircut, but no amount of unkempt locks can taint the Howell genes.”
Aware he has me on tenterhooks, he kicks at my tennis-shoe-covered foot with his designer polished black boot before pulling open the tinted door of his pricy ride with dramatic flair.
When River’s eyes jerk up from the tablet playing a current episode ofLove Connection, his pupils widen before his mouth gapes.
“Laken?” he queries, like I’ve aged a hundred years in the past nine, so he no longer recognizes me.
My reasoning is plausible. I didn’t want him to see me in a prison jumpsuit while surrounded by men who’d yell at him if he attempted to hug me, so I asked Knox to tell him I was housed in an interstate prison that didn’t allow visitors.
River has an affectionate soul, and he refuses to contemplate anyone’s dislike of hugging. If denied the possibility of greeting me with a hug, he would have a meltdown, so I did what was needed to ensure his happiness wasn’t impacted by my decision to plead guilty.
“Laken,” River murmurs again when the hint of an orange tinge in my cropped beard and the fond twinkle in my eye can’t be denied.
After tossing his tablet onto the seat next to him and clambering out of the car the best he can without crinkling his freshly pressed suit, he throws himself into my arms, almost knocking me over.
With an extra chromosome hindering his physical growth, his head slots below my chin, but there’s a lot of oomph to his tiny stature.
He was of average weight and length at birth but fell behind his peers during his schooling years. His short stature has never affected his attitude, though. He’s been a menace to society since he was born, and although his care is technically still under our mother's guardianship, he’s been on my watch full time since I was eleven.
Our mother was only nineteen when she had River. She was already struggling to make ends meet with two children under four, but River’s Down syndrome diagnosis was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
She couldn’t afford to take him to the specialists who’d help him reach the milestones in development and growth, let alone purchase the formula needed for a baby with severe colic, so her care disintegrated quickly during his first two years of life.
The more our mother stepped back from the role of parent in the four years following, the more responsibility I had to take on.
I should resent River since most of my childhood was spent raising him, but he’s taught me more about compassion, understanding, and love than our mother ever could have. He is my reason to breathe. Though, at the moment, his body-crushing hug isn’t allowing much air to reach my lungs.
“He said we were getting something to eat,” River announces in my ear, still grasping me to death. “I should have known he was up to something when he made me wear a suit.” He holds on tight for a few more seconds before he eventually lets go so he can issue Knox a death stare that cuts worse than a knife. “I would have agreed to a haircut if you said it was for Laken.”
I grin when Knox rolls his eyes before messing up River’s almost shoulder-length locks. “The number of lies he’s told the past nine years hasn’t made him a better liar. He’s still the worst.”
“Am not,” River denies, his tone too high for someone telling the truth. His almond-shaped eyes tilt a little higher when teasing morphs his face. “I told you last week that the girl you brought home was hot, and you believed me.” Knox scoffs at him as if insulted before briskly walking around the SUV and sliding into the driver’s seat. “She looked like a shovel hit her in the face, and that’s coming from someone with flat facial features.”
River often uses his diagnosis for joke material. The school psychologist I questioned about it said it’s a standard coping mechanism for those with DS, and unless I believe it is causing him mental harm, I shouldn’t discourage him from using humor to diffuse a situation.
“You can’t exactly pick on someone by using their punchlines against them,” the psychologist said.
I wanted to deck him that day, but after watching River take down a schoolyard bully in the exact manner he mentioned only minutes after our appointment, I realized he was right.
The bully had nothing to come back with because River had used all the suitable material. Not even the “don’t be mad that the girls want me for the extra chromosome you can’t give them” could be retorted.
River also has the Howells’ looks and charm. He simply rocks an extra chromosome that saw him gaining as much attention as Knox and me when we attended after-school events.
Sometimes he even stole the limelight.
It pissed Knox off more than it did me. Though he’d never admit that if it would risk him losing the world’s best wingman.
River is a lady magnet, even more so when it is announced he was raised by his brother, who is only three and a half years older than him. It has everyone looking at me like I’m a big softie—another reason I denied my little bro’s many requests to visit me in prison.
I needed more than a “touch my brother and die” vibe to survive a maximum security penitentiary. I had to become the title my name will forever be associated with.
Murderer.
2
NICOLE
“It’s one night. What’s the worst thing that could happen?” says Jenni, a daredevil mother of two wrapped in a humble-looking package.
