– Scotch –
Housekeeping!
“Happy birrrrrttttthday, to youuuuu.”
I roll my eyes at Alex’s stupid ass singing, and Luc’s obnoxiously loud drumming on the kitchen table, but the smile can’t be wiped from my face as I blow out the candles on the chocolate mud cake my little sister baked for me.
I’m thirty-two today. Thirty-two. Single. And surprisingly, pretty happy with life.
I have a chunky baby nephew, and a brand new – almost – sister in law named Juliette. She might be one of the prettiest women I know, and she’s kind and sassy to boot. Alex is giddy in love, and though it’s fun to tease the usually stoic and serious guy, I’m stoked for him and his happiness.
Alex still walks around stiff and sore from an injury a couple months ago, but he’s alive and well, and there were moments we weren’t sure he would be. Things have changed for me since we got the call that he’d been shot in the line of duty. Things I took for granted suddenly weren’t so inconsequential. Family meant more than it ever did before, and even my mom’s batshit rants about my non-existent love life stopped bothering me.
Angelo’s rant about me moving on came only a day before Alex was hurt, and as though a switch was flipped, my world started to fall back into place.
A teenage girl once took my puzzle. She smashed it up and hid a few pieces. I spent more than a decade searching for those pieces, bitterly sitting at the kitchen table like an old lady as I tried in vain to force what I had left, together. But Alex’s near miss somehow helped me see the new puzzle. It might be smaller, it doesn’t make the same image it used to, it might not even be as vibrant and shiny as before, but it’s okay, because the picture it makes now is nice too.
“Have some cake, baby.”
Nancy runs her fingers through my hair, gently scratching the nape of my neck as she sits on my knee, and she leans forward to accept the paper plate Britt passes.
Britt’s lips are pursed into an obnoxious sneer, and she moves on to slicing the cake up for everyone else without saying a word. She’s in a pissy mood today. She didn’t sing for me, she didn’t say happy birthday, and she refuses to hug me. But not even her bratty behavior can stop my smile today. It’s a good day. I have my whole family in one house, I have a pretty lady on my lap, and I have chocolate cake on its way to my belly.
Jules steps out from under Alex’s arm, and moving toward me, she places her hand on my shoulder and squeezes painfully. My head snaps up and our eyes lock. She’s smiling. Anyone else here would think she’s polite and kind as fuck, but her nails are digging in so deep, I’m positive she’s drawing blood.
I attempt to shrug away from her hand, but she doesn’t let up. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all. Can I see you in the other room? Pretty please, birthday boy.”
I frown at her clenched teeth and ground out words, then I turn to Nancy as she wraps her arm around my shoulder so her nails stop barely an inch from Jules’. Shit. There’ll be no girl fights in this house tonight. One, Jules is savage as hell, and two, Britt will mop up the floor with any girl that even tries. This is Britt’s childhood home, and like King Leonidas commands Sparta, Britt will annihilate any resistance without remorse.
Jules’ hand squeezes me harder, and because she scares the piss out of me, I nod quickly, then turning back to Nancy, I smile. “I’ll be back in a sec.”
Nancy’s eyes flash with worry, and she leans in closer to whisper, “I don’t know these people. You can’t take a girl to meet the family, then ditch twenty minutes in.”
Nancy and I have our faces almost pressed together, but when Jules leans in close so her nose joins ours, I swallow heavily as she smiles cheerfully. “I’m sorry, Nancy. Scotch and I work together sometimes. I just need two seconds of his time to discuss something important. I’ll bring him right back. Promise.”
“I’ll be back in a sec, okay?” I look up to my family, then zeroing in on a now smiling Britt and Kari as Luc chatters to them, I nod in their direction. “Britt’s my baby sister. And Kari too. You’ve met them both. Hang out for a sec, and I’ll be right back.”
Nancy pouts, but she nods and stands from my lap, then before I get a chance to say another word, Jules drags me from the room so fast my feet skid under me from the strength of her hold. “Juliette. Jesus, woman, can you stop?” I fix my shirt as soon as she releases me in the living room, but I step back when her glittering eyes lock onto mine.
She steps up to me like a man might in a bar fight. Her teeth are still clenched, and her finger pokes me painfully in the chest. “You have housekeeping problems.”
I shake my head in confusion, and look around Alex’s living room. “This is your house! You got dirty carpets, that’s on you.”
“No. I’m not talking about dishes and carpets, douchebag. I’m talking about you having facets of your life that you need to tie the hell up, Samuel.”
My head snaps up painfully. I never told her my name. I’ve barely heard that name more than three times in the last decade. “How do you know--”
“I can’t say anything else. I’m legally bound and I can’t say a damn thing. I could be disbarred for even saying this much, Samuel. Alex doesn’t know why we’re speaking. No one does--”
“I don’t know why we’re speaking!”
“You need to get your life in order. And you need to do it now!”
“What are you talking ab--”
“Who’s that bitch?” Britt storms into the living room and slams her fist into my shoulder. “Why would you bring a random bimbo to family night? My son is here, dumbass. He doesn’t need to know what a whore looks like yet.”
I rub a hand on my aching arm. “Jesus, Brat. What the hell’s the matter with you?”
“We told you to date, but we didn’t mean you had to bring home the first stray cat you found.”
“What’s your problem with her? She’s nice!”
“She has her claws in you. I’d bet you anything we’d find blood under your shirt right now.”
I point at Jules. “No, that was her! If anyone has claws tonight, it’s that psycho.”
“Dunno what you’re talkin’ about.” Jules pops her hip and blows on her nails. “I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday. Love you, dude.”
My eyes narrow. “Love you too, Jules. You give my brother a baby yet?”
“Ha! He’s working on it, but I’m busy with work right now. But hey, remember what I said. Go clean your house. It stinks.” She wanders out of the room, then Luc’s obnoxious heckling begins as soon as she reenters the kitchen.
I turn back to Britt’s filthy glare, and despite her terrible mood, I hold my arms out. “Give me a hug, Brat. I haven’t seen you in days. It’s my birthday and you haven’t even told me you love me yet. Even the psycho said she loved me. And by the way, I think she might already be pregnant. She’s hormonal and weird as shit.”
Britt slaps my hand away. “Not hugging your stanky ass. I don’t wanna catch the clap. I dunno about your apartment stinking, but you sure do.”
I lift the collar of my shirt and sniff. Girlie musky, with a side of flowers. “Damn, Britt. You’re being really mean to me today. In fact, you all are. This is supposed to be my birthday, and I’m the only sucker getting picked on.”
She shrugs carelessly, but eventually steps into my arms and rests her face on my chest. “I’m just looking out for you. Get a girlfriend, but the one you dragged in today ain’t her. Try again.”
Nancy is actually a sweet girl. She didn’t turn up here in hooker heels or big hair. I don’t know what Britt’s problem is, but without getting to know her at all, she’s decided Nancy isn’t worth her time.
Well that’s just too damn bad, because Nancy’s got my attention, and she’s worth my time. Wavy blonde hair down to her shoulders, brown eyes that look like melted chocolate, boobs that are at least seventy-percent fake, and zero freckles or plans to ditch town. She’s beautiful, and she’s keen to pull me out of my funk.
I’m at a point in my life that I need a damn intervention. If Nancy wants to be that for me, then so be it. Nothing else has worked so far.
In the thirteen years since I graduated high school, I’ve tried in vain to move on. The first year without Sammy, I was practically sleep walking. Class. Home. Class. Home. The lake for a run. Home.
Day in, day out, that’s all I did. I rented the apartment I’m in now before that first summer even ended. I was fed up with my family watching over me like they were on suicide watch.
I wasn’t going to kill myself. Sammy wasn’t dead, she was just gone. I wasn’t going to kill myself and risk missing out on when she’d inevitably come back.
And I was so sure she would.
I sat holed up in my apartment above the autobody shop and wrote songs. I wrote songs that, if they were read today, might induce a full-blown panic attack from my family. I wrote songs about drugs, and how a certain teenaged girl was my fix, a fix I was accustomed to getting daily. Then cold turkey, my supply line was cut off.
I wrote songs about heartbreak and the unlikelihood of healing. I wrote songs about crushed dreams and tragic deaths.
In my senior year while I knew Sammy, I could barely grow three whiskers from my chin. That very next year, I looked like a homeless bum, with hair past my shoulders and an untrimmed beard that would rival a filthy Santa.
My mom and dad came by my place and demanded I get outside immediately, or risk being moved home again where Mom could watch over me.
I got outside often enough, but you’d never know by the way I looked and the way my apartment reeked of dirty socks and week-old pizza. Eventually, my mom dragged me to the doctor and demanded they ‘do something with me.’ I was placed on anti-depressants for the next few years after grad, and although I wasn’t sure I needed them, I didn’t care enough to argue.
They gave my robotic life a soft and shimmery glossy coat. Nothing really changed for me; I didn’t suddenly regain my happiness in life, the new drugs in my system didn’t rebalance the scales in my brain and heart, but I did sleep and eat more.
In my nineteenth year, with all that running, eating, and sleeping, I shot up an additional five inches in height, but I still didn’t get out like my mom wanted.
Antidepressants killed the sex drive that was once unstoppable. In the short time we had after our first time together, Sammy and I couldn’t get enough of each other.
My good girl suddenly turned voracious and insatiable. What started out as soft and gentle in a fancy hotel bed, turned to fucking at the lake and in the back room at Dixies. We fucked at The Shed more times than I can count, and Sammy lost her blow-job virginity by going down on me after she and I parked Ang’s old car up on lookout hill.
It was sloppy and noisy, and we giggled and moaned all at once, but it was my BJ virginity too, and it felt like heaven all warmed up.
Eventually, once I started to put on too much weight and the guys were ready to put me in a car and drive me into the lake, I ditched the antidepressants and started to see the sun more. Like I was on a mission of sorts, I went searching for the map that Sammy had shown me a million times before.
She’d marked out every town she wanted to live in back when she said she wanted to escape her folks. She told me what schools she wanted to attend, and what not-for-profits she wanted to work for. I spent two years of my life, and every single cent I owned, driving around the country – not necessarily in search of Sammy herself, because it was apparent by that point that her plans had changed and I was absolutely not a part of them, but maybe in search of her ghost. I wanted to see the places that a young and romantic Sammy wanted to see. I wanted to walk through the schools that she’d built fantasies around, and I wanted to meet the receptionists and see the offices she’d never work at. I wanted to drive the main streets of the cozy little towns that Sammy dreamed of living in, and I sat in the town squares and wrote songs about what I thought her new life was like.
In my mind, Sammy’s story is that of glitz and glamor. She left me behind and went off to live the life she was already accustomed to; fancy country clubs, five-hundred-dollar a head dinners, and exclusive restaurants that are booked out months in advance. Sammy has a twenty-carat diamond ring on her finger, and just maybe, another child or two have taken up residence in the same womb mine once did.
I can see the gowns and diamonds and chandeliers clearly, but that last point is still hazy.
Did Sammy not want children at all, despite her promises that she did? Or was it just mine she didn’t want? If it was the latter, then she might have tried again, and she might be a mommy by now. If the former, then maybe she’s just a trophy for her corporate man while her perfect body remains intact.
But in all my travels, I knew I wasn’t looking for the real Sammy anymore, because the real Sammy no longer existed. And now that I’m older and allegedly wiser, I realize that maybe she never did, because the Sammy I thought I knew, the Sammy I thought I loved, would never have chosen money over love, and she’d never have aborted a baby, not even one as surprising as ours was.
Neither me, nor my baby, were a part of her meticulously thought out plans, and it’s painfully ironic to me now that she warned me. I should have expected it. She told me ‘no’ over one-hundred and fifty times when we were younger, but I forged on. Then when it was time for the next step in her plans, she dealt with us the way she did, and she moved on.
It”s poetically painful how I should have seen it coming.
Thankfully, even for poor unfortunate fools like me, life really does go on, even when it didn’t feel like it ever would. I finalized my road trip with a visit to the lake, I set fire to Sammy’s map, and while I watched the edges shrivel up and burn, I finally let her go. Like the smoke that rose into the dawn light, Sammy became an enigma, then she became nothing at all.
“Get off my wife, bitch.”
Jack steps into the living room as Britt jumps in my arms, then taking her for himself, she sighs with content as he pulls her against his own chest.
How the hell did my baby sister grow up enough to be married and a mom? Last I checked, she was nine and wanted to skate.
“You having a good birthday?”
“Yeah, it’s been good. Glad you guys made it. I’ve missed my Charlie bear.”
“Your date is hot.”
Britt pulls her arm back quickly and slams it into Jack’s shoulder, and he barks out a surprised laugh. “Don’t hit me!”
“Don’t call the bimbo hot, asshole.”
“Nobody’s as hot as you. I’m just saying, it’s nice he brought a date that has a heartbeat and a…” He stops when her eyes glitter with anger. “Never mind. I love you.”
“What did Jules want?” Britt asks once she stops glaring at Jack. She turns back to me, though she backs up so her back rests against Jack’s chest. They pretend to fight, but they both sigh in happiness when their bodies connect and his hands come down onto her hips. Gross.
“I dunno. She was being her usual vague annoying lawyer self.”
“You have a law degree too,” Britt laughs. “Does that make you annoying and vague, too?”
“But I use my powers for good,” I argue. “I don’t hurt people and say mean things on their birthday. And I get to the damn point instead of being vague and annoying.”
“Dunno,” Jack rumbles. “That sounded pretty damn vague to me.”
I step forward with a smile, because I actually really like this guy, clap him on the shoulder and continue to walk. “It’s only vague because I literally have no idea what the hell she’s talking about. But I have a date, she’s hot and has a heartbeat and… everything.” I wink at my sister, then I laugh and run when she escapes Jack’s arms and comes tearing toward me. I race into the kitchen, snatch baby Charlie from Alex’s arms and hold him up in front of me.
Charlie is almost the size of a damn toddler already. With a deep dimple in one side of his fat face, and a belly laugh that rolls up through his chunky belly, my thirty-pound nephew squirms and giggles as his mommy tries to get around him to hurt me.
“Stop hurting me, Brat. Teach your son to be a lover, not a fighter.”
Jack rolls his eyes. “That’s my boy. He’s gonna fight. You’re holding the future title holder there, Scotch. Don’t drop him.”
I pull Charlie back against my chest. I kiss his shoulder and tickle his skin with my stubble. “Love you, Charlie boy. Uncle Scotch will teach you how to play a guitar and we’ll write songs for all the pretty girls. I’ve got your back, buddy.”