Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
R onan
I watch Kate walk to her car, making sure to hide behind the curtains when she looks up. She looks exactly the same as I remember her. Beautiful and sweet, just like she was when she was mine.
Life after me has been good to her. I wish I could be happy about that, but all I feel is jealousy. I want to be happy like her. Like anyone. I just can’t.
She drives away, leaving me standing in front of my bedroom windows staring out at a sunny day that will be another one I spend in this room. As much as I know Matthias and Ava think they’re helping, I hate this place now. It only serves to remind me of what I used to be, and that’s the last goddamned thing I need to focus on.
On my way back to bed, I catch a glimpse of that picture of me playing shortstop in that game in college where I hit a homerun. Never as great a hitter as I was a fielder, watching that ball sail over the back fence was the greatest feeling in the world.
What I’d give now to feel even half that good.
That picture only reminds me of what I’ll never have, and I hate that. I shouldn’t have to see what could have fucking been every time I open my eyes.
Full of rage, I clumsily grab the picture frame and tear it off the wall, my left hand barely able to hold onto it as I decide where to hide it so I never have to see it again. It falls from my grasp since my left hand isn’t nearly as strong as it needs to be, and I watch as the glass covering the picture shatters at my feet.
“Hey, you okay?” a voice asks behind me, and I look back to see a strange woman with blond hair up in a ponytail and what looks like some white stain on her black t-shirt that travels all the way down to her jeans.
“Go away.”
She grimaces at me and rolls her eyes. “Okay. I’ll take that as a yes.”
When she does as I order her to, I’m relieved. I don’t need some stranger chatting me up. I barely tolerate my own family talking to me.
I stare down at the broken glass and the disheveled picture and wood frame sitting in pieces and shake my head. Whatever made me think I was going to be a major league player?
“So, Ava asked me if I’d give her a hand cleaning this up since she’s feeding the boys,” the woman announces when she walks into my room uninvited with a broom and dustpan in her hands.
“What about go away can’t you comprehend?” I snap.
She looks me up and down and shrugs. “Nothing. Doesn’t change the fact that I need to clean this mess up. Be careful. I see you aren’t wearing shoes.”
I look down my body and see a hint of blood just below where my gray sweatpants end. Wonderful. I’ve already cut my right foot on the glass.
Hobbling into my bathroom, I sit down on the side of the tub and then realize I didn’t grab a Band-Aid first. Could this fucking day get any worse? Frustrated, I stand up and hobble on one foot over to the linen closet where they’re kept.
Once more, I sit down on the edge of the bathtub and try to open the bandage wrapper, but since I only have one goddamned hand, it doesn’t happen. This is why I don’t get out of bed. How the fuck am I supposed to get the Band-Aid on if I can’t even open the paper over it?
“Here, let me help,” the strange woman says as she walks toward me.
Who the fuck is this person, and why does she think it’s okay to intrude on me when I’m in the fucking bathroom? My fucking bathroom.
“You don’t take a hint very well, do you?” I say as she snatches the Band-Aid out of my grasp.
She easily tears off the paper and the plastic on the back of the bandage. “There you go. One Band-Aid all ready to go.”
I try my best to put it over the cut on the top of my foot, but I can’t because my left hand seems to have a mind of its own. Utterly disgusted, I toss the useless Band-Aid onto the floor and stand up to get another one.
“Okay, see, there’s the problem. You can’t expect it to work on the floor. Let me get you another one, and this time I’ll help. Hang on. In fact, sit back down, okay?” the woman says like I’m aggravating her.
I’m not the one who’s intruding on another person’s privacy.
A couple seconds later, she turns back toward me with the bandage hanging off her hand. I watch as she grabs a white washcloth and wets it under the warm water.
“First off, you should clean the cut, so that’s what I’m going to do. Then I’ll dry it off and put the Band-Aid on, and you’ll be as good as new.”
As she does exactly as she said, I grumble, “I could have done all that myself. I’m not an idiot.”
She doesn’t respond to that, and when she gets the bandage onto my skin and actually covering the cut, she stands up and smiles at me. “All good! Need anything else?”
“I didn’t need that,” I say as I stand up from the side of the tub.
“You’re welcome.”
Glaring at her, I answer, “I didn’t say thank you.”
That stops her, and finally, her helpful facade disappears. “What is your problem anyway? I saw you needed help, so I helped. What’s wrong with that?”
I push past her to walk out into the bedroom and step on another sliver of glass, this time cutting the side of my foot. As much as I don’t want her to see me react, I let out a tiny cry, mostly of disgust that I have to do that whole fucking Band-Aid routine again.
Spinning around, I walk back into the bathroom and grab the box of Band-Aids. She stands in front of me, blocking my way.
“Everyone else here is nice. What’s wrong with you to make you so curmudgeonly?”
Jesus, is she here to make my day even worse?
“I’m a little young to be curmudgeonly,” I answer. “Now can you move so I can sit down and put another goddamned Band-Aid on?”
“I’ll make you a deal. If you promise to be nice, I’ll help you this time too. If not, then you’re just going to have to bleed out here because I’m not budging.”
Her words make me wish I’d never gotten out of bed today. “Who are you?”
That makes her smile, and as I’m noticing how much her brown eyes light up when she’s happy, she takes the box of Band-Aids out of my hand. “Sabrina. Nice to meet you. And you are?”
I don’t know why I don’t push her out of my bathroom and slam the door shut, but I answer her question, if only to get things moving so she’ll leave me the hell alone. “Ronan.”
“Nice to meet you, Ronan. Now sit down on the tub, and we’ll clean this one up too. By the way, walking around in bare feet when there’s glass around isn’t a smart idea. You might get really hurt.”
As I sit down again, I mumble, “I’ve already been really hurt.”
She crouches down in front of me and shakes her head. “This isn’t that bad. I’ll have this cleaned up and bandaged in no time.”
I hold my right arm up for her to see. “That’s not what I meant.”
While she repeats on the side of my foot what she just finished on the top a couple minutes ago, she hums. “I’m guessing you weren’t born like that by the way you said you were already hurt.”
Shaking my head, I stare at where my hand should be. “No.”
When she finishes with the second cut on my foot, she stands up with the wrapper and the washcloth stained with my blood. Looking at me, she says, “Good thing you have another one.”
“Another one?” I ask, confused as to what she means.
She points at my left hand. “Another hand. You had two, and now you have one.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“I think it is.”
I can’t decide if this person is merely frustrating my efforts to be miserable or seriously is trying to be an asshole about my lost hand. Who the hell says that kind of thing to someone who’s lost a fucking part of their body?
Once more, I push past her and walk back out into my room, but this time I make sure to stay far away from the broken glass from the picture frame. “Exactly what is your reason for being in my house? It’s quite clear you’re not a nurse. You have no bedside manner at all.”
Behind me, she laughs, and I turn around to see her sweeping up the last of the glass into the dustpan. “What was funny about that? If you are a nurse, you suck at it.”
Finished with cleaning up, she stands to her full height, which can’t be more than five and a half feet tall. Jutting her hip out, she’s full of attitude when she snaps back at me, “I never said I was a nurse. I’m here to help Ava with those beautiful little babies. I was just trying to be nice to someone who looked like they needed it. I get you’re all about being miserable, or better yet, curmudgeonly, but maybe you could be thankful for the help.”
Maybe she can go fuck herself with that thankful bullshit. I didn’t ask for her help. I could have gotten that Band-Aid on quite nicely myself. And if she hadn’t been in the way, I never would have cut my foot a second time.
I consider telling her all of that as I sit back down on my bed, but I don’t bother.
“Nice meeting you, Ronan. Let’s hope our next time chatting is nicer,” she says as she walks out of my room.
“I’ve got a better idea. How about we never talk again? That means stay away from me. Got it?”
She doesn’t answer me. That’s okay. I don’t need to talk to her anymore anyway.
At dinnertime, Eleanor brings me a tray with food and a glass of Coke like every night. I pretend to be asleep so I don’t have to talk to her, but when I hear the door close, I quickly sit up and inspect what she brought me to eat.
A pork chop, her homemade stuffing, and green beans with a side of applesauce.
Memories of her making this for all of us when I was a little boy flood my mind, particularly the one time that sticks out among all the others. It was right around when we all found out my mother was sick. The entire house felt like a funeral home, but my mother didn’t want us to be mourning her while she was still alive, so she pulled herself out of bed and made her way down to the kitchen to help Eleanor make dinner.
That night, we ate my father’s favorite meal, pork chops with applesauce and gravy. I never liked gravy, but the pork tasted so good when I dunked it into the applesauce. The seven of us sat around the kitchen table and talked about our day at school and what homework we had like any other family.
Except we weren’t any other family. We were a family slowly losing our mother and wife.
We never had another family dinner like that again. My mother died a month later, and after she was gone, my father could barely bring himself to eat, much less sit around the table like everything was normal.
Because it wasn’t. Not for him, and not for us.
Dinner turns out to be delicious, and I enjoy it more than I expected after the shitty day I had. I know Ava needs help since she and Matthias have two children who are so young, but does that mean I have to deal with this Sabrina person sticking her nose into my business?
I need to have a talk with her or my brother and make it clear if they’re going to insist I stay here with them, then they need to keep their little babysitter out of my way. Since there’s no time like the present, I slip on my slides and head downstairs where I hear voices that sound like they’re all in the kitchen eating dinner.
When I turn the corner into the kitchen, I find Ava and Matthias sitting alone with little Theo in his high chair. Everyone looks surprised to see me, but they hurriedly attempt to make me feel welcome.
“Ronan, I didn’t realize you were going to come out of your room today,” Ava says in that chipper voice I know she’s forcing because she wants me to be happy. “I wouldn’t have had Eleanor bring you up a plate if I knew. Come! Sit down with us. Matty is upstairs since he ate already, but Theo is here with us.”
My brother simply looks at me like he always has. I’m just his youngest brother interrupting his dinner with his wife and son. I don’t think he resents me for that. He just isn’t as cheery as Ava.
I sit down next to him and say, “We need to talk about whoever that Sabrina person is.”
Matthias looks confused, but Ava quickly says, “Oh, she’s been a godsend already, and it’s only been one day. She’s living here, so I’m sure you’ll get to see her.”
Turning to look at Ava, I don’t try to hide my disgust when I say, “I already met her. She walked into my room uninvited and proceeded to get in the way.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Ronan. She probably didn’t know you were there. I’ll talk to her.”
“She knew just fine I was there. She said you wanted her to clean up the mess I made when I dropped a picture and the glass broke all over the floor.”
For a second, Ava doesn’t seem to know what I’m talking about, but then I see recognition in her eyes. “Oh, that’s right. Yeah, I asked her to help because Eleanor and I were busy down here. She didn’t mean any harm. I’m sorry if you didn’t like her helping.”
Great. Now I sound like an asshole because I’m complaining about someone helping Ava.
“It’s not that I don’t like her helping you. I didn’t like her barging into my room.”
Before I can continue, the baby screams and throws some kind of cookie that looks like he’s been gumming it to death for hours. The soggy brown thing lands on the table between my brother and me, and immediately, his attention is on that and not on the issue I want to discuss.
Matthias laughs and picks it up with a napkin. “Sorry, Ronan. What were you saying? Theo distracted me. Something about your room?”
“Yeah. Keep your babysitter out of my room,” I say as I stand up to leave.
Both Matthias and Ava stare up at me with that same look in their eyes I’ve seen nearly every moment I’ve been back here. It’s a mixture of pity and concern with a tiny hint of frustration rolled in.
“I’m sure she didn’t mean any harm, Ronan, but Ava and I will explain to her that you don’t want to be bothered. I’m sure she’ll understand.”
Now the frustration comes through loud and clear in his voice, even as he works to keep his expression looking like he’s happy. Terrific. Like I’m the bad guy because I don’t want strangers waltzing into my damn room whenever they please.
“And if you’re thinking of having anyone else over to bother me, Kate, for example, forget it. I don’t need anyone coming to see me thinking they’re going to cheer me up. Okay?”
I see in Ava’s expression she’s dying to tell me that Kate meant no harm and she only wanted to make sure I was okay, but she doesn’t say a word about that. Only Matthias speaks, and I get the sense he just wants me to go away at this moment so he can go back to enjoying his dinner with Ava and the baby.
“Got it. No more visits from anyone. I hope you’ll understand if we have guests here to visit us, but I’ll make sure nobody bothers you again.”
He says that, but I’ll bet money before the week is out, he or one of my other brothers will be marching into my room doing their best cheering up routine like they have since I came to stay here. I’d tell him to make sure he doesn’t let Kellen or Marius bother me either, but I know that won’t happen.
Even though I’ve told them dozens of times I don’t want visitors or anyone coming to see me, they insist on popping in. They think they’re helping. They’re not. All their visits do is remind me that I used to be like them and now I’m not.
I used to be normal. Now I’m just broken.