23. Chapter 23
“Hey, Linds. Listen, I know you hate me, and you have every right. I should’ve told you about the money. I should’ve told you a lot of things. I don’t know why I didn’t. I’m sorry. If you could just…I’m sorry.”
From her car in the driveway, Lindsey listened to the voicemail Jase left her in California, then listened again. I should’ve told you a lot of things. What would he have said if he found her at the airport?
The old stone house looming above her was lit up as if everyone was home.
Lindsey put the phone in her purse after the fourth listen and pulled a suitcase from the back of her Jeep.
Her entire wardrobe, including winter coats and boots, was out of her apartment now.
After Helen left, Lindsey posted her furniture for sale online, and she was already getting messages.
Her couch, chairs, bed, and kitchen table would all be gone soon too.
Opening the front door, Lindsey heard Jase and Graham’s voices echoing from the den. She left her suitcase at the foot of the stairs and found Helen watching the men from the alcove.
“Another thing I never thought I’d see,” Helen told Lindsey quietly.
One of the leather sofas had been pushed within a few feet of the TV, and sitting side by side were the Young brothers.
“Get the warp whistle! Get the warp whistle!” Jase hollered.
“There isn’t one on this level,” Graham shot back.
“Yes, there is. Give me the controller.”
“Get off me. You’re thinking of the extra life, idiot.”
“There’s a whistle.”
“No, it’s in level three.”
“I never should’ve let you be Mario.”
The brothers had warp-whistled back into little boys, hunched over controllers playing an old Nintendo game, a bag of potato chips between them and a two-liter bottle of soda on the floor by Graham’s feet.
“Don’t be such a puss.”
Maybe not so little.
Lindsey started backing away before they noticed her.
“You good?” Helen asked.
Lindsey nodded despite the terrible understanding taking root inside her. They were a family without her. Jase, Graham, even Helen. Dysfunctional to the core, but family. Brothers. A man and a woman in love, engaged. They belonged together.
Her name on a deed didn’t make her family. Lindsey was the only one who didn’t fit.
She dragged her luggage upstairs and closed the spare bedroom door behind her.
The spare room.
The spare, just like me.