16. They’re a Feature
They’re a Feature
Melody
The dent groaned as he pulled open the passenger door, the Wile E. Coyote sticker mocking me from when I’d lost control of my car over black ice and slid into a tree. The tree was unharmed, of course, but I was uninsured. So I never got it fixed.
Greg kept his fingers on my lower back as I climbed up into the seat, feeling Marc and Miriam’s eyes burning into the back of my head.
“Are you okay?” Miriam’s high, uncertain voice broke my heart as dizziness and exhaustion set in, making me slouch into the seat.
“I’m okay.” I could barely look at her as my stomach turned, having to breathe through my nose to keep from puking.
“You don’t look it,” Marc said. Ever the unhelpful little shit. Teenage boys…
“I’m fine.”
The truck dipped to one side as Greg got in, the fuzzy yellow puffball of my key dangling from his hand as he searched for the ignition.
“Hey kids,” Greg said, looking at Miriam and Marc in the rearview mirror. “I’m coming over for a sleepover. Hope you guys don’t mind.”
Miriam and Marc looked at each other, about to open their mouths when Greg interrupted with, “You guys hungry?”
Yes. Teenagers were always hungry. They ate like charging bull elephants, devouring everything in their wake.
If I closed the fridge door on any leftovers, I’d blink and find Marcus stuffing it down his throat, then whining about how I never fed him.
Miriam was a little better, but not because she wasn’t hungry.
She just forgot to eat. If I left her to her own devices—to her studies—she’d forget to lift her head to breathe.
I did not have time to be sick.
“What’re you guys hankering for? Pizza? Thai food? Sushi?” Greg continued.
“Oh!” Miriam perked up. “I’ll take a red curry duck from the Thai place down in Cobblerkill!”
“Alright, red curry duck.” Greg nodded as he pulled out of the parking spot. “What about you, brother?”
Marc crossed his arms, not even bothering to give Greg a chance.
“I don’t eat that kind of stuff!” He rolled his eyes as if a little culture would kill him. As a moody teen trying to fit in with the likes of the Grays, then yeah, it was possible…
“Burger and fries sound good? How about a double from Farm Table?” Greg named one of the biggest farm-to-table style restaurants, complete with a slaughterhouse on the property where they raised grass-fed cows, over in Middlebrook. Pricey. “Bacon? You like pickles? Curly fries or sweet potatoes?”
Marc looked at me through the rearview mirror, as if asking for permission to say yes. My mouth opened and closed. I nodded to him, but Greg noticed it first.
“They both deliver, so why not?” Greg reached over and placed a hand on my thigh, giving it a squeeze. “I’m in the mood for Thai and burgers. Might as well get both. You strike me as a sushi kind of gal, though.”
Marc snorted. “Yeah, she loves sushi. Always used to get those fancy Phoenix Rolls from the Kabuki place in Albany.”
My eyes widened in surprise, “You remember that?”
We hadn’t gone in almost seven years. I was newly eighteen.
They were practically still babies. It was my birthday dinner.
I remembered, because that night, when Miriam and Marc had gone to bed, Luke whispered how much I reminded him of my mother.
He got drunk and wept that I was abandoning him by going to college. That I belonged at home. With him.
I packed my things in the middle of the night and slept in my truck for two months because the dorms didn’t open until that fall.
“Yeah,” Marc said with a shrug and a voice laced with bitterness. “You disappeared right after.”
I turned back, hands between my thighs.
“Albany’s a bit far for delivery, sweetheart, but maybe Mr. Ken’s Sushi in Middlebrook has something.” He was acting like getting shot one day, then being run over by a douche bag brand of a car were just run-of-the-mill occurrences! Like I was . “You like tempura?”
“I’m not hungry.” I’d already tallied the cost of everything—plus time, plus delivery fees—in my head. We couldn’t’ afford it.
“Yes, you are.”
“No! I’m not,” I snapped. We couldn’t afford this!
If he paid for everything…I didn’t have any idea how I would ever repay him.
Unless…was he that kind of man? The kind that would expect something? No. I was sure of it. Right?
“Marc, you never answered. What kind of fries do you like?” Greg was tapping his thumb on the steering wheel.
It felt like Greg had just swerved the entire conversation. He wasn’t going to take no for an answer, and the more he talked about it, the harder it would be for me to stop him.
I wanted to hate him for it, but…with all the pain in my body, the swirl of emotions that mixed inside my overwhelmed heart, and everything else…it was so nice to just have someone take charge. Someone was taking care of things. Someone was taking the mental load for once, and I was
Like he’d twirled me around as if he were a masterful ballroom dancer, turning me exactly where he wanted me to go.
They talked about fries and pickles and onions, and Greg had everyone’s order in his head by the time he parked my car in our driveway, the unlit house silhouetted by the blanket of stars from the early autumn evening.
Marcus and Miriam got out of the truck and sauntered up the steps, careful to miss the one creaky floorboard that was getting a bit hazardous as they went into the house and turned on all the downstairs lights.
Greg’s phone was in his hand, thumb over the dial button with the number of the Thai place already prepped.
“Come on, let’s get you inside.” Greg stepped out without looking at me, phone to his ear as he opened my door, reached over my lap, and clicked off my seatbelt. As he held out his hand for me to take, I felt his warmth through my clothes.
It seemed like second nature to him. Like he’d done this a thousand times. Or perhaps he had done it a thousand times—with someone else.
I knew nothing about this man. I didn’t even know if he had a wife or kids. Though he probably didn’t, because he lived in a barn loft and I’d never seen kids. Surely, he would have said something…right?
He was already placing Miriam’s order when he shut the passenger door, lightly placing his hand on the small of my back as we walked up the porch steps.
Greg hung up and almost fell flat on his face; his foot caught the board that had come undone, one side of it flipping on its hinges, held only by two rusted nails.
“Damn!” he yelled with a grunt as he righted himself. “That’s a hazard!”
He stared at the now out-of-place plank as if it had personally insulted him.
“Yeah, well…the hazards in this house are so numerous, they’re not even a flaw. They’re a feature.”
“Like the dent on the truck?” He chuckled.
“That’s a load bearing dent, thank you very much!”
He looked me dead in the eyes, unamused but still with a twinkle in those green depths.
“I’m gonna bring my tools tomorrow and fix this deck.”
I huffed a laugh. “The only thing that’ll fix this deck is a lightning strike and a controlled burn.”
“I’m not an arsonist, but I got a sledgehammer and a tow truck that can empty right into the dump.” He shrugged at the half-fallen structure.
Greg demolishing this piece-of-shit deck with a sledgehammer—a deck Luke had made himself but had done in the dumbest way possible—felt like a favor.
Luke had not been a handy man. But he was so proud of his rural roots that he wanted us to believe he was.
The deck had been built very well. It was perfectly level.
So level, in fact, that water never ran off.
Instead, it collected between the wood, slowly causing rot until the planks shriveled and held on for dear life.
Seven years after he’d built it, stained it, and made me compliment him for his great work, it was now a fucking danger to everyone.
“I might help you,” I whispered, wondering what it would feel like to take an axe to all of this. To break it into splinters, then put it in a pile and light it on fire.
“You’ll need to not have a TBI, and some food in your belly.
Don’t argue with me.” Greg lifted a finger.
“I got two of what Miriam likes so you have leftovers. Plus extra white rice and fried rice, so you can eat some of that, too. Now I’m gonna order a burger for you, me, and both of those kids, plus all the fries I can stuff into your fridge, because I know for a fact that Farm Table’s sweet potato curly fries taste divine when reheated in an air fryer. ”
He reached the front door first, holding it open to let me into my own damn house.
“And I don’t want you insulting me by talking about paying me back, ya hear?” He was already dialing the next number. “I’ll be in once I’m done with the call. I don’t wanna let the bought air out.”
He shut the door behind him, staying on the porch while I was left inside. Bought air? What did that mean?
“Uhm, we don’t wear shoes inside the house,” I yelled through the door.
All I got was a grunted, “No worries,” in response.
I expected pushback. The Grays, when they deigned to visit, always stomped through even though they knew we took off our shoes at the door.
After my mom mentioned it the first time, it was like they made a point of muddying their shoes, ensuring she had something to clean. Greg was not like them. Not at all.
I walked into the kitchen where Miriam set the table while Marc was on his phone, scrolling through something or other.
As I prepared myself a chamomile tea, I could almost hear Greg’s muffled voice through the wall. It didn’t sound like he was on a call about burgers and fries, but it was hard to tell, and I had a splitting headache.
Miriam reached over and poured hot water into my mug. I thanked her, rubbing my hand across her shoulders and giving them a squeeze. She was a good kid. A really good kid.
Minutes ticked by.
“So is he our new daddy?” Marc asked without looking up from his phone. “You need a fucking man to get you out of the pit we live in?”
“Marc!” I snapped. “He’s just… our neighbor.”
I had no idea what to say.
“Yeah?” Marc turned his eyes, bright with accusation, to me.
“And what? You’re gonna prove everyone right about you and your mom.
You need a man to keep paying your bills.
He’s a bum! He’s probably only here because he’s sick of living in a barn, and since you have no friends, thinks you’re an easy target. That’s what everyone—”
My hand was up, fingers splayed. I’d crossed the space between us, and I would have slapped him. I wanted to slap him. But I couldn’t.
Because somewhere deep in his eyes was the little baby I’d held when I was eight years old.
The toddler I’d played with when I was a teen.
The child who’d crawled into my bed on rainy nights when the thunder roared.
He’d wrap his arms around my neck, and even while he shivered, told me that he was there to keep me safe.
Somewhere in him was that kid I loved and the man he could be if I just kept my shit together. But I was far, far, from being able to keep it together.
My open palm closed into a fist and I dropped at it at my side, ashamed of myself.
“Apologize.” Greg’s even, quiet voice echoed in the kitchen.
“I’m sorry,” I said immediately, staring at my hand.
He isn’t Luke. He’d never hurt me. Not really. Not intentionally.
The only thing he’d ever hurt was a bit of furniture. And here I was…maybe I was the problem here. In fact, I knew I probably was.
“Not you. Him.” Greg was on us in an instant, looming over Marc with wild, angry eyes, ready to visit violence on my brother if he disobeyed. “You have no fucking idea how good you’ve got it, boy! Show a little respect for the person keeping your life afloat!”
I grabbed Greg by the arm, pulling him back. “Don’t you talk to him like that!”
Greg let me shove him away. I knew he let me, because he had a good fifty or more pounds on me, and he towered like a fucking Alp. He stepped back not because I had made him step back, but because he had let me make him step back.
“You see that?” Greg glared at Marc. “You see how she’ll put herself between me and you? How she’ll get herself beat to protect you?”
I refused to move.
“Apologize to her.” It was a command. “Now.”
Silence hung heavy. I would not let this man touch my brother. Not now, not ever. No one would ever touch us again.
“I’m sorry,” Marc whispered. His apology was so sudden it almost made me jump, even though it had been so quiet.
He’d never—never!—apologized to me before. Not once, at least not in the last year, had he even given me anything like gratitude or remorse. It took the wind out of my sails.