The house is mostly quiet when I walk inside, apart from the music traveling down the hallway from Birdie’s bedroom. I grab a towel out of the linen closet and mop off the sweat drying on my back and chest, falling into a kitchen chair with a glass of orange juice moments later. As I’d guessed he would, Musgrave took off this morning before we woke up. Didn’t even bother to leave a note, the bastard. He’ll probably do this again in a year or so. Show up long enough to reminisce without getting too deep, then hit the bricks.
You won’t be here in a year.
I wait for the sense of purpose to flood in—the one I usually get when I think of throwing myself into another seemingly endless round of deployments. This time it’s more like a trickle, though. I’m distracted from my confusion when Birdie trips to a stop at the end of the hallway, high heels tucked under her arm. “Hey.” She looks around. “Did Kyle leave?”
“Off into the sunset. Knew he wouldn’t stick around long.”
“Seems to be a running theme with you guys.”
“Yeah.” I clear the new discomfort from my throat. “I’m here now, though. What’s, uh…what’s going on?”
She raises an eyebrow at me from the coffee pot. “Huh?”
“What are you doing today?” I nod at the heels that now sit on the kitchen counter. “You have to wear those when you practice walking?”
“Always. They never come off. I might as well have them welded on.”
“That sounds tough.”
“It’s…” My sister does a double take at me, as if she just realized we’re having a conversation. “Um, it’s not so bad. I kind of got used to them and now I feel fancy.”
“What about the dance? How’s that coming?”
She dumps some milk into her mug. “Why are you so interested?”
“Hey, I showed up to watch you waltz.”
“You showed up to watch my coach.” She holds up both hands. “Totally understandable. Not judging. She looks like two angels had a baby, but some of the devil’s DNA snuck in and gave her really nice boobs and legs just to fuck with you.” That left turn has me shifting in my chair, sending Birdie into a fit of laughter. “This isn’t going as you planned, is it?”
“No.” I do my best to stop thinking of Naomi’s tits. It’s not easy. “I guess I’ve been pretty obvious about, uh…”
“Wanting to couch the coach?”
“Jesus, Birdie.”
“Sorry.” She smiles into a sip of coffee. “This is the longest you’ve talked to me since you got home and I’m ruining it.”
A weight presses down on my chest. “I don’t want that to be the case. I need to do better.”
Her eyebrows knit together. “Need to or want to?” She lowers her coffee revealing the tugged down corners of her mouth. “I know you’re not here by choice. I don’t expect you to magically be a happy camper. Mom and Dad were like, here you go, Jason. Here’s your awkward and disturbingly emotional sibling. Good luck.”
“That’s not how it went down and that’s not how I see it.” I stand up and her eyes shoot wide, as if terrified I might try to hug her. “I wanted to be here with you, okay?” Worried I might be throwing to much brotherly love at her at once, I jerk my chin toward the cabinets. “I picked you up some sugar-free chocolate syrup. You still like to drizzle it on your cereal?”
“Yeah. Natalie used to gag every time I did it.”
Thinking back to Naomi’s story about her mother’s frown stopping her from eating potatoes, I make a mental note to never comment on what a woman chooses to eat. One dumb move and an entire food group can be ruined for them forever. “I’ve eaten expired MREs in a pinch, kid. I’m gag-proof.”
Birdie nods, watching me out of the corner of her eye as she goes through the process of testing her blood sugar and injecting insulin.
“When was the last time you saw the endocrinologist?”
She tidies up the scraps of paper and disposes of the needle. “Um. A few months ago?”
I frown. “Did I know about it?”
“No, I just went. I’ve been going alone since high school started.” In the process of removing cereal from the cabinet, she sends me a smirk over her shoulder. “It’s pretty fucked up that I have the only disease where the doctors don’t hand out lollipops after an appointment, right?”
“Yeah. It’s fucked up.” I’m not talking about the lollipops, though. My sister has been shouldering a lot on her own, without complaint. And I’ve been oblivious to it.
Naomi chooses that moment to breeze into the kitchen, looking incredible in some gauzy green shirt that has little cutouts for her shoulders. “Oh.” She smooths her hands down the thighs of her white jeans. “I saw you leave for a run. I thought…”