Jack
“There isno way you’re holding your side up high enough. You have to hold it higher if I’m going to clear the step.” With sweat dripping down my back, I shift the oversized chair higher.
“You’re the muscle here, Jack. I’m carrying the most I can.” Kathryn blows out a frustrated breath. “I thought you worked out, or is that just for show? That much arm bulk should be able to hoist a chair up some stairs.” She’s laughing, and it makes me laugh too.
“Benny! Your mom isn’t helping here. Can you grab her side?” I shout up the stairs. Kathryn stalks up the stairs, and as I assumed, she wasn’t carrying any part of this chair. “KATHRYN, get your ass back here right now!”
Five thumping footfalls echo in the staircase. “I got you, Uncle Jack.” The kid grabs the upper side of the chair, and we move it quickly up the tight space and into the apartment at the top. “You know Mom isn’t going to carry anything else up here now that you’re here, right?”
“Yeah, bud, I just figured that out.” Laughing, we make our way into the open loft to the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook small-town Main Street downstairs. “You want this here?”
“Move it just to where that light hangs over. That’s going to be my reading spot. I’m not sure where I want to put the TV, but I won’t want to block the windows, so yeah, that’s good right there.” Kathryn stands in the middle of the living room, biting her thumbnail. “There’s not that much stuff now that it’s all in here.”
Looking around the open loft, it pulls in a ton of natural light and has a great vibe with top-of-the-line appliances and a huge island that separates the kitchen from the dining space and living room.
“Ma, I’m going to finish unpacking my stuff. Uncle Jack, you stayin’ for a bit?” Benny leans on his elbows, and I can’t believe how grown up he looks. It's only been about a month since I saw him last, and he looks less like a boy and more like a man.
“Yup. I’ll be out here annoying your mom. Let me know if you need any help assembling that shelf.” I look back at my sister. “Is he going to unpack that whole room by himself?”
She shrugs her right shoulder. “I’ll help hang up some of his clothes later. I know he wants to get as much done as he can so he can get to that ropes course before they close.”
She grabs a box from the pile in the dining room and hoists it to the counter. I grab another and start opening some of the wrapped glasses. “Put all those in the upper cabinet next to the fridge.”
We spend the next hour unpacking and talking about Benny. We purposely avoid the conversation, I know she’s trying her hardest not to have with me. “So, are we going to talk about it, or are we going to keep avoiding it?”
She stops opening the box in front of her for a second and thinks about the question. “Would it be okay if we just do this for a bit longer and then we can talk about the disaster area that is my life? Preferably with some food and alcohol to numb the reality?” She laughs. I don't.
I continue to assemble the console stand that’ll sit underneath her mounted television on the wall adjacent to the windows. My sister is complicated. Her life, like mine, was never easy and, more so lately, it’s been hectic.
“The fact that this loft, which is pretty fucking amazing, by the way, was available to rent right above the shop downstairs, makes your life so much easier.”
She shifts and looks like she wants to tell me something, but I don’t press it. I know how she is when she feels cornered or pressured into talking. “The shop is pretty incredible. I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder of myself for actually doing something that I’ve alwayswantedto do. I’m probably crazy for opening something like that in a town I barely know, moving my kid here, and during the shitstorm that is my divorce right now…”
I stop what I’m doing for a moment because I really want her to hear me. “Don’t do that, Kat. Don’t minimize any of this. All of these things, moving, opening a business on your own, and leaving that piece of shit, are all good things. You’re not crazy. You’re living.”
She looks at me with tears in her eyes. “Jack,” she chokes out before she stops herself from saying more or sobbing. I’m not sure which. “I feel like I’m coasting into this new life, and I don’t deserve it, ya know?”
“Listen to me, Kat. Really hear me here. You’re not coasting, you're working for it. You’re strong and smart. You’re raising a great kid, and on your own now, I might add. And you deserve good things. You and I have been dealt some shitty hands, but we deserve some good ones every once in a while. Okay?”
“I just don’t know if I can do it. I feel like I’m just barely keeping my head above water.”
I make my way to her and wrap her in a hug. Rubbing her back as her face buries in my chest, I decide not to say anything else. I get it. Sometimes people just need to feel their feelings and not be cheered up or given solutions. So we stand for a while, just holding each other, much like we did when we were kids. My job has always been to protect her. There wasn’t anybody else to do it, and I take the job seriously.
I see Benny walk down the hallway from his room, and he smiles at me. He knows his mom is having a tough time right now. Kathryn hears him approach and pulls back, looking at me. She gives me her brave smile, but I know she’s doing that for me, not for her. The hardest part of growing up isn’t the responsibilities. I mean, yes, those suck a bit, but the hardest part of growing up for me has been watching my baby sister struggle.
We grew up in the system. Our mother was a drug addict, sold everything for her next fix—our furniture, food, our toys, and even herself. She was consumed by her addiction, and I’d like to think she was once a good person, but that’s really just years of therapy helping me process the fucked up childhood I experienced. We were lucky though, because she died. Some would say it was horrible, but for me, it was the only outcome that allowed Kathryn and me to have a better life. If my mother had stayed alive any longer, Kathryn would have had to endure the nightmares I had to experience. The day my mother died was the scariest and best day of my life.
We were in a few foster homes for a while before we were placed with a really good family; one that made sure we were clean, had clothes on our backs, and were safe. One that did things like eat dinner together and watch movies on Friday nights after pizza. We had two lives. The before and the after. And while “the before” creeps into my dreams often, “the after” happened for much longer, and it did a good job of erasing as much of the darkness from our memories as possible.
Kathryn was only four years old during “the before.” Foster care was tough on her. She didn’t understand the times that we had to be separated, and she had been placed with a family that should have never been in the system. But that was brief, thank goodness. After we ended up with the Cormicks, life was boring for a while. Then Kathryn got pregnant with Benny when she was just a nineteen-year-old freshman in college. She needed to change perspective and look at life differently at that point, but she wanted that kid from the moment she found out she was pregnant. She had choices, but the only one she entertained washowshe was going to do it, notif. She had my support, no matter what she chose. Benny’s father was never in the picture, someone from the neighborhood. A part of me wonders if Kathryn ever told the guy she was even pregnant, but it didn’t matter, not to me at least. As Benny has gotten older though, I’m sure he wonders who his biological father might be.
She struggled as a single mom for a while. I helped her financially so she could finish school, and our foster mom helped raise him. Kat met her ex-husband when Benny was eight. I thought he was a good man, but people change. He turned out to be a scumbag, had another woman on the side, and drank, heavily apparently. Kathryn dug him out of trouble repeatedly, and then once she found out about the other woman, that was the final straw and she left. She served him with papers and decided to move to Strutt’s Peak. I have no idea why she chose it, but it ended up being perfect, especially considering I’m here for the next month on a job. I can help them settle in before I head back to New York.
“I’m going to head out, Ma.” Benny pushes out from his chair and brings his plate to the sink. Grabbing his jacket, he comes back over, kisses her on the cheek, then hugs me.
“Love ya, kid. Are we still on for that hike after school on Monday?”
“Definitely. You bring the snacks. I got all the gear.”