Chapter Nine
XAN
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My parents’ house isthe biggest in Raston’s west side, one of the first homes built here at the turn of the 19th Century when the town was settled. That’s how long my family has lived in this three-story house and as I stand on the sidewalk scrutinizing the peeling yellow paint, I wonder how it fell into such disrepair.
I mean, I know how I just don’t know how I’ve never noticed it. The shutters are cracked or missing. The porch is creaky and desperately in need of a stain. The light beside the door doesn’t work and I don’t remember it ever working. The glass is streaky and shingles fraying.
When I glance down the street none of the other houses on this side of town are particularly well kept either. This is the ‘rough’ side of town, if a town like Raston can have a rough side.
Mostly it means that poor people live here. The town is split nearly in half by a long wide Main Street where the basics are: post office, bank, hotel, bar, Patsy’s Grill, the grocery store and the general store. Behind Main Street on the East side are the government buildings, and on the West Side the industrial buildings. This town was built around forestry. Almost everyone who lives here works with trees in some form. Logging, or Parks, or Wildland. My family was split half in trees, half not. I work wildfires, Jet does construction, and my little sister Pris works for Parks Canada. But Zeke is a mechanic, Del’s a bartender, and Tabby works part time at the grocery store.
I rock back on my heels still hesitating to walk into my family home. I haven’t been here in a while. My mother and I donn’t really see eye to eye. She blames me for my father leaving, but it’s hard for me to care when I know she’s better off. Even hating me.
Today is even harder because I have to tell them about Millie. They need a warning and a set of strict guidelines and boundaries because they’re my family. They will find a way to fuck this all up for me.
The creak of the screen door lets out a waft of fresh bread and I know Tabby’s baking again. Her obsession with food started when she was three and a few years ago she graduated from play kitchens and easy bake ovens to the real thing and I’ve had to run an extra five kilometers ever since.
The front porch is full of shoes scattered from one side to the other. A long plank of wood lined with hooks attached to the wall is so full that some coats slipped off onto the floor. The whole thing makes my eye twitch, but I don’t live here anymore, and I promised my sisters I’d get off them about their unhealthy attachment to shoes and impractical coats.
The music leaks out from under the door—the angst pop beat and nasally singing of Tabby’s favorites. I wonder how she managed control of the speakers today. She has Zeke wrapped around her finger but Del and Pris aren’t as easily manipulated by her big dorky glasses and freckled nose.
“Hello?” I call and from out of nowhere a Nerf football hits me straight in the chest. By nothing more than instinct I catch it and hurled it back in the direction it came.
Zeke catches it one handed, a dumb grin on his bearded face. I’m not used to my baby brother being a grown man, mostly because he still had the mind of a thirteen-year-old.
“Nice of you to drop by, Asshole.” He tucks the football beside him and goes back to shoveling cereal into his mouth. He must be home for his lunch because his face is smeared with grease and he’s still in his coveralls.
“Get the fuck off the furniture with those things on,” I sat snapping my fingers. It’s a diehard habit I have that I’m sure will never leave me. When shit goes down in this house all eyes end up on me to do something about it. It’s been this way since I was about eight years old. So naturally that authority extends to all aspects of Ryker life with six children a deadbeat father and a mother high on painkillers and God.
Zeke flips me off but he listens. He grumbles as he stands and moves through the long, crowded living room and through an ornate archway, missing half its molding and plopping himself down at the ten-seat dining room table that Jet built when he was nineteen.
Feet pad down the stairs behind me and Pris fluffs my hair.
“Hey big brother,” she says, weaving around me wearing her dark green Parks uniform, her long brown hair tied back in a ponytail.
As I smooth out my hair, Del comes out of the kitchen from the opposite direction and mimics Pris. She fluffs my hair and bumps me with her hip. She looks like the evil twin of Pris. Both dark hair pulled back but Del is in bar uniform, tight tank top, painted on jeans, leather coat, make up from her hair line to sparkles that disappear into her cleavage. Her feet are bare but as she hurries out the door with toast between her teeth, she’ll slip into her cowboy boots because she’s as hillbilly as this family ever gets. Smart as sin running the hotel bar better than anyone ever could, but I never understood why she plays up the dumb girl thing. I asked her once. She told me to go fuck myself. We’re classy like that, us Rykers.
“Bye big brother,” she says through her toast filled teeth. She winks at me and it feels like a wink of encouragement. Jet and Del already know about Millie. But I have to wrangle my other siblings to tell them, then I have to tell Mom, who I’m guessing is in her room. She almost never comes downstairs and only when everyone else is gone to work or school.
I step into the kitchen and it appears like an explosion of baked goods burst from the oven and landed on every flat surface. I glance at my baby sister, her glasses slipped down her nose, flour in her purple hair, her cheeks flush from leaning over a pan of boiling red goo that I assume is fruit. Her blue eyes are darting around as she stirs the goo. Tabby runs at warp speed all the time. The faster she moves the harder she’s being hit by her anxiety. I started in on her when she turned sixteen and didn’t sleep for six days until she became delirious and dangerous. The doctor sent her to therapy where she was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder. She still sees her expensive Vancouver therapist via FaceTime once every two weeks, I know because I get the bill. Another reason I need to get back to work. Jet took over payments until I can get my life sorted but I hate it. I should be able to take care of her.
“Tabby,” I say, and she snaps out of her trance. A huge grin forms making her face half glasses and half teeth. Her smile is basically what kept me going for the last eighteen years.
“Xan,” she squeals and jumps on me, throwing her arms and legs around me like she used to when she was a kid. I stumble back, wrapping my arms around her and laughing.
Tabitha spent more time on my hip as a baby than on Mom’s or dad’s. When she had a bad dream, she called me. When she needed help, she asked me. When she was stuck on her homework or in a fight with a friend or got dumped by a guy for the first time, she called me.
“Jesus, kid. You are way too big to be doing that. I’m old now.” I shake her off me and she goes back to her fruit goop. “How are you?”
Her features droop a bit, but I know her. The more excited to see me she is the stormier it is in her mind. That and she seems to be baking for a celebrity wedding.
“Lyle left yesterday.” She stares at her concoction, her stirring getting more aggressive. Lyle was her boyfriend, an army boy and a bad influence if you ask me. Personally, I’m happy he left, but I keep that shit to myself. I give Tabby a sympathetic squeeze on the shoulder.
“That guy was a fucking douche,” Zeke pipes up, dumping his bowl in the sink.
“You’re a douche,” Pris snaps back, shoving Zeke’s shoulder. Zeke smacks her hand, her toast falling to the floor peanut butter side down. Zeke laughs, and Pris’s eyes turn to black daggers, her fists clenching. I quickly step between them.