By the time we finish with the French toast, I’m almost literally drooling. It’s the scrambled eggs that finish me off, however, and convince me that Carter’s a damned genius.
These aren’t merely scrambled poultry parts shit from a chicken’s ass.
These areheaven.
Light, fluffy, perfect, not too dry, not too runny. He shows me how to whisk the eggs, adding in just a little milk. How to keep turning and working them in the pan.
No shit, these arethebest motherfucking scrambled eggs I’ve ever had in my life, and I helped make them.
Fuck you, Mom.
By the time we’re sitting down to eat, four of our roommates have wandered out due to the aroma and are apparently disappointed to discover we only cooked enough for us.
Carter takes pity on them. “I’ll leave a grocery list for you today,” he says. “If everything is in the common fridge in the morning when we get back from our run, I’ll cook everyone breakfast.”
Thus starts Sunday Mornings With Carter.
The next morning, I head out with Carter for our run and he’s moving a little better than yesterday, limping less than he was. He takes us in a different direction, north across Fletcher Avenue and past a golf course. We’re running faster than yesterday, but don’t go as far, and I know without Carter saying anything it’s because of me and my trouble keeping up with him today.
“You think they went shopping?” I manage to ask on our way back despite the brisk pace.
He flashes me a grin. “I know they did. I checked before we left. That’s good. Might mean we can use the big fridge after all.”
After returning from our run and showering, Carter and I head to the kitchen. This morning we’re making French toast and scrambled eggs again, and I don’t even fucking care, because at this rate I could eat those eggs and that French toast every damn morning of my life.
The other guys gather around as Carter teaches me how to cook, and I realize he’s teaching them as well. He’s a natural teacher, a natural leader. Even though at six-four I’m six inches taller than him, he still feels…bigger, somehow. I can tell from the way the other guys react to him that they’re feeling something similar.
An unusual jolt of jealousy flashes through me. He’smyroommate, andIget dibs on him.
Which is a stupid thing to think, I know.
He’s now the de facto quad pod padre, and I tell him as much once we’re back in our room after we’ve finished eating—and the other guys have helped out by cleaning up the kitchen and dishes.
There’s that easy shrug again, a hint of a smile in place. “Makes our lives easier,” he says, but he doesn’t clarify and I don’t ask.
It looks like this year is off to a fantastic start for our little group.
If only I knew…
* * * *
The dining hall downstairs will be open tonight. From what I’ve discovered, they have a decent salad bar, so Carter and I opt to go with that after he offers to buy. I spend my post-run Sunday skimming through textbooks and reading lists in preparation for my classes this coming week. When it’s time to head downstairs to eat, I poke my head around the corner of our privacy wall.
Carter’s stretched out on his bed and reading his Kindle. I now realize there are three pictures on the small bulletin board stuck to the wall over the head of his bed. “Who are they?”
He looks up, over his head. The picture on the left is of three military guys wearing dark sunglasses and dressed in desert camo, all sporting shaggy beards and mustaches. The picture in the middle must be a family shot, due to the seven men—one of whom is a younger Carter—gathered around an older man and woman. The picture on the right looks like an older one, of two much younger men, likely still in their late teens, who both resemble Carter so strongly I instinctively realize it’s his two deceased brothers.
Carter shuts off his Kindle and sits up, tucks it away in his desk, and points to the picture on the left. “Gohber, me, Kenney,” he quietly says. “They died that afternoon. We were best buds from basic on.” He points to the middle picture. “Us, before Tom and Pete shipped out on their last tour and we lost them. Last picture ever taken of all of us together.” The picture on the right. “Tom and Pete,” he quietly says. “Tom was two years older than me. Pete was four.”
I watch as he stares at the pictures for a long moment. Then he kisses his fingers and reaches out, touches the picture of his brothers, and of his fallen friends.
And here I am, bitching about a narcissistic mother and an absentee father.
I can’t begin to comprehend what this man has endured and survived. All I know is I can damn sure try to not make his life any more difficult while we’re rooming together.
I stare at the first picture. You can’t see Carter’s eyes because of the sunglasses, but with the full facial hair and the keffiyeh around his neck he looks even older than he does now. All three men do.
“I’m sorry,” I lamely say.
