“It’s like the junk drawer of the entire house,” Mom always says. The place where things that don’t necessarily have a home end up when you’re putting everything else in the place it belongs.
I go right for the fridge as Jay lands with his forearms on the island, busying himself by rifling through the papers. My parents clearly knew they were going away because every shelf in here is bare.
“Okay, there’s half a loaf of bread, cheese, and like six strawberries, so I’m thinking grilled cheese.” I spin around and see Jay is now standing, a furrowed brow, heavy breathing, palms pressed flat against the granite.
“What? If you don’t want grilled cheese I—”
“It’s not the food,” he cuts me off. He rakes his hand through his hair, then brings it to the paper lying in front of him and spins it in my direction.
I drag it across the counter. It’s a sales contract for the Maverick. I guess Dad finally picked a buyer. I drag my gaze back to Jay who is staring at the paper as if his eyes could ignite it into flames. I feel an instant drop in my stomach. Jay loves this car. I knew it when Sean mentioned it at Monroe’s. Of course, it would be hard for him to see it go to someone else. Or maybe he was interested and never got his chance.
“Oh, Jay. I wish you would have said something, I could have talked to my dad.”
“It’s my brother, Claire.”
“What?” I shake my head, feeling like I have whiplash from the change in direction. Jay walks around to the other side of the island where I’m standing.
“Jackson Benningfield.” He points to the buyer’s name at the top of the contract. “That’s my brother.”
“But your name—”
“Is Errington, I know. His dad stuck around for a while. I have my mom’s last name.”
The whiplash returns as I try to sort out what’s happening. My dad is selling his car to Jay’s brother? Who Jay hasn’t seen for nearly two decades?
“How?” I ask because there is no way the world is this small.
“I have no idea,” he says. “He was always interested in cars. Hell, if I took the time to think about it, I would have realized he’s probably why I felt pulled to them too. I just…I didn’t even know he lived around here.”
“He doesn’t,” I say, remembering back to what Dad said in the driveway when he hung up the phone. Jay’s eyes dart to mine, searching each one for an explanation.
“The last time I talked to my dad about the car, he said he had a buyer who was interested in the car but lived out of town. He was supposed to send his information over so Dad could look at it and decide what to do.”
Jay turns the documents over, his eyes landing on the signature lines down below. Jackson’s jagged scribble on the buyer line, Dad’s loopy cursive on the seller’s.
“Well, I guess he did,” is all he says. The silence that follows is filled with questions and lost time — time that two brothers spent as strangers instead of fighting through life together.
“I’m so sorry, Jay.” I bring my hand to his shoulder but he gently shrugs it off.
“Let’s get out of here.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Now, Claire,” he says. “Please.” He turns and walks to the front door, the jingle of my keys telling me there’s no changing his mind.
39
Jamison
This has got to be some kind of fucking joke. As if to say "Oh you thought you’d be happy," the universe throws something like this into existence.
When my brother left, that was it. No calls, no visits, nothing. I was just a kid, torn between being proud that he got out and being angry that he abandoned me to do it. As I grew older, I tried to find him, to reach out — the only person I ever looked for — but he didn’t want to be found. At least not by me. And now, gone over half my life, he pops back up to buymydream car from Claire’s dad.
There it was, Jackson Benningfield, the name I stopped googling a decade ago when I realized I’d never see or hear from him again. His address, phone number, email, every possible way to contact him, written plain as day for a goddamn stranger.
Information apparently too good for me.
I’m strangling the steering wheel back to my apartment in absolute silence. Claire looks at me every few seconds, her flushed face full of concern, but I can’t bring myself to talk to her. It’s like all of the walls that she has been tearing down brick-by-brick, just rebuilt themselves out of solid cement.
