I don’t, really. In my mind, Alex must be struggling to work as much as he does, to be taking jobs in these far-flung places, to be staying in short-term rentals whenever he does have an extended break.“I—well, it doesn’t matter. It’s still something I can do for you, and I want to. I really—Ineedto do this.” Ugh, I feel tears well up a bit, and I swallow them back.
Alex’s expression softens. I know he knows what I’m thinking.“You can’t feel guilty about this, Kit. You got lucky. You’ve got to take your luck when it comes.”
That last thing—it rings a bell for both of us. It’s one of the things our dad used to say, usually right before he’d lose a ton of money and then go on a multi-day bender. Alex turns away, looking embarrassed.
I don’t want that hanging in the air, so I go back to my earlier point.“Would it be so bad, though? To—you know. Slow down a bit? I thought if you stayed here for a while, got to know the city, maybe you’d think about—”
“I’m only here for a couple of days. I’ve got a job next week in Johannesburg.”
“But you said you didn’t have to travel again until August.” I hate the way my voice sounds, a little whiny.
“I got a call yesterday.” He’s avoiding my eyes, a little too focused on his dishwashing.
I’m angry now, knowing he’s lying to me. I march over to where he stands at the sink and shut off the water.“Don’t bullshit me, Alex. You’ve been avoiding me for months.”
“Because I knew you’d do this!”
“Do what? Try and share this great thing that’s happened to me with my brother? Yeah, I’m being such adick, right?”
“It’s not—” he breaks off, clearly frustrated, and passes a wet hand through his hair, making it stick up in all directions.“It’s great that you want to share it. But I’ve told you, I don’t need it, and if I took it, you’d just—you’d expect things. You already expect things.”
“I don’t expectanything! Jesus, that’s a horrible thing to say!”
“It’s not. It’s the truth. You want me around, you want me living a life more likethis, staying in one place, everything easy.” He spreads his arms out, gesturing to the house around us, making my pride and joy feel—plain. Insignificant.
“Oh, okay. I’m sorry this is sodullfor you. I’m sorry it’s not a tent in the freaking Amazon or whatever. I’m sorry that I actually wanted to have a home, a place of my own to take care of—”
“Kit, for fuck’s sake. I don’t give a shit that you wanted this. That’s great for you. But don’t forget—I did this already. It might’ve been in shithole apartments with no heat and leaky pipes and cockroaches, but I’ve got plenty of experience making homes. I made homes for you since the day your mom walked out. Ididstability. I had to do it, for you and for Dad. I don’t want that now. I don’t want this. I don’t want your fucking money, and I don’t want to be tied down to anyone, anywhere. I just—I want to be on myown.”
This hurts so bad that I wish I could bend over right where I’m standing to catch my breath. But I can see already Alex is registering what’s just come out of his mouth, and for a second he clenches his eyes shut before looking at me again, his eyes full of pity.
I don’t want his pity. I only want to be away from him right now.
“Hey, Tool Kit, listen, I didn’t mean—”
“No, you know what? You did mean it. And you’re—you have every right.” I’m trying but failing to keep the wobble out of my voice.“I’m tired. You can leave everything, and I’ll clean up tomorrow, okay?”
I’m halfway out of the room already, and Alex has tossed something—silverware, probably—in the sink, making a loud clatter. I don’t even stop. I call over my shoulder to him that his room is the second door on the left upstairs, that I’ve put out towels for him in the bathroom. He’ll see everything half-done now, without me explaining all my careful renovation plans, but I’ve stopped caring.
I don’t hear him downstairs when I get in bed, even though I listen for a while. Maybe I should be angry at what Alex said, at him throwing it in my face that he got stuck with raising me, or maybe I should be sad for him, that his response to the way we grew up has been to cut himself off from anything permanent. But mostly I feel embarrassed, embarrassed at how excited I was to show the house off, that I was stupid enough to even suggest that Alex think about making this his home base.
It’s late, but I know if I call Greer or Zoe they’ll answer. Except I don’t want them to think poorly of Alex now, not after we had such a good time, and even after what he’s just said, he’s my brother and I love him, and I want them to love him too. I think fleetingly about the night I asked Ben to meet Zoe and Greer at Betty’s—was that the same instinct, somewhere deep down, that I wanted them to like him, to feel okay about whatever I was—am—doing with him? I think about calling him, maybe I could think of some question to ask him about the light fixture I want for the downstairs bath, and I know he’ll take my mind off this. I know he’ll have some funny story about his dad or River that will make me laugh.
But that’s ridiculous, to call Ben.
I feel lonely enough to cry, but I don’t. I just roll over into a ball and pull the covers around me, naming the elements from the periodic table until I finally fall asleep.
Chapter 12
Ben
“Riv, don’t go so fast,” I say, stilling the kid’s hand as he paws through the tray of loose pieces I’ve put out for him on the workbench in the office. My dad’s out front, dealing with customers, and even though he’d told me I didn’t have to come in today, I know weekends are risky for River, easy times for him to get in trouble without his classes. So I’d called him this morning, told him we had to sort through some inventory before Monday. Not true, and I’m pretty sure River knew it, but he’d still shown up at ten.
“You’ve got to go piece by piece with a tray this big,” I say, pulling out a yellowed candle tube to hold up.“See, this might look like junk, but it’s from a chandelier, same as the one we worked on last week. No cracks, and the socket’s in good shape. We find a bulb for this, and it’ll work.”
River doesn’t say anything, but he slows down, taking out pieces and setting them on a large piece of felt I’ve laid out. Right now, the way he’s ordering things doesn’t seem to me to make much sense, but I’m not going to say anything. This is how I learned too—getting a feel for the objects, making my own patterns.
I turn back to my project, frowning at what I’ve got so far. I’m still missing at least thirty pieces for the Baltic chandelier I’d found last week, but I’m in deep now with it. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed doing this when I was younger, how much I relished the puzzles of these old, found objects.
