“She’s eating me out of house and home, as usual,” Jude interjects, and I look up and see him by the front doors to the condo that is about to become my parents’ and sisters’ home. My eyes connect with my brother’s, and I know that they’ve kept the severity of my dad’s decline from him too. On the outside he’s smiling his typical mischievous grin, but I can see beyond it to the pain in his eyes.
“Jude’s still a drama queen, in case you were wondering,” I tell our dad, and he chuckles. “Zoey loves having me over all the time. You can ask her when she gets here after work.”
“I hope that’s not too late,” our dad announces, his voice a little slurred, which has never happened during the day before, only late at night if he’s tired. Please may it be the long red-eye that’s making it happen. “I can’t wait to see her.”
“She’ll be here early afternoon. She’s working half days right now,” Jude promises.
“Let’s get you upstairs, Dad,” Winnie says and grabs the back of his wheelchair. Our eyes lock as she pushes past me. She knows I want to murder her.
We get Dad up to the apartment along with all their bags. Their furniture and most of their belongings arrived the other day, and Jude paid a company to unpack everything and set it up, as per Zoey’s orders. She’s consulted with our mom, and they’d picked out exactly where everything should go via multiple emails and Skype calls.
Jude bought the family a three-bedroom penthouse a block from his and Zoey’s house. The building is fully accessible by wheelchair and still has that old-world charm of a classic San Francisco building—bay windows, crown moldings, hardwood floors, built-ins. It’s beautiful, the best of the best, but for everyone it has been made ugly by the reason he had to buy it. Originally we were going to wait until the last possible second and move our dad into a fancy nursing home when it was impossible for him to stay at our family home in Toronto. But then Zoey got pregnant and both Mom and Dad wanted to be nearby for their first grandchild. So Jude decided to get them a place in the city. Dad’s spot in the nursing home is still on hold, but for now they’ll live in luxury a block from their future grandbaby with a part-time nurse who will be coming by every morning to help Dad with tasks like showering and to monitor his health.
I’m huffing like a chubby kid with asthma after lugging the second of Sadie’s two suitcases into the room that will be hers. She requested it be painted a very pale, slightly smoky blue, and it’s incredible. She bought herself a brand-new bed with a gray velvet tufted headboard with bling in each tuft. “I want this.”
“I figured you would,” she replies and smiles. “Tough luck.”
I turn to her, glancing down the hall, but no one is on this side of the apartment but us. “He’s in the chair full-time now?”
She nods. “Pretty much.”
My heart clenches. “And the slurring?”
“That’s not all the time,” she replies and sighs. “But it’s a lot of the time now.”
“Why didn’t you tell us it had gotten this bad?” I demand, trying to keep my voice down.
Sadie frowns. She looks so much like Mom when she does that. They have different smiles but identical frowns. I didn’t notice that until recently, because neither of them frowned a lot while I was growing up. Now it’s much more common. “Mom’s idea. She didn’t want to spoil Jude’s happiness over the baby. And she wanted you to enjoy your job. She said you’d find out soon enough, and you did.”
“What a way to find out,” I mutter and lean against the doorframe. “I felt blindsided when you guys had to help him from the cab to his chair. He’s always been able to walk a little bit, even this summer.”
“I know. It sucks.” Sadie reaches out and hugs me. “Just don’t act like it in front of him, okay? When the doctor first told him he shouldn’t use the walker anymore and should stick to the wheelchair, he melted down. Swearing and raging and even throwing things.”
“What?” I feel a shudder of horror ripple through me.
“I know. It was bad,” Sadie confirms. “He locked himself in the bathroom and basically destroyed it. Mom was frantic and in tears. Winnie busted down the door, but by then the damage was done. I was at work and they called me and I left my shift and came home. We actually had to give him Ativan.”
“Fuck,” I whisper, my heart twisting painfully in my chest. The unfairness of it all is overwhelming, and not just for my dad. But we, the kids, made a vow long ago to suck it up. We can fall apart when he’s gone, but for now we are rocks. Braddock rocks.
“Tell me something good,” Sadie begs, running a hand through her long, sandy-blond hair and releasing it from her low ponytail. Sadie is the no-frills one out of us, probably because of her job as a nurse. I’m wondering now that she’s on a leave and living here if I can convince her to do a girls’ day with me—mani-pedis and massages sound great. “How did things go with the goalie? Did he like the outfit?”
I flush and smile instantaneously. “Yes. A lot.”
“Did you get some?” Sadie looks so damn excited it’s almost sad.
“Yes,” I say, because clearly she’s deprived and needs to live vicariously through my sex life. “But you can’t—I mean it—tell Jude. Or anyone. Ever.”
“Jude who?” Sadie quips and winks. “Was it good? It was great, wasn’t it? Goalie sex is the absolute best. They’re remarkably flexible and so damn crazy. God, I miss crazy sex. Or any sex.”
I laugh at her. “He was all those things and also insanely intimate.”
She looks pleasantly surprised at that. “Nice.”
“But it’s a one-time thing,” I say firmly. “Has to be. Once he makes the team, it’s completely off-limits. We’re bending the rules the way it is, and that’s dangerous.”
Sadie moves past me, out of her room and into the hall. I join her. I can hear our parents, Winnie and Jude talking somewhere at the other end of the condo, probably in the master bedroom, which Jude had renovated with wider doorframes and a shower Dad could roll his wheelchair into.
“Good sex is harder to find than a good job,” Sadie announces as she swats my ass playfully. “Remember that.”
