Mom’s smile is bright to the point of looking painful. “How are you doing? Good week?”
“Yeah, Mom,” he says, but his voice is so raspy that even Mom’s smile falters the second he glances at me. “Hey. Dad and Laura?”
“They’re good,” I tell him, before adding what I always say. “They couldn’t make it.”
I hate that they don’t come. Laura is still so young and Jason was always one step down from a superhero to her, so a part of me understands that it might be too hard for her to see him here like this, knowing what he did. But I don’t understand Dad’s refusal to visit. Jason is his son. No crime, however awful, can change that. And Jason isn’t that person; Iknowhe’s not. Whatever happened that night, whatever drove him to act out in that brief burst of violence, that’s not the person sitting across from me.
That’s not the person who pleaded guilty rather than put his family through a long and painful trial in the hopes of getting a lighter sentence.
That’s not the person who asks about his dad and sister every week even though they refuse to visit him.
That’s not my brother.
“Dad’s so busy,” Mom hurries to add with an exaggerated eye roll. “Did I tell you about the order he’s been working on? The buyer wants him to replicate a ten-chaired Russian dining set that belonged to his great-grandparents. All he had was a faded photograph, so it’s a lot of design work and research for me before he can even start.”
“Sounds like a lot.”
“It is, but I think it’ll be really beautiful once it’s done. And Laura is good. I can’t believe she’s already fourteen. I can still remember your fourteenth birthday,” she says to Jason. “And yours.” She reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “Time goes by so fast.”
Jason lowers his gaze to the twitching hands he’s resting on the table. Only last week he’d let slip how long the days feel here, how sometimes he’ll watch a clock and swear the hands are turning backward. He normally doesn’t say things like that, about what it’s like for him. He normally doesn’t say much at all, preferring to let Mom talk with my occasional interjections, which is why I don’t answer right away when he asks me a question.
“So what happened with the Camaro? Guy wouldn’t budge on his price, would he?”
“Actually, he did,” I say, warming to the subject change. “I brought my friend Maggie with me and we kind of bullied/charmed him into the price I wanted. It helped that I had cash, but yeah. I bought a car.” I start to reach for my keys to show him the ridiculous fuzzy keychain, but abort the gesture midway when I remember that I had to surrender them along with all my other belongings at security. Jason’s gaze is sharp, following my movements, and I know without a doubt he guessed my intentions and it’s another unwelcome reminder of his situation. “Anyway, I named her Daphne.”
Jason shakes his head a little at my propensity for naming inanimate objects, but it’s accompanied by an exhale that’s at least partially a laugh. “That’s a terrible name for a muscle car.”
Lightened by the once-familiar teasing from him, I smile. “Trust me, I regretted it after about the hundredth time she stalled on me.”
“What’d you expect buying a stick when you’ve never driven one?” He glances at Mom. “You guys shouldn’t have let her buy that car. I wouldn’t have.”
I still think he’s teasing me, so I laugh. “Right, like you could have stopped me, besides—”
Jason sneers, and it’s such an alien expression on his face that I don’t even try to finish telling him that I’m now completely comfortable driving stick. I don’t know what switch I hit, but I try to throw it back. “You always told me Camaros were your favorite cars,” I say, tucking my hands into my lap. “She’s even blue.”
Jason’s eye twitches. “So you get to own it for me? That’s great, Brooke. I’ll be sure to think about you stalling it all over town next time I’m walking around the yard.” He pushes back into his chair so forcefully that it skids, screeching across the floor and causing the guards to move in. Mom and Jason and I have to repeatedly assure them everything is fine before they retreat.
I can see Jason struggling to control his breathing even after they move away and Mom steers the conversation toward more neutral territory. I’m barely listening. The car was supposed to make him happy. Sure, I liked the car, and now that I can drive stick, I prefer it to automatic. But the reason I found that Camaro in the first place was for Jason. I never for a moment considered he would resent me owning a car he wouldn’t get to see, much less drive, for decades, if then. Sitting across from him, I feel so foolish for not realizing how much it would bother him. I’m still stewing in self-recrimination when Jason says my name and I lift my gaze to meet his.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I got upset.”
His apology makes me feel worse. “No, it’s my fault. I wasn’t thinking. I thought of you as soon as I saw the Camaro and I knew you’d love her.”
“I would. I do.”
“Yeah, but for yourself.”
His eye twitches a little again. “Maybe, but that’s not an option. If it can’t be mine, then yeah, why shouldn’t it be yours?”
Because you shouldn’t be here,I think.Because you belong outside with us, driving a car you’d love and enjoying everything else that would have been yours if you’d made one different choice.
Unbidden, Heath’s face tangles in my thoughts, and it’s all I can do to push it away and focus on my brother for the too-little time I have left with him that day.
“Do me a favor though, okay?”
I’d do anything for my brother and he knows it, so he doesn’t even wait for my assent before asking.
“Don’t go on any main roads until you can handle the back ones without stalling. This would be easier in the car, but basically, what you need to do is—”
