“I’ll have water,” Bo said.
They ate on the way home, in silence except for the occasional moany-eating-good-food sounds, a slurp, or a world class belch from Lucky. That’s right, he belched like a boss, but only because Charlotte wasn’t around to challenge him.
The woman could burp.
And he went back down memory lane, his brothers huddled around, watching in awe as Lucky and Charlotte guzzled soft drinks and fought to belch the loudest. She usually won. Sounded like a fog horn.
Mama would fuss. Daddy would laugh and say, “Aww, leave ‘em alone. Let them kids be kids.”
How Lucky would love to be a kid again, with a bad test grade his worst problem. He’d grown up safe and secure. Other kids at school talked about divorced parents or a drunk daddy. Lucky’s family might’ve been poor redneck farmers, but they’d been close, and they might give each other shit from time to time, but nobody outside better mess with a Lucklighter.
“You okay?”
Bo’s words broke through his brain fog long enough for Lucky to click the button nine times. Nothing.
“Here, let me.” Bo pressed the visor button once. The neighborhood gate swung back.
Okay, so the gate took things personal against Lucky. One day. Or night. Lucky. A sledgehammer. The gate. Oh, yeah.
Lucky drove to their house. Their house. What a concept. And he still hadn’t fixed the broken-assed garage door.
Barking sounded from inside.
Bo leaned over the console and brushed his lips against Lucky’s. “You’ve got a lot on your mind, so go in and get comfortable. I’ll feed the kids.” The finest bubble butt in all of Georgia flexed beneath a layer of denim up the steps to their front door.
Their front door. Their house. Their life. Lucky had security here, with Bo, without the Lucklighters.
But damn, he’d love to introduce them all.
He wandered into the house, puttered around a bit. Bo stayed close but not underfoot. Lucky got the message.I’m giving you space, but I’m still here.
The back deck called, as always when Lucky felt out of sorts. The doctor laid a whole bunch on him today, and not just health issues.
If he donated part of his liver, not only would he miss work, he might wind up responsible for whatever bills the recipient’s insurance didn’t pay, like follow-up appointments. According to Charlotte’s e-mail, Dad’s insurance wouldn’t cover the full cost of both surgeries. Their parents would be in debt for years.
Hell, he and Bo hadn’t owned the house but a few months, with decades left on the mortgage. Even with the GI Bill helping out, Bo’s college loan repayments ate a chunk of their budget, as did his truck payment, the electric company, water, trash pickup.
The neighbor with too much belly and not enough hair waved through the crack in the privacy fence and went back to his hedge trimming. Lucky put fixing the fence higher on his to-do list. At least the crack wasn’t big enough to let Moose through.
Though the cat might take advantage to taunt the neighbor’s beagle. As if on cue the mutt stuck his head through the fence and gave a bark.
“He’s not outside,” Lucky told the dog.
Lucky rested his hands on the deck railing. When had he become so concerned with bills? When had he settled down and started acting like everyone else in the neighborhood?
Well, maybe not everyone else. Chances were the balding guy next door didn’t get shot at on a regular basis and wasn’t living under an assumed name.
Then again, how well did he really know those people? He should’ve done a background checkbeforemoving in.
The guy went inside, thechick, chick, chickof his lawn sprinklers guilting Lucky into adding a mental note to water his and Bo’s newly planted grass.
Damn it! How could he worry about grass when Dad lay dying? What would happen to Mom?
Maybe he shouldn’t have faked his death. Maybe in time they’d have come around, welcomed him back into the fold. Too late now. And too bad. They’d have loved Bo. And Moose. And Cat Lucky. Probably the closest things to grandkids they’d get from their eldest son.
The sun set, the sprinklers stopped. Crickets, frogs, and birds made for one hell of a flashback.
Back on the farm, he’d have slept with the windows open on a night like tonight, whether or not he planned on sneaking out to do some fishing, or lie on his back and look up at the stars. Good Friday was coming up, when Dad did most of his planting. Then the family got together for Easter dinner, the one day of the year Mama dragged him by his ear to church.
