Inevitable Detour (Inevitability Book 1)(81)

When I blink, both lights turn green…

My dad started taking me to work the summer I showed him the drawings. I learned how to wire a home, how to put in plumbing, how to lay insulation. And that was just the beginning. I used to watch how my dad talked to the guys. He treated them with respect, and in turn they went the extra mile for him. It was all “Yes sir, Mr. Gartner,” “Consider it done, Jack.”

When I turned fourteen, my dad bought me a drafting table, a bunch of fancy software too. The kind real architects use, or so he said. I practiced all the time, got pretty damn good. I was building my wings, you see, preparing to fly.

Will was only five, but damn if that kid didn’t love to sit around and watch me sketch. For him, I’d draw all kinds of ridiculous structures.

“Dwaw me a house, Chasey,” he asked this one day.

I laughed while I tousled his blond hair. I remember the fine strands looked so light in the sunlit room. Hell, they were almost white. “All right, buddy, what kind do you want?”

“A house like a tweeeee,” Will sing-song replied, green eyes innocent and wide as he focused on the sketch pad I’d picked up from my desk.

I readied a colored pencil and asked for clarification, “Okay, a tree house, right?”

“No-o-o.” Will shook his little head vociferously. “A house that is a twee, Chasey.”

“Aha, got it,” I said.

And I did. I drew Will a tree house shaped exactly like a tree, big, sturdy, loaded down with bushy branches. The leaves I shaded in the color of my brother’s eyes. I sketched a door at the base of the trunk, then drew a Will-sized truck and parked it under a lowlying branch. After I finished with some final shading, I held the drawing up for my brother to see.

Will’s house looked like one of those tree houses in the commercials with the elves and the cookies, only this one I’d drawn was far better. There was a lot more detail, and I’d drawn the tree in 2-D. In among the branches and the leaves all the rooms were in cross-section, done up in varying shades of blue, Will’s favorite color. I also made certain every last blue-shaded 2D-room overflowed with toys.

Will threw his arms around my neck and told me he loved his twee house. Then, he leaned back and told me he loved me even more.

He gave me a kiss on my cheek. That shit always touched my heart, choked me up a little. “I love you too, buddy,” was about all I could say as I held on to a little boy who meant the world to me.

Things are never bad when love is abundant. I thought it would stay that way forever, I did. A home filled with love, a happy family, just a good and easy life.

Man, was I ever wrong.

Shortly after I turned seventeen my world began to crumble. The bottom fell out of the housing market. The wave everyone was riding touched the surf and crashed. My dad’s business was one of the first to fail. He had overextended himself; all our assets were mortgaged. He made ridiculous deals, attempting to keep us afloat, but his efforts proved futile. We sunk faster than a stone.

I sold the fancy architect software on eBay, the drafting table too. I gave the money to my parents, but it was merely a drop in the bucket compared to what we owed. I watched my once-vibrant dad turn into a shadow of the man he once was. My mom, always so young-looking and pretty, developed dark circles under her eyes—from crying, worrying, not being able to sleep. She even tried her hand at the casinos, we were that f*cking desperate. But everyone knows gambling is a loser’s game. The house always wins in the end.

One night, my mom was at one of those casinos. It wasn’t the first time she’d spent hours and hours away, trying to win back what we’d lost. She came out ahead a little here and there, but it was never enough, never enough.

Will had fallen asleep early that night, so my dad and I were more or less alone. He asked me if I was hungry. When I nodded slowly, reluctant to reveal just how ravenous I really was and cause my father any additional undue guilt, he sighed, picked up the phone, and ordered a bunch of Chinese take-out.

I swear I smelled that food before the delivery man even pulled up to the house. Beef Chow Mein, General Tso’s chicken, Hot and Sour soup, and eggrolls, the first real meal I’d eaten in weeks. And even though my dad and I had to sit on the floor—our furniture had been repossessed days earlier—I savored every f*cking bite.

Afterward, my dad said he had somewhere to go. There was something he had to do. Would I keep an eye on Will?

“Sure,” I told him while shoving white take-out cartons with little metal handles— leftovers I’d saved for Will and Mom—into the fridge.

With my father gone, I had nothing to do. Our TVs were gone, the stereos too. Video games? Forget it. Those were among the first things to go. So, I wandered around the house barefoot, padding around on neglected hardwood floors. I trudged from one empty room to the next.

Then I took a minute to look in on Will.

My little brother slept on an air mattress in the middle of his now-barren room. The twee house sketch, the only thing left on his four stark walls, had fallen. It lay abandoned on the floor, close to Will’s hand, close to where his little arm was dangling off the side of the mattress. To me, it looked as if my brother was subconsciously reaching for the drawing. Three years had passed since I’d drawn Will’s tree house—and I’d sketched hundreds of other things for him since that sunny day—but that particular piece of made-with-love art was still my brother’s favorite. I think to him it symbolized something more. He’d once said my sketch gave him hope. I guess it reminded him of when things were good.