Take Me With You(20)

“Okay,” Scooter says skeptically.

My mother crouches down and uses her apron to wipe the oatmeal off my face. “You really should eat some. You'll be hungry later,” she whispers, wiping my messy hair out of my eyes.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

The pounding on my front door shakes me out of my thoughts. I scramble to turn off the police scanning equipment, pull it out of the wall and shove it into the cabinets above the desk.

I shuffle over to the door, peek past the curtains and see it's Scooter outside. Speak of the spawn of the devil. I wasn't expecting him, and I'm not particularly happy he's here. I open the door, and turn back towards the kitchen table, leaving Scoot to his own devices to follow me in and close the door behind himself.

“Nice to see you too, Sam.”

Without missing a step, I give him a single, sarcastic wave.

“I haven't heard from you in what has it been? Three weeks? I keep calling and you don't answer here. I was about to drive up to the ranch this weekend to see if you were alive.”

The ranch. It's mine. I hate how he thinks that he can just come up there. Especially now.

“I'm f-f-f-ine.” Fuck. Shit. “B-b-b-been b-b-b-usy.”

He tucks his chin in shock. “Shit man, you're way worse since I last saw you.”

He's just like our fucking dad. Zero nuance and the sensitivity of a rabid fucking bull. The last thing you say to someone with a speech impediment is how bad they sound. You'd think he'd have figured that out by now.

“T-t-t-thanks asssss-h-h-ole.”

I pull out my chair violently in a nonverbal sign of protest and sit down with a thud. The oatmeal sits there, the sickly blob reminding me of how different our lives have been even though we had the same parents.

He helps himself to a seat. “Okay, you've been spending all your time there, alone. Which makes no sense since most of your work is here. You're a ghost these days. And your stuttering is getting progressively worse…” His tone changes as if he's telling me a secret. “Is this about mom? You know, losing her was hard for me too.”

“I-I-It's only an h-h-h-our.” I open my mouth to continue speaking, but that familiar feeling of my mouth and throat tightening, of the words getting stuck on the way out—it's not going to stop. I'm too on edge being ambushed by him. I sigh and shoot up to my feet, stomp to the counter where there's a notepad and a pen, and write.

Don't wanna talk about it. How's work?

I plop back in my chair and slide the notepad to him.

He grins to himself and points at the pad and shoves it back to me. It makes me chuckle a bit too. I change the page and scribble the answer.

Fine. Lots of communities being built. Schools getting fixed. I've had to turn down jobs at this point.

“Well, that's good news,” he says. “Been a while since I've been up to the farm. You have time to work on it?”

Scooter is so fucking greedy. I know it irks him that mom left me the ranch. We both got plenty after she died, but he just couldn't handle that small slight, that maybe just once I got the longer end of the stick. To him, the ranch was a place of refuge, a place where he'd come up and fish and ride horses on the weekend with dad. To me, that ranch was a prison. Despite that, I can't bring myself to leave it behind.

“Anyway, Katie wanted to see about you coming over for dinner. And your nieces and nephew want to see their uncle.”

I wish he'd learn to take a hint. I jot on the pad. Too busy now. Look at me. I come home covered in paint and plaster every day ready to sleep. Give me a few weeks for my projects to die down.

“You keep avoiding us, we're gonna come here for dinner,” he says. So entitled. And smug. Like everyone else, he thinks he's smarter than me because I sound stupid. I love the fact that he doesn't know who I really am. I love getting one over on him in particular, probably more than the entirety of society.

There are worse brothers than Scooter, but he's not a particularly good one either. And ever since mom died, and dad's been dead for years now, he's appointed himself patriarch of this family, the glue that holds us together. I wish he'd just let the shit crumble. We were a family, but we were on two distinct sides of an ongoing battle. And even when the weapons have been surrendered, battle wounds don't disappear. God, does he look like dad. Right down to the mannerisms.

Now that it's just us, he's always on my ass. Suddenly, he's the big brother who always wants to be around. The successful family man who has so graciously accepted the unsolicited task of checking in on his bachelor brother.

I point at myself and make a sleeping gesture. Me tired. You, get the fuck out.

“Alright, alright. I'm checking in with you every week. So save me the effort and pick up the phone.”

I nod with a tired eye roll. I thought mom's death would give me freedom, but he's worse than her. At least she'd disappear into her room for a few weeks here and there.

I point at myself, make a phone gesture, then point at him. Me, call you.

I stand up, another nonverbal cue (I am very fluent in them), and he follows suit.

We walk to the back door that exits directly from the kitchen of my Sacramento bungalow, the city where we lived as kids. “I'll have Katie make you some real food. Can't believe you're eating oatmeal. That's one thing I don't miss about the bachelor life. You know, you don't have to watch out for mom anymore. You should get out there. You're a good looking kid.” He grabs my bicep, the one that doesn't look like it was gone over with a cheese grater, and gives it a squeeze. “You've got money and a good job. Women lap that shit up…Katie has friends.”