Well Met(68)

I couldn’t help the smile that broke over my face. “I love them.”

In the kitchen, while the coffeemaker burbled, Simon cracked eggs in a bowl and got cheese and milk out of the fridge. He directed me to the cabinet with the coffee mugs and I poured the coffee. Pretty soon he was busy at the stove, so while the eggs and cheese sizzled together I took my cup of coffee and wandered out into the front hallway for some basic snooping around. The wall of family photographs was a good place to start.

Dear God, Simon was an adorable child. When Mitch had talked about the two of them growing up together, I’d pictured Mitch swinging from the monkey bars and hitting on the other first graders, while Simon was probably in a tiny starched shirt with immaculate hair, reading at the side of the playground. I wasn’t too far off. Making my way down the wall of pictures was a sped-up journey through time: a dark-haired woman and her sandy-brown-haired husband, first with one dark-haired boy then two. While most of the early ones were posed, professional shots, there was the occasional candid, especially of the two brothers.

Even as a child Sean stood out. The older the boys got in the photos the more magnetic Sean appeared, with a smile that drew you in, made you want to be part of his orbit. I studied Simon’s older brother in the most recent photos. I’d heard so much about him at this point that it was like coming face-to-face with a legend. The last pictures showed him thinner, with circles under his eyes, but his smile was as magnetic as ever. Just from looking at these photos I wanted to know him better. His death must have been devastating to this family.

But more than Sean’s smile, the thing that stood out to me in this succession of photos was Simon’s. In early photos he smiled with his whole face, the bright, broad grin of a happy child. But the older he got, the more the smile faded until it was the close-lipped half curve of the lips that looked like the Simon I knew. He didn’t look unhappy in any of the pictures, just less exuberant. Like he knew Sean’s smile was enough to light up a room on its own, and he didn’t need to contribute to the wattage.

I didn’t hear Simon approach, but his arms slid around me from behind, careful not to dislodge the coffee cup in my hands. He didn’t speak; he seemed content to nestle my body into his until we were as close as we’d been when I woke up. I knew that I could release all of my tension and melt into his arms, and he would hold me up.

Instead I gestured with my coffee mug at the wall of family history. “So where are your parents?”

“In the basement. I let them out on holidays, if they behave.” He squirmed away from the elbow I aimed at his stomach. His laugh was a low rush of breath in my ear and I remembered how he’d once chastised me for filling out a form incorrectly. Was this the same man?

“No,” he said once I’d stopped threatening him. “They’re in South Dakota right now, on their way out to the West Coast for the fall.”

“South Dakota?” That made about as much sense as them being in the basement.

He nodded, resting his chin on my shoulder and looking at the pictures of his family. “It was hard on all of us when Sean died. My mother especially. Everything in this house, this town, reminded her of him, and it sent her into this downward spiral that . . . Some days she didn’t get out of bed at all.” His arms tightened around me and I laid one hand on his forearm, squeezing as much comfort into my touch as I could.

“One day my dad pulled into the driveway in this huge RV. He didn’t talk to her about it beforehand, just went and bought the thing. I thought she was going to kill him. But she came around, and they started taking it out on the weekends. They took longer and longer trips, and before I knew it, my father had taken early retirement and they were off traveling the country.”

I tilted my head up to look at him. “They just . . . left you?” I didn’t like it. In the space of a few months, he went from being in a family to living alone? No, I didn’t like it at all.

“I sure as hell wasn’t going with them. Twenty-five years old and driving around the country with my parents in a big tin can? No, thank you.” He smiled at the thought, but his smile was wistful and a little sad. “They send postcards, and come home in December and stay for a few weeks through the holidays. Last Christmas, they gave me the deed to this house.”

“Hell of a Christmas present.” I raised my eyebrows, and he snorted in response.

“They said it was going to be mine eventually anyway.” His gaze roamed over the pictures on the wall. “I was living in Baltimore when Sean first got sick, then I moved back here and got a substitute teaching job. I’d planned to help out with things for a year or two until he got better. I wasn’t going to stay forever. But then Mr. McDaniels retired, and Willow Creek High needed an English teacher. Then I suddenly became a homeowner . . .” He shrugged. “Things just kind of happened. There’s something comforting about living where you’ve always been. Everyone knows you. You’re part of something.” His eyes lingered on a picture of himself and his brother as teens. “Of course, that also means you’re not allowed to change. I guess I’m going to be Sean’s little brother forever.”

Mitch had said something similar, but before I could say anything about it, Simon’s face cleared, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. “Come on, your eggs are getting cold.” He dropped a kiss on my shoulder and took my hand. “You promised me a story, remember? It’s your turn.”