Georgie, All Along (98)

But over twenty years later, I know I’ve lost that particular talent.

Because once Georgie’s gone, all I do is think.

About how I hurt her.

Hurt her because I was hurt.

It’s three nights since she walked out, and I’ve spent every one of them in the same spot I’m in right now—out on my dock, facing the water, Hank lying with his chin pressed hard against my booted foot as though he’s weighting me to the ground. Making sure I don’t up and float away.

She told me I needed to figure some stuff out, and I think the problem is, I already have. I’ve turned that night over and over in my mind, and what it boils down to is this: I saw the inside of that notebook and a hole yawned open inside of me, then I took it out on her. I made her feel messy and small. I made her an offer, but it wasn’t a real one. It was me trying to fit her into a place that’d fill me up again. That’d make me feel better, safer. More stable.

I think what I’ve figured out is that I don’t deserve Georgie Mulcahy at all.

Hank lifts his chin from my foot and peers back toward the yard, his ears perking. He’s done that a lot the last three nights, waiting for her to come back.

“Settle in,” I tell him, same as I have every other time he’s done it. His naked, relentless hope is almost as painful as every other part of this.

I wait for him to sigh and set his chin back down, but this time, he doesn’t. Instead he stands and wags his tail, and a few seconds later I hear a car coming down the way. It’s too loud to be Georgie’s, not that I had any hope of it. I sit forward in my chair, scrubbing my hands through my hair and over my beard, knowing and not caring I probably look awful, tired and untended. It’s probably Laz or Micah coming to check on me, since I bailed on a site today. If I had any interest in being polite right now, I’d get up and turn around, make my way up and greet whichever one of them it is. Put on a show that I’m fine.

But since I don’t have any interest in that, I stay where I am, expecting any second to hear one of my coworkers gently rag on me for being lazy.

Instead, I hear a once-familiar phrase.

“Hey, Lee.”

Hank comes over, nudging at my hand, trying to jolt me out of my temporary paralysis at the sound of my brother’s greeting, sounding exactly the way it had all those years ago.

When I finally stand and turn to face him, though, he’s still all grown up, same as he was at The Bend the other night. He’s dressed more casually now—jeans and sneakers and an old UVA T-shirt, a ball cap pulled low over his eyes. Dressed this way, standing that way—hands in his pockets, shoulders braced—he and I look so much alike it makes my chest ache.

Get gone, I hear myself saying, years ago, and I realize I’m not going to say anything like that now.

Because he looks so grown standing there. So separate from my dad and so close to me.

For the first time in years, it’s perfectly natural to greet him.

“Hey, Ev.”

*

MY BROTHER LOOKS at me for a long time, and I wonder if he’s doing the same thing I am, in a way. Looking into something that’s not quite a mirror, but damned close. Trying to do something different from what we did when we saw each other the other night.

He clears his throat. “Nice place you got here. I heard you took it over.”

I nod, watching him take the property in. “Thanks. I got lucky.”

We lapse into silence, and Hank . . . well.

Hank farts.

I lower my chin to my chest and sigh.

Evan laughs. He always had the easiest laugh.

“Good boy,” he says, crouching and welcoming Hank into his open stance. “I don’t know how we woulda got through that moment without you.”

He’s rubbing at Hank’s ears and chest, letting him lick at his chin, and all his cheerful openness with my dog gets my brain back online enough to wonder why he’s come. It can’t be anything too bad, what with the way he’s acting, but after all this time it can’t be anything too good, either.

“Everything all right?”

He nods once and stands, tucking his hands back in his pockets. “I thought I’d come by. After running into you the other night.”

I lower my head and scratch the edge of my thumbnail over my eyebrow, hoping he can’t see my face redden.

“I ought to apologize about that. I mean, I do apologize. About the way I acted.”

He blows right by that, as if I didn’t even say it. “Pretty unexpected, finding you there. We never see you around.”

That’s on purpose, I don’t say, but I’m sure he figures it anyway. I wonder, fleetingly, if he’s come to warn me, if what he’s telling me with that We never see you around is a gentle Don’t let it happen again. But if that’s what it is, he doesn’t have to worry. I don’t expect I’ll have a reason to let it happen again.

I see some things, I remember saying to Georgie, weeks ago, when I was telling her about the life I’d made for myself here. Jobs, my house, Hank. That’s what it’ll go back to now.

“It was nice,” he says.

I swallow reflexively.

“Pretty awkward, but nice. Liv wanted me to tell you hi.”

“She didn’t have to do that,” I say automatically, as if saying hi is some kind of chore, or a favor. I blow out another breath, shaking my head. “Sorry. I’m not—”