Jolene looked up at me and smiled, but her expression held a twinge of sadness.
“The compromise was that Fozzie had to be tethered to the oak tree in the yard and Greg wasn’t allowed to sleep outside with him until his leg healed. Daniel said he’d stay over with the dog, but something happened with his mom and he never showed.”
There was a pause before Jolene said, “I’m guessing your brother didn’t sleep inside.”
I shook my head and felt my chin quiver.
“Adam.” Jolene’s voice was soft, drawing my gaze back when I tried to look away.
“We don’t know exactly what happened. Maybe Greg untied the dog, or he got loose on his own. Greg was blind to anything but the animal in front of him. He’d belly crawled across frozen ponds before, climbed trees so high that I got dizzy watching him to save them—he wouldn’t have blinked at following a dog down a dark stretch of road at night.”
My chest felt like it was on fire. I’d never done this, never said these words out loud before.
“The driver who hit my brother wasn’t drunk. He wasn’t speeding or driving recklessly. He said he narrowly missed a dark shape darting in front of his car, and Greg was about half a second behind.”
Half a second between not a scratch and killed instantly.
Jolene tightened her arms around me, and I sucked in a breath, holding myself away from the comfort she was trying to give me so that I could get it all out.
“Two years later, and the pallets and empty cages are still in our barn. Everything in Greg’s room is the same.” My voice broke when I said, “My mom still changes his sheets once a week.”
Her arms tightened further, but I kept talking, like I had this compulsion to share everything with her.
My mom wasn’t in denial about Greg’s death so much as she was engrained in a habit she couldn’t bring herself to break. That, and she lived for those moments when she’d see his things exactly as he’d left them and the lie that he was still alive would almost fit, like an old coat. For a second or two.
Sometimes I had those moments, too. When my heart would surface and float along a memory before that suffocating, can’t-breathe-can’t-move-can’t-anything, gaping maw drowned me all over again.
It wasn’t a trade-off I sought. Dad and I were alike in that. He’d resorted to using the back stairs so that he wouldn’t have to walk by Greg’s room. Whenever Mom accidentally—right?—set an extra plate at the table, he’d get up and leave. All night sometimes.
Sometimes even when she set the right number of plates.
Jeremy was the only one who seemed surprised when those all-night absences stretched to two nights, then three, then... Yeah.
“It was better and worse when my dad moved out,” I told her. “Better in that there was one less emotional bomb to circumvent. Worse in that, with him gone, Mom started vacuuming Greg’s room twice a week.”
I felt Jolene flinch.
Greg would have known what to say to Mom, how to find her smile. Jeremy simply took up Dad’s practice of leaving the room whenever she did something uncomfortable, like bake Greg a birthday cake.
Or nearly drown herself after passing out in the bathtub with an empty bottle of brandy later that night.
When something wet seeped through the front of my shirt, I realized Jolene was crying silently.
“Jeremy couldn’t even nut up enough to help me get her out of the tub. All he kept saying was that maybe we should call Dad. He didn’t understand or wouldn’t understand that Dad had moved out to get away from exactly that kind of thing. Calling wasn’t going to help, but he did it anyway, and my dad moved back home. For a month.
“When he moved out the second time, Jeremy and I got packed up with the rest of his stuff. Here. Every other weekend.”
Jolene
On Sunday, I chewed on my lip and watched Adam open my gift. Of course, he would be the kind of person who carefully peeled off the tape and literally unwrapped the gift instead of tearing into it.
We had decided to exchange Christmas gifts early, because we weren’t going to see each other on December 25. At this rate the weekend would be over before his was half-opened.
“Adam,” I said, trying not to grit my teeth as he unfolded one end of the box and then turned his attention to the other side. “It’s gonna die before you get it out of the box.”
Adam paused his surgical gift unwrapping and stared at me. “You better be talking about a plant.”
I grinned at him, putting the gap between my front teeth on full display. He always seemed to like that. “It’s not a plant, but seriously.” I nodded at the gift. “Before we’re dead.”
Eyeing me, Adam carefully slid his thumb under a taped edge.
“Oh my gosh, just give it to me.” I lunged for the gift but all Adam had to do was raise his arms above his head and I couldn’t get to it.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you patience is a virtue?” He kept leaning one way or another to avoid my leaping grabs.
“What do you—” I made another attempt and failed “—think?”
Adam took pity on me, and I didn’t even mind, because he finally ripped off the rest of the wrapping paper and let it fall to the ground of the top-floor stairway. And then he was holding it. For some reason, I felt like looking away when he lifted the lid.
It wasn’t a huge deal. It hadn’t even cost me anything, but I was nervous and I desperately wanted him to like it.
The flash drive spilled onto his palm, and I pushed my laptop toward him.
“What is it?” he asked, but with a kind of wonder and anticipation that made me take a step back as soon as he opened the laptop.
“Just...” I nodded at the computer.
He inserted the drive, and then his eyes widened. Tugging at my braid, I watched him smile, softly at first. “Jo, did you—” He pointed at the screen but I shushed him.
“Just watch.”
And he did; we both did. He watched the movie I’d made, and I watched him.
His smiles—there were a lot of those, and laughs that seemed to catch him unaware—gave me the courage to draw closer to him instead of backing away. Even the moments when his smile dimmed, his eyes never did.
I was still staring at his face several minutes later when he looked up at me.
“You made that.”
“What gave it away, my name or—” I broke off when I felt his hand slide into mine, fingers threading together.
True, I’d held his hand before and leaped on his back a time or two, but those were always moments that I’d initiated and he’d just sort of...gone with.
This time it was all him. His warm skin against mine, the gentle squeeze that I somehow felt in my heart. I could swear I even felt his pulse echoing the rapid beat of my own.
“It’s still a rough cut but...you like it?” I asked, in a voice that almost came out timid except I knew my body wasn’t capable of being timid.
Adam’s hand increased its pressure and sent tingling waves rippling through me. “It’s the best thing anyone ever gave me.”
I told myself that he was just being nice, kind in the way he always was without even trying, but his hand and his eyes and his voice all said it was more than that.
“This is what you’ve been filming, but how did you do it? I mean, with the pictures...?”
The film—and I was using the term loosely—had been a compilation of the pictures we’d taken together and all the footage I had shot of us taking the pictures. Plus, some random footage of us. I’d started with the footage and then inserted the still photos at the exact same angle—they’d been a huge pain to match. I’d layered the still images on top of each other, using some of our outtakes to blend the transitions between moving images and the final still photos, letting the background movie continue so that there was always movem
ent.
Like us.
There wasn’t a story exactly from just the photos, but I’d created one from the additional pictures and videos I’d taken that he hadn’t known about. Thanks to a kindly janitor who happily opened a door for me, I’d even gotten some of the security footage from the recently installed cameras outside so I’d have footage of both of us arriving and leaving the apartment complex over and over again, showing unguarded expressions with each other and the opposite with everyone else.
It was a love story. Not romantic exactly, but the kind of love that maybe lasts beyond passion and heartache. It was a story of friendship, with all its possibilities laid out in front of it.
That was what Adam and I had.
I slid my hand free from his to eject the flash drive and close the laptop, because it felt like too much in the moment, touching him.
“I feel like my gift sucks now.”
My head snapped up. “Are you kidding? It’s the coolest thing I’ve ever owned.” No joke. I glanced at the gift that had been too big to wrap. Instead, Adam had stuck a giant gold ribbon on it.
It was an old director’s chair that he’d found at a yard sale and spent weeks restoring. It looked like it had come off the set of a movie from the ’50s. My heart swelled at the sight of it, but looking at Adam wasn’t any better.
“You’re gonna use this for your film program application, right? You have to.”
“I was thinking about it. It still needs work, but...you don’t mind?”
“Mind?” Adam glanced at the flash drive as I handed it to him. “You’re gonna make me famous.”
I laughed. “Merry early Christmas, Adam.”
“Merry early Christmas, Jo.”
IN BETWEEN
Jolene:
Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal.
Adam:
I know that one. Home Alone, right?
Jolene:
They only run it on TV for the entire month of December. Though technically it’s from the sequel.
Adam:
Merry Christmas to you, too.
Jolene:
I just ate a bag of Christmas candy corn. I’m gross.
Adam:
Oh, I finally found out about the movie critic in the building.
Jolene:
Sweet!
Adam:
He does live there but I guess he travels a lot and he’s gonna be gone until February.
Jolene:
I don’t have to send in the application until the end of April, so that’s okay. Thanks for finding out. You asked your dad?
Adam:
I needed something to say to him.
Jolene:
Then I guess you’re welcome for the topic...?
Adam:
How did it go at your dad’s?
Jolene:
The whole bag of Christmas candy corn, Adam. Between my mom calling me every hour because Tom spent the day with family and my dad texting delay after delay to Shelly, it was my most magical Christmas ever.
Adam:
Jo...
Jolene:
You don’t get to do that.
Adam:
Sorry. I wish I’d gotten to see you.
Jolene:
Blame our stupid parents for splitting the day the opposite ways.
Adam:
Yeah.
Jolene:
Tell me your Christmas was better.
Adam:
My mom put presents for Greg under the tree. Each year she adds to the ones that she wrapped the year before, so it’s like digging through land mines.
Jolene:
Adam...
Adam:
What happened to not doing that?
Jolene:
Are you at your dad’s now?
Adam:
Yeah. It was basically the same only with less crying from my dad and no attempted smile from me.
Jolene:
I’m thinking about eating another bag of Christmas candy corn in your honor.
Adam:
Don’t. I hate those things.
Jolene:
Then tell me something good from today.
Adam:
Now. Talking to you.
Jolene:
Something before now.
Adam:
Jeremy sat on a Christmas ornament and broke it. Shocked us all into laughing, even our mom. I didn’t think I’d get to hear that from her today. Okay, your turn.
Adam:
Are you still there?
Adam:
Hello?
Jolene:
I was thinking. Mrs. Cho made me a gingerbread house that I probably wasn’t supposed to eat but did. And she gave me the Die Hard special edition box set since I told her the first one is my favorite Christmas movie.
Adam:
Die Hard is a Christmas movie?
Jolene:
Die Hard is THE Christmas movie. Why, what’s your favorite?
Adam:
I don’t know. Elf?
Jolene:
That might be the saddest thing you’ve said yet.
Adam:
It’s funny.
Jolene:
It’s... Okay, we’re bingeing a bunch of Christmas movies on our next weekend, starting with Die Hard.
Adam:
Yippee ki-yay.
Jolene:
You are so much better than candy corn.
ONE WEEK LATER
Adam:
10
Jolene:
9
Adam:
8
Jolene:
We’re already behind. 4
Adam:
3
Jolene:
2 & 1! Happy New Year!
Adam:
Happy New Year!
Jolene:
Where are you?
Adam:
At my friend Rory’s house with some people.
Jolene:
Ooh, a party.
Adam:
Four guys and an Xbox, so sure. Did you make it to Venomous Squid’s show?
Jolene:
Yes, and sketchy doesn’t cover this place. I’m trying not to touch anything.
Adam:
Like unsafe sketchy? ’Cause Rory’s parents are asleep. We could come get you.
Jolene:
It’s cool. I’m right by the stage with Grady’s girlfriend, Audra, and Gabe and Dexter are there if anyone bothers us. Which they haven’t so far. Our underage wristbands are doing more than keeping us from drinking.
Adam:
Cherry there?
Jolene:
No. Meneik picked her up like five minutes after we got here.
Adam:
How much longer is the set?
Jolene:
An hour, I think. Then we’re going to Denny’s for pie. Yum.
Adam:
You having fun?
Jolene:
Sure. You?
Adam:
Not bad.
Jolene:
It’s too bad you couldn’t come. Are you winning at Xbox?
Adam:
That is the exact right way to phrase that, BTW. And yeah, still wish we could have rung in the New Year together.
Jolene:
And you could have met the guys!
Adam:
I was more thinking about kissing you at midnight.
Jolene:
That’s such a cliché.
Adam:
I’d call it classic.
Jolene:
I don’t
know. I just saw a guy belch into his date’s mouth. You’d have had stiff competition.
Adam:
No, I don’t think so.
Jolene:
Cocky much?
Adam:
Next year we’re spending New Year’s together.
Jolene:
I don’t know where I’ll be.
Adam:
What does that mean?
Jolene:
It means I go at the behest of my parents’ lawyers. I’ve been to two different schools since the divorce. I could be at another one next week.
I could be in another apartment.
Or you could.
Adam:
Your birthday is January 26.
Jolene:
So?
Adam:
Mine’s February 10.
Jolene:
I know. So?
Adam:
I’m assuming your dad wouldn’t be allowed to move you out of state.
Jolene:
I doubt it.
Adam:
Then in just over a month, I’ll be able
to drive to wherever you are. Or in a few weeks, you can drive to me.
Jolene:
Are you for real right now?
Adam:
Yes.
Jolene:
You’d really drive to me?
Adam:
Wouldn’t you drive to me?
Jolene:
This is the first time I thought about it.
Adam:
It’s not a trick question. If something happened and we didn’t have these weekends, would you still want to see me?
Jolene:
Yes.
Adam:
Good, ’cause I’d want to see you.
Adam:
Still there?
Jolene:
I don’t know what to do when you talk like that.
Adam:
Say it back.
Jolene:
I’d want to see you.
Adam:
You’re getting better at this nice thing.
Every Other Weekend Page 18