Gathered Up

by Annabeth Albert

  “Why are you so mean?” Tears ran down her cheeks as she pushed away from the couch. “I’m going and that’s final.” She stalked away to her room, where the twins were already asleep. I couldn’t follow without risking a double cranky wake-up and Renee knew it.

  Hell. Lord save me from entitled teenagers. I flopped back on the couch. Now I got to spend the next twenty-four hours waiting to see if she carried through on her threat. Most likely she’d still show up on time to get the kids and just whine at me later, but if she didn’t…

  Buzz. My phone rang in my pocket.

  I fished out my phone, but I really wasn’t in the mood for my nightly phone call with Ev and was dreading telling him that our plans would have to wait yet again.

  “Hey, babe.”

  “What is wrong?” Ev asked immediately.

  “Nothing,” I said automatically. I thumped my feet against the couch, wishing it was true.

  “Do not nothing me. Do we not have the kind of friendship where we can share unhappy days? Tell me and you will feel better.”

  “Fine.” I explained about Renee’s tantrum, finishing up with, “And now I get to either call in sick or wait for a frantic call from Jonas.”

  “Tatlim.” Ev made a clucking noise. “Why did you not call me? I can help you.”

  “You’re busy with Mira and your new classes and—”

  “And the children are good for Mira. My first children’s class is Saturday afternoon. We’ll test out my projects together down in the classroom of the shop while Mira rests; then, when she awakens, I will give them a little dinner, yes? And save some for you?”

  “That sounds great,” I said weakly, hating needing him this much. I hadn’t signed the kids up for his Saturday class because I simply couldn’t afford the fee, and I wasn’t about to ask Ev for charity.

  “Now, will the school need a phone call from you that I’m picking them up or can Renee bring them to me at the shop?” Ev sounded so matter-of-fact that I wanted to weep, and I wasn’t even sure why my eyes were burning.

  “I’ll work it out with her,” I said. “And I’ll pick them up the minute we close and—”

  “Tatlim. You are going to exhaust yourself with and again,” Ev chided. “This will be fine.”

  I didn’t really believe him, but I had no choice but to murmur my agreement.

  Around four thirty the next afternoon my phone buzzed, but I wasn’t able to check it until closer to five thirty, at which point there were three pictures and a text informing me that Renee had dropped them off on time. The pictures were two of the kids knitting in the sunny backroom at Iplik, goofy grins on all three faces, then a picture of the twins cooking something that appeared to be made with dough.

  Save some for me! I texted back, hoping that whatever it was would be edible after the kids finished.

  Ev’s reply was almost instantaneous. Always, tatlim. Things are fine. Do not trouble yourself.

  However, when I arrived to pick up the kids, the normally perfectly put-together Ev was looking decidedly rough around the edges—flour on his designer pants, hair all messed up like he’d been dragging a hand through it, shirt half untucked, and the sort of glassy expression around his eyes that I knew only too well.

  “They break you?” I asked as he let me in the back entrance.

  “No, of course not.” Ev greeted me with a weary kiss.

  “Liar.” I inhaled his scent, suddenly more turned on than hungry and tired.

  “There is food for you.” He started to lead me up the stairs, but I pulled on his hand, stopping him. I tugged him into the shadows on the landing, giving him a proper kiss, one that left us both panting.

  “Need you more than food.” I chuckled against his neck.

  “Well, lahmacun is what we have—it’s like a Turkish version of pizza. Your kids approved. The other will have to wait.”

  “I know.” I still didn’t release him. “Doesn’t stop me from wishing I could blow you right here.”

  Ev made a clucking sound that wasn’t entirely disinterested. “Now I must walk around with that image in my head. Thank you.”

  “Come on. I can be fast, and I know you can, too.…” I reached for his belt and he didn’t shove my hands away.

  “Brady! Ev! Come see my drawing!” Madison’s voice echoed down the stairwell, and we pulled apart.

  “Hold that thought.” Ev kissed the top of my head. “Because it was indeed a…compelling idea.”

  Lahmacun was indeed delicious—flat bread topped with a ground-meat sauce—but eating with the overtired kids bouncing around wanting to tell me about their adventures with Ev made me feel every minute of the long day. The kids went to go collect their belongings and I sagged against Ev as soon as they left the room.

  “Why does Renee get to have all the fun?” I voiced the petty thought that had been rattling around my head all day. “I just don’t get why she’s stopped pulling her weight and left it all on me.”

  “Because she’s eighteen.” Ev tangled his hands in my hair, pulling it loose from the sloppy bun I had it in. “And at a certain point, tatlim, you have to let her be eighteen.”

  “I’m not sure I can do this without her.” Something about Ev’s soothing hands had me voicing my deepest doubts.

  “You’re not.” Ev kissed my neck. “You don’t have to do this on your own.”

  “Yeah, I kind of do. I’m always worried about using other people too much. The social workers didn’t think I could do this on my own and I…don’t want them to be right.” I still remembered the first awful months after Mom and Greg died, the endless meetings with social workers, the implication that foster care might be preferable to me. I’d never really lost that fear and sense of inadequacy and Renee’s behavior the last few weeks had brought all those worries bubbling to the surface.

  “Getting help doesn’t prove them right. It proves you smart.” Ev kissed my forehead again. “Let people help you.”

  “Ev? I think you need to come here.” A very frightened Jonas cut my pity party short. Ev and I rushed into the living room. Jonas was standing next to Mira’s recliner, a frown on his face. “We were talking to Mira and then she just went to sleep! In the middle of talking!”

  Oh, no. My heart beat double-time as Ev put his fingers on Mira’s wrist and gently kissed her head.

  “Aşkim?” she muttered.

  “Shh. Sleep now,” he soothed. To us, he said, “She does that now sometimes. Drifts off without warning. She must conserve her strength for her fight.”

  Her turban had slid to one side, revealing her bald scalp, and her color was pale grayish pink, nothing like the healthy, dark-haired, rosy-cheeked lady she’d been even six months ago. She wheezed a bit as she dozed, a dull rattle shaking her slight frame.

  I herded up the kids as quietly as I could and we made our way down to the car. Before Ev could get in, I pulled him aside.

  “What do the doctors say?” I asked. It was the first time I’d seen Mira since my birthday, and the rapid decline made my lungs fill with frigid air.

  “Eh.” Ev made a dismissive gesture. “We do not listen to them. She simply needs to recover some strength. They are saying nonsense about hospice and we are not to that point yet. She has much fight left.”

  “Yeah.” I wasn’t so sure, but I rubbed his arm anyway.

  He shrugged away from the touch. “Enough about that. Let’s get you home.”

  “Ev.” I stayed him with a hand on his shoulder, and thankfully, he didn’t throw this touch off, too. “Remember what you said? It’s okay to need help with this.”

  “But we don’t.” Ev’s face was stony as he slid into the driver’s seat, and the chill in my lungs reached arctic proportions. He might be there for me when I needed him, but if he couldn’t let me help him, this wasn’t much of a partnership.

 
Chapter 12

  Summer is approaching with long, sunny days filled with a riot of color. I try to bring as many of those colors into the shop and our home as possible, filling Hala Mira’s world with color. So many of you have asked how we are. And the truth is, I’m not sure. Talking about it... it is hard, dear friends, and so I don’t. The days are growing longer all around us, while here at home, the hours grow shorter, the doctor’s voices less bright, their handshakes turning to sympathetic pats, the nurses full of false cheer. Everyone knows us there now, and at Knit Night, too, our friends are full of the big smiles and hushed tones. And I do the only thing I can do. I knit. This pattern is slipper socks in the softest cashmere and silk blend I could find.—Evren’s Yarnings

  The sicker Mira got, the more Ev pulled away from me, canceling dates and keeping phone calls to a minimum. Strangely, he was only too happy to hear about my troubles with Renee or to offer to have the kids come by the shop. We brought him and Mira ice cream a few times, but the kids and I did most of the eating and the best Ev and I got were some stolen stairway kisses.

  The week of my barista championship trip finally came, and I was busy double- and triple-checking the arrangements for the kids when Renee bounded over to the kitchen table, where I had my to-do lists spread out.

  “So when you win—”

  “If,” I corrected her, even as I smiled at her. I loved her faith in me.

  “Maybe you won’t need me around as much?” She had a strange, sly look on her face.

  “What do you mean?” My stomach got the same floppy feeling it always did when one of the twins said they didn’t feel so well.

  “See, Indigo and Sierra and Ray are all looking at getting a place near campus—”

  “You are not moving in with your boyfriend at eighteen. No way, no how.” I used my firmest tone possible, but she just rolled her eyes. Her hair was done in two French braids and her tiny pink shirt only made her look that much younger. She might not like it, but she still needed me in her life, every bit as much as I needed her help. Maybe I was a piss-poor substitute for Mom’s guidance, but I wasn’t going to let her ruin her life either.

  “I wouldn’t be moving in with him. It would be a group of us. The college is asking for theme houses in the campus apartments. They’re going to apply for an environmental one and they asked me to join them. I’d be sharing a room with Sierra. The financial aid office says I could get more aid to cover it, and there are some scholarships for housing, too.”

  “Renee.” I clunked my head on the table. “You are not moving out. I need you too much. The whole family needs you.”

  “Yeah? Well, maybe I’m tired of being needed all the time, okay?” Her eyes welled up.

  For once her tears didn’t have me rushing to reassure her. Instead, I felt weary. Bone-weary with worry over why Ev was shoving me away and with all the details for my trip and with picking up the slack as Renee did less and less around the house. So many times in the last month I’d had to cancel plans with Ev or rush to make sure the kids had someone to watch them. She really wanted to talk about being tired? I was fucking exhausted.

  “You think I like this, Renee? You think I like calculating how much groceries the Social Security survivor’s benefit check will cover this month? You think I like turning down meals with my boyfriend to supervise showers and read stories?”

  “You like bossing me around.” Her eyes narrowed. “You think you can guilt me into staying home.”

  “No. I think I haven’t been guilting you enough. We had an agreement this year right? For you going to school and not having to work? But you keep canceling—”

  “I have reasons.” She stamped her foot exactly like the twins. “Classes are hard. And I have a life—”

  “And so do I.” It was the first time I’d ever asserted that with her and it made my hands shake. “Like tomorrow. I need you to be home on time and take the kids on time.” It was the last night before my trip and some Ev time was exactly what I needed to ease the raw feeling in my insides.

  “And if I don’t?”

  I played one of the few trump cards I still had with her. “I’m not paying for your phone next month. You need to step it up, Renee.”

  “I hate you.” She stormed off and I heard the shower click on a few minutes later, a sure sign that she was sobbing in the bathroom.

  Fuck. I needed to talk to Ev. Right the fuck then. I grabbed the phone and hit his number. The call rang so long that I was rehearsing a voice-mail message in my head when Ev picked up at the last minute.

  “Hello, Brady. Is everything all right?” Ev’s voice was too formal, weighed down with something I couldn’t identify, each word seeming to require great effort from him.

  “Yeah. Especially now that I’m talking to you.” Any thought I’d had of confessing the stressful chat with Renee fled. He didn’t need my petty worries, just the one bit of good news I could offer. “Actually, I’m unexpectedly free tomorrow night after I get off work. I was thinking I could come over, help you get Mira settled for the night, then you and I could spend some time together.”

  “I do not think so.” More of that plodding tone from Ev. It killed me to hear him so burdened, and I longed to wrap my arms around him. “You are still leaving Thursday evening for your contest, yes?”

  “Yeah. I’ll be gone until Sunday evening, which is why I’d really like to see you before I go.”

  A very long pause had me checking the phone to make sure we were still connected. “It’s not a good time for me. There is…much to do.”

  “So let me help,” I wheedled. “You’ve helped me with the kids a bunch, Ev. Why can’t you let me help you when you need it?”

  “We…I…do not need help. All is fine. Mira is…fine. It is just…work things.” His voice couldn’t sound more strained than if he were balancing on a tightrope over the Grand Canyon. “Focus on your trip.”

  “It isn’t all fine.” I used the tone I did when I caught the kids in a lie. “You’re struggling. I’ve seen it all week. I thought we were the kind of... friends who helped each other when the going gets rough. Isn’t that what you said?”

  “Friends does not mean you can make…demands,” Ev snapped. There was a thumping sound, as if he’d just whacked his pillow. “I said I am too busy. What are you not understanding? Pack for your trip. Have a most excellent weekend. Please.” He said the last bit as a half curse and half plea.

  “Ev. Are we boyfriends or not? Because if we’re boyfriends, you can’t keep shoving me away just because you’re having a bad week that you don’t want to talk about. You don’t have to talk—let me rub your shoulders. Let me help you cook. Let me help.”

  Another pause long enough to fit the entire Columbia River in. “We are not that kind of boyfriends.”

  “Oh? What kind of boyfriends are we, then? Fuck buddies? There doesn’t seem to be any of that happening lately—”

  “Is everything with you about sex? Are you upset that we are not having backroom fumbles tonight?” Ev’s voice was more condescending than I’d ever heard it. Suddenly, I knew exactly what this was about. I pushed away from the table, pacing the length of the narrow kitchen.

  “It’s because I’m bisexual, isn’t it? I’m good enough for casual friends, but not good enough to be a real boyfriend who you trust with your feelings and problems?”

  “I did not say that.”

  “You didn’t have to. You don’t want a real relationship with me. You still don’t trust me not to go chasing after some girl instead of standing by you.”

  “It is not about…trust.” Rustling noises muffed Ev’s words, like he was shifting around in bed.

  “Prove it. Let me come over and help you tomorrow. Let me see you when you’re down, not just when you’re available to be my rescuer.”

  “I cannot. Enjoy your trip, Brady,” Ev said with a firm f
inality that pierced my heart.

  “So what? We’re through?” I tore my hair loose from the bun.

  “I did not say that. We will talk when you return.”

  “Fuck that. I want to talk now. And I want to know if you’re ever going to get over my being bisexual.” I couldn’t shake the feeling that was what was really happening here—he wouldn’t let me get closer because of an inability to trust me. “Can we have a real relationship or not?”

  It wasn’t until I asked the question that I realized how much I wanted that with him—as complicated and uncertain as it was, I wanted it. I wanted the logistics issues and the missing him and the late-night phone calls and the stolen kisses, and I wanted us each wrapped up in the other’s life. I hadn’t wanted that a few months ago, but Ev had changed me. Changed what I was willing to reach for, changed what I dreamed about.

  “Brady. You are blowing things out of proportion and I cannot…deal with the…drama right now. Go win your contest and call me when you return.” Each of Ev’s words was stiffer than the last, little pieces of shrapnel that hit every insecure spot on my body.

  “I won’t.” My retort was worthy of a back-talking kid, but I couldn’t keep it back and couldn’t stop myself from hanging up by hitting the Power button instead of End Call. I’d turn it back on in a bit of course, but right then I wanted to be as juvenile as Renee having a tiff with her girlfriends. I wanted to stomp around and loudly declare that no way was I taking his calls. And maybe I kept the phone off out of the more realistic fear that he wouldn’t call, that he was every bit as done with me as I was him. Liar. Liar. Liar. Keeping to the teen-drama theme, I flopped on the couch. I wasn’t ever going to be done with Ev.

  And speaking of Renee, I opened my eyes a while later to find her hovering above the couch, eyes puffy and swollen.

  “I hate fighting with you. You’re…” Her lower lip wobbled. “You’re all I’ve got, and I hate that.”

  “I hate it, too,” I said, pulling her to me. She landed next to me in an ungraceful heap. I pushed all thoughts of Ev and our fight from my head. Renee was right. We were all each other had and I needed to focus on that. I needed to focus on what I could do for my family, not what I couldn’t do for Ev’s.