by Andrea Allen
Mina hadn’t been the only one to have changed.
She sat back and closed her eyes for a second, sinking into the familiar softness of the old armchair, a favored piece of furniture from her youth that clashed spectacularly with the new renovations of the home itself. Her fingers moved on instinct, finding a fraying thread in the worn gray fabric, one of the strange, multi-colored ends that inexplicably sprouted from the chair like alfalfa. She picked at it, worrying the little thread gently between thumb and forefinger, a habit that had formed in every member of her family, one by one, who had spent any significant amount of time in that chair. Mina’s stepfather had once pulled hard enough to tear a four-inch hole in the cushion, something she suspected she could probably find if she rubbed her fingertips around the side of it now. Instead of repairing the thing, Robert Harper had simply flipped the cushion and said no more about it. He was a practical man by nature.
Thinking of the rip in the chair made her frown, however, even as her mother came back, bearing hot cocoa and a tray of cookies that looked as though they had been baked from pure sugar. Mina could remember what had happened to cause the hole, who had set off her stepfather’s bout of irritation and made him forget his own strength, tearing open the cushion as he yelled at he who had, at the time, been just a boy, a teenager only somewhat older than Mina herself.
Her stepbrother, Dirk.
Heat prickled at Mina’s cheeks, a lightness roiled in her belly, nerves and a blush all in one. She shook her head to dislodge the memory, turned her attention to her mother, hoping that it wasn’t too obvious that her thoughts were drifting.
“So how is San Francisco treating you?” The older woman asked, as Mina descended upon her cocoa, still tingling from her time in the snow.
“The Bay is fine,” she replied with a shrug, already shrinking back from the attendant follow-up questions she could already see brewing in Marta’s eyes. Why had she left so quickly? Why had the move come with such a drastic change of appearance? Why had she put herself at such a remove from her family?
“I like what you’ve done with the place,” Mina continued quickly, as if to stall the questions a little. She really did; the old furnishings set in the middle of a recently refurbished house clashed in a way that had its own charm, a sort of dissonant hominess that Mina found herself enjoying. It was as though the mainstays of her childhood had been transplanted into a new house, the familiar and the new commingling.
“Oh, we did all this over the course of the year, bit by bit,” Marta waved a hand vaguely. “It’s only new to you because you’ve been gone so long. I wish you’d visit more often, Mina. We miss you.”
“I’m here now.” There was a hopeful note in Mina’s voice, a soft upward lilt that suggested they seize the day, that perhaps things could return to normalcy. “And I took a few days off so I could properly be here for the holidays. Let’s make up for lost time a little, huh?”
“Yeah.” Marta’s face split into a wide smile, one of those vibrant, bright, motherly smiles that she excelled at, the kind that told everyone in view that everything would be okay. “I know a few people who’ll be happy to see you. Your father’s out back, I’ll have to go get him.’’
“No trouble, he’ll come in when he’s ready.” Mina held off for as long as she could, running an idle finger around the rim of her mug, before she could stand it no longer, and asked, trying her hardest not to sound nervous. “And Dirk?”
“Not here yet, but he’s on his way. He’ll be here today, assuming it doesn’t start snowing too hard again. The roads were closed earlier this week.” This last part was imparted as though it were vital information, the idea that it might snow in the winter in Colorado apparently novel. Mina found herself smiling. Her mother really had begun the slide into doddering middle age very gracefully.
Still though, Dirk was coming, and that knowledge formed a sort of pressure over Mina’s head, a ticking clock counting down to the time that he would arrive and things would get awkward.
But there was a meantime and that meant time with her parents. After a few more minutes of pleasantries, Mina excused herself to go find her stepfather, winding her way through familiar rooms and hallways rendered just slightly different by the work that had been done on the house, before finding herself at the sliding glass door. It still caught and resisted as she tugged on it, the ancient rollers struggling in their track; of all the things to have been replaced or changed, this remained the same.
Snow piled up in big, powdery hills beyond it, the wind occasionally stirring the top layers into luminous, roiling motion. Mina squinted as she stepped out onto the clear portion of the patio, the glare off the dunes all-encompassing, the product of a now clear sky, all the clouds further north on the horizon. She could see the distant figure of her stepfather at the far end of the yard, knee deep in snow and wrapped up in so thick a coat that he was near spherical. He stood by a copse of trees and shrubs set in an elevated garden bed, in the depths of the swaying shadows the greenery cast, stretching up at something in the branches. It was anyone’s guess as to what.
Robert was a proponent of what Mina had taken to calling arbitrary gardening. Though he had no set schedule or aims for it, the man would prune and shear and plant with great enthusiasm at random intervals, with no attention paid to whether it was at all appropriate to do so. Checking the garden had become second nature in her youth, whenever she had needed to find him, and even now it wasn’t unexpected to see him leaving social engagements in the middle to do a little gardening. It was like a compulsion that came over him from time to time.
Mina sunk into the snow up to her calves as she crossed the garden toward the figure, ice crunching beneath her shoes into the thick grass, which offered far better traction than the slick driveway out front did. She was able to raise her feet above the line of the drifts, taking long, high strides through the chilly dampness that, somehow, didn’t attract Robert’s attention. Mina managed to sneak up on her stepfather, putting her arms around him from behind and squeezing hard enough for the pressure to penetrate his thick coat, causing him to stiffen and turn.
“Mina!” he exclaimed, his deep bass voice resounding off of the snow, filling the air. He looked her up and down, an eyebrow arching. “Well, nobody is going to miss you in the snow, Miss Tall, Dark and Grim.” Mina shrugged black-clad shoulders, shot Robert a lopsided smile. She was tired of fielding questions and comments about her newly dark appearance, and so she gestured back to the house. “Not much greenery at this time of year. Come in, Mom made cookies.”
They both picked their way across the garden, sending skirls of snow drifting in the air. From the patio, the sounds of movement could be heard from within the house, the sound of footsteps matched to the crunch of tires on the other side of the fence. The telltale squeal of the front door, of old hinges grinding together, suggested quite clearly that someone else had arrived, some other relative home for the holidays. For the first time, Mina could smell her mother’s cooking, a distinctly heavy scent of meat and gravy, of carbs and marinade, the sort of thing that made the mouth water and the fingers twitch, desiring to hold knives and forks.
She only had the briefest of moments to enjoy the smell, though, before Marta completed opening the front door and a familiar, male voice filtered in. Mina’s shoulders tensed immediately, her pace faltering just outside the house. Without realizing it, she drifted away from the transparent glass door and toward the relative cover of the nearest wall, cowering in her own family’s home from the man who had just entered.
Dirk.
Chapter 3
She could see him on the far side of the open plan living room, embracing their mother in the entryway. He towered over her, not just figuratively but literally; it was no secret that both Robert and Marta were short, Mina was taller than both of them, but Dirk was easily taller than her. An inch over six feet tall, he was a strong, well-built man bristling with defined muscle and an easy, long-limbed grace that mad
e him straddle the line between handsome and intimidating. He had a broad, lopsided smile that showed no teeth, just the curved line of his full lips, set into a prominent jaw covered in dark stubble. Calm, intelligent eyes the color of the clouds outside regarded Marta fondly, before sweeping into the house proper and alighting on his father.
With a barely contained squeak, Mina turned, pressed her back against the exterior wall. She took a deep breath. This had always been a possibility, she thought she was strong enough to handle it.
She had to handle it, here and now.
Rounding the corner and entering the house, Mina arranged her body to look as fearless as she wished to feel, striding into the living room with purpose and conviction. Her stepbrother stood in the middle of the room, taking the position one used to being the center of attention naturally would, gesturing animatedly in conversation with his father, who had gotten ahead of Mina. Whatever they had been talking about had been sports-based, but it stopped the moment Dirk caught sight of his sister, his hands falling to his sides for a moment, expression turning hooded, betraying nothing.
They stood like that for a moment, silence yawning between them, cavernous and far more lonely than the year they had spent apart. Mina offered a smile, choosing it carefully; not too bright, nor dim enough to seem forced. Nothing that might suggest what she was thinking, but sufficient to intimate that she was happy to see him. Mina was somewhat surprised to discover that, actually, she was. Her time in San Francisco had made her happy to see all of her family, but after what had happened last year she had struggled to predict what she might feel in the presence of her stepbrother again. Would she be angry? Nervous? Saddened that such a thing had occurred at all?
For some reason, happiness rang vaguely of betrayal. Of herself, of the principles she had stuck to so fastidiously… everything. Mina pushed the thought aside, perhaps too forcefully.
“Hey, Dirk.”
“Mina! I… wasn’t expecting you back.” Dirk’s smile showed actual teeth, one of few times that had ever happened, denoting true enthusiasm. “It’s good to see you!”
She allowed her brother to close the gap and hug her, even returned the embrace in a way she hoped didn’t come across as reserved. Her smile was tight and pinched as they withdrew, but no less genuine for the tension there. A blush crept along her cheeks, hot and red, and Mina’s hands found each other behind her back, fingers twisting together in nervous knots. She was a step away from Dirk, closer to him now than she had been at any time during the past year, and that proximity unbalanced her completely. Her eyes strayed down, across the man’s strong chest, before she caught herself and returned her gaze to his face.
“How have you been?” he asked, drawing out many of the words, as though giving himself space to think. Each syllable was laden with meaning.
“I’m… okay,” Mina said, shrugging and making a vague, formless gesture with one hand. So many other thoughts piled up in her mind, things she wanted to say, things she would have to say in private if she was going to say them at all, things she could never say. They all roiled together on her tongue, making it impossible for any individual thought to be spoken aloud. Silence stretched out between them in the wake of Mina’s indecision, long and awkward, and Dirk shifted his weight from one foot to the other, waiting for something to happen. Eventually, Marta stepped forward.
“Let’s sit down and eat,” she offered, her question a welcome relief from the utter deadness that had settled in the room. “It’s been so long since we’ve all been in the same house together!”
“Yes,” Dirk said as he walked past his stepsister, leveling a sidelong gaze upon her as he took to the kitchen, “It has.”
Chapter 4
Sitting together with Dirk turned out to be more difficult than Mina had thought it would be. Her brother’s presence was a constant, psychic pressure on her, a mix of so many emotions it became impossible to catalog them all. Apprehension and longing and deep disquiet vied for Mina’s attention, caused her to look away from Dirk for the most part, her shyness to actually address him not going unnoticed by either Dirk himself, nor their parents. Whenever she cast her gaze his way, Dirk looked back, his expression intensely interested, somewhat questioning. Mina rushed to look the other way.
So went their time together, had within a rising fog of awkwardness. Mina tried her best, could see that perhaps what she was feeling was not shared by her parents, but she couldn’t shake the discomfort she felt, her mind returning to topics she had done her best to avoid during her time away. The afternoon passed by, snow beginning to fall once more as the sun set, turning the ensuing night into a twinkling flurry of white flakes drifting by the windows, backgrounded by darkness and the swaying branches of trees beyond. Marta and Robert excused themselves early, having never been night owls in the way that their children were. A sense of inevitability of this moment had followed Mina all day, but this was the first time that she had been left alone with Dirk since returning home.
For a span of some thirty seconds, nothing happened. The sound of their parents creaking up the stairs grew gently softer, until it faded completely. Dirk sat in the old, familiar armchair, strumming idly at one of the threads that sprouted from it, still in the grips of the collective Harper family habit, just as Mina was. He chewed at his bottom lip, one boot-clad foot tapping at the floor, the very picture of agitation. Mina could barely meet his gaze, sat on the rug with her knees brought up to her chin defensively, knowing that something would have to happen, but barely able to fathom what it could be.
“Okay,” Dirk said finally, slapping his palms down on the armrests and lifting himself out of the armchair. “Were you just intending to never talk to me?’”
“I don’t know what you expect me to say, Dirk,” Mina looked at him long and hard before she spoke. It was evident that he was irritated, but… “I think it’s pretty clear that I’m uncomfortable. What did you expect would happen?” “Not this! Not… whatever this is!” For a moment, Dirk’s voice rose, threatening discovery. He caught himself and began to speak slowly, softly, aware of others that could be listening. “One day after what happened between us you just up and vanish, move halfway across the country, stop talking to me… what was going through your mind, Mina? Did I do something?”
While he was standing and she was sitting, Dirk towered over Mina, and in combination with his obvious agitation this was something she could not stand. She rose to her feet too, still shorter than him, but now on even footing. Still, she kept some distance between herself and her stepbrother, moving back whenever he moved forward, and this was not lost on him; frowning, Dirk forced himself to relax, even sat back down himself, unwilling to seem too confrontational around the younger girl.
“Is it that confusing? You’re my brother, Dirk,” she said softly, still standing. “What we did… you know we couldn’t keep that up. I left to put some space between us, I changed to get away from what you liked. No more temptation.”
“It didn’t work.” There was a sullen edge to Dirk now, quite unfitting of a man in nearing his thirties. “Besides, I’m your stepbrother. We’re not related, Mina.”
“We don’t need to be for it to put a strain on our family, bud,” she replied. “If you weren’t thinking with your dick, you’d understand that.”
“I’m not doing that,” he shook his head. “You’re not the only one who had time to consider this, Mina. Surprisingly, you popping out of my life didn’t make me less curious about you. It didn’t make me want you less.”
“We can’t, Dirk…”
“We did, Mina,” he stood then, unfolding from his chair and crossing the floor toward her. Mina backed up, more as a reflex than out of any genuine fear. The mantel above the fireplace stopped her, and she flinched as Dirk came upon her then, placing one gentle hand on her hip. Mina shivered in recognition; this was the place. The exact same place, touched first on the exact same hip.
“We did, and I haven’t been able to get
it out of my head since,” Dirk continued, his face so very close to Mina’s own. “Was it really so bad for you?”
“No…” The word escaped Mina’s mouth before she could stop it, trembling and barely audible. It was the truth, and a truth of such power over her that it had to be said. She didn’t move to dislodge her stepbrother’s hand from her hip, even as his grip tightened to hear her answer.
“Was it… good?” This was a different question, and they both knew it. It was also a question for which they both already had the answer, could see it in each other’s eyes and voice, the closeness of their bodies. But it had to be asked, all the same. It demanded an answer.
For all her reservations and pointed self-recriminations, Mina could still recall that night in vivid detail. Individual flashes of sensation came to her, one after the other, in a never-ending stream as she dwelt on it, things she would have never thought she would have cause to think about before that fateful day came, and Dirk’s emotions had spilled over completely. She knew his scent from a thousand illicit fantasies, a sweet lavender that was cloying in the nose, cut through by a deeper masculinity. The taste of him still lingered on her tongue if she closed her eyes, mint and coffee, a sugary aftertaste that came from too many Christmas cookies, and a thread of alcohol that loosened the inhibitions and made Mina shiver to this day. His fingers at her hip evoked the way he had touched her that day, her stepbrother’s usual gentleness giving way to a firm, possessive sort of contact, the kind that made her knees weak.