by Vivian Lux
Beau had been the one to call me, and at first I thought it was some kind of sick joke. Maybe a cheap trick to get me to come home and force a reconciliation with my brothers. I'd even been hoping that the closer I got to Crown Creek, because the alternative was too insane to bear. Uncle Gideon, dead? That couldn't possibly be true.
That last hope had drained away when I pulled into the parking lot and saw my parents' car in the lot. Now all I had was detachment, and fucking despair.
My sister Claire was the first to notice me hovering in the background. "JoJo!" she cried, in that voice of hers where you don't know if she's going to hug you or slug you.
I let out a laugh that was more like an exhale than anything else. "Hey," was all I managed to say. The casket was looming there in the front. I couldn't take my eyes off it.
"There you are!" my mother cried, immediately stepping past my blank faced brothers to fold me into her arms. She had a way of pulling you down into her hugs, trapping you in a hunched over posture that quickly grew uncomfortable, but there'd be hell to pay if you tried to wiggle out of her embrace. You had to let her hold you for as long as she needed.
She needed to hold on to me a long while now. I sort of got it. I didn't mean to let two years go by without returning to Crown Creek. I really didn't. Not intentionally, anyway. It was just a matter of having a lot of work to do, being so damn busy carving out a solo career, rebuilding from the ashes of the King Brothers.
"Hey there," I said to her, because what else was there to say? I tried to straighten up without disturbing my mother's hug and caught my father's eye. "Dad," I sighed. "I'm so sorry."
My father blinked once and then nodded. He was never one for outward displays of affection, that was my mom's job. "You drive here?" he asked me.
"There's really no other way to get all the way out here, right?" I replied, standing up as my mother finally released me. "Crown Creek isn't exactly a hotbed for public transit.
Dad let the snarky comment slide. "How's your rental?"
"It's fine, Dad."
"Did you check the air pressure in the tires?"
I blinked. "It's a rental. They do that for you."
"Jonah's used to having people do things for him." Gabe piped up, managing to smile wide enough that everyone laughed except me.
"It's a rental," I repeated.
But my Dad was already putting on his coat, mumbling about checking the oil. As he stepped aside, the casket came back into view again.
I ducked past my sister's eager smile, my mom's sad one, and my brothers' uniform glowers. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the funeral director hovering, like a black-suited shadow. The service was most definitely over now, and they were probably waiting to whisk my uncle out of sight, down to the crematory to reduce him to nothing more than gray ashes.
I swallowed back the bile this thought raised. Fuck it. They could wait. "I'm going up there," I told them all. "To say goodbye." If my brothers wanted to give me any kind of shit - whether about being late, being successful without them, or maybe just about the shoes I was wearing - they were going to have to do it while I was saying goodbye to my uncle.
There was a kneeler set up by the side of the casket. I supposed it was there in case I wanted to say a prayer for Gid's soul, but he didn't need that from me. Better or worse, he was already headed to where he was ending up. This moment was all for me.
I forced myself to look down at the body. The set of Gid's mouth was all wrong, and his hair was combed straight back all neat and proper like instead of falling all over the place like a gray-maned lion.
"You look like shit, man," I said under my breath.
This would have normally earned me a smart retort, maybe a smack on the back of the head and then an invite down to the shed for a jam session and a sip - "just a sip so your dad doesn't kill me" - from the 'good Scotch.' I'd had all different kinds of Scotch by now, but none had been so smooth, so perfectly balanced as the stuff my uncle would slip me.
I blinked and then blinked again. Gid was the dad I should have had, I'd always secretly believed it. He was the one who'd given me my first guitar. He was the one who'd taught me to watch people's eyebrows so eye contact didn't freak me out, a trick I'd used in countless interviews since then. Gid had sat there quietly and listened to my dreams, and more than that, he'd told me I'd make them happen. Instead of telling me to be practical and have a back-up plan like the man I'd actually called Dad. Gid was my cheerleader, the only one who understood the all consuming ambition that drove me, and instead of calling me crazy, he'd celebrated it. Maybe he thought the music I played was shit - he'd definitely told me that once or twice or twenty times - but he always admired me for devoting my life to playing it.
I blinked again. The tear fell before I could catch it and landed on Gid's navy-blue lapel where it pooled for a moment before soaking in to the fabric.
I reached back and pulled out my flask. My hands were shaking, but I managed to get it unscrewed. The quick sip burned the tears away and I took a deep breath. It was good Scotch. Just like Gid liked.
The funeral director cleared his throat, I had half a mind to give him the finger, but an idea occurred to me.
Quick, before I could think about it, I slipped the flask in next to Gid's arm. "Here, Uncle Gid," I whispered. "In case you get thirsty."
I stepped back quickly before I lost my shit completely. The hovering shadow got closer and I nodded. "Yeah," I said, clearing my throat. "I'm done."
I was done. Gid was gone.
I felt like a part of me had died alongside him.
I blinked away so I didn't have to see them close the coffin and wheel it out of sight, and that was when I saw my sister's friend Ruby watching me and realized she had seen the whole thing.
Chapter Three
Jonah
Ruby was looking at me like I'd just undone my belt and taken a shit on the carpet. I lifted my hand in salute and she turned back to talking with my sister's friends like she was done with me.
But that was all an act, because she clearly wasn't done yet. She caught up with me again in the vestibule, as we all stood there arguing about who was driving who to the wake.
"You've got a lot of nerve," she said. It came out in a hiss between her teeth as she tugged her coat on so hard she popped a seam.
I looked down at her. I usually hated short hair on girls, but I had to admit this new haircut worked for her. Made her huge, dark eyes look even huger, and her delicate, heart shaped face even more doll-like.
Ruby Riley had always seemed like the most level-headed of my spoiled little sister's best friends. I'd picked up her story here and there, how her dad had died of a heart attack when she was ten and her mother had to work two jobs all the time. It meant she spent a lot of time at our house, underfoot, but I'd never thought she had any reason to dislike me.
Of course, she'd never seemed to really like me either. Not like Claire's other friend Willa who was forever trying to bring me snacks.
But she also wasn't an airhead like that girl Sadie, who was always mooning over something and spent a frightening amount of time pretending to be a horse.
No, of the four of them, Ruby was the least annoying, and I included my sister in that count.
Which was why I couldn't figure out why she was being so annoying right now. She'd said something about Gid being her friend, but he was my goddamn uncle for chrissakes, so it wasn't like she had any right to get her panties in a twist about me being late.
So I smiled. That usually worked pretty well for me. "I know," I told her. "People say that a lot."
"People say you have a lot of nerve, a lot?" Now instead of looking at me like I'd shit on the carpet, she looked like she'd smelled it.
"You've got to have a lot of nerve. In my line of work."
That earned me a huff and an eyeroll, but at least she stopped trying to zap me with her eyeballs.
Claire was doing her bossy-baby-sister routine, walking
around informing everybody how to get to our house as if the entire town didn't know where its most famous residents lived.
"And don't forget that West Ridge is closed!" Ruby piped up, letting her eyes flick over to me.
I didn't have time to respond before my mother had me by the elbow. "You're staying with us, right?" she asked. Her fingers dug tightly into my arm,
I took a deep breath. Half of me wanted to protest that I was staying at a hotel, that I needed to get going in the morning. But that's what Gabe and my brothers would expect me to do, and fuck it, it was my home too. "Is my old room okay?"
She looked worried. "I might have some stuff in there. Storage and all. I'll have to move it around, get some sheets on your bed."
"It's fine, Mom," I told her, gently lifting her fingers from my arm. "I'll meet you over there, okay?"
That same sense of floating unreality I'd had in the funeral home only got stronger as I followed the knot of cars back to the house where I grew up. Everything seemed smaller, and the watery gray of the weak November light gave everything a flat, two dimensional feel.
The King house, as it was known even before it became known as the King Brothers' House, was a big rambling yellow farmhouse situated at the top of a small rise. The creek took a sharp, ninety degree turn right at the corner of our yard, forming a natural barrier between us and the next house over. The yard -if you can call seven acres a 'yard' - sloped sharply down to the creek and was dotted with the various sheds and outbuildings my father had erected to house his tools and projects.
The biggest one - nearly the size of a two bedroom house - was situated right alongside the bank of the creek. It was where Gid and Izzy had been living for the past nine years. The unreality sharpened as I pulled into the driveway and stared at it. Even thought I had just seen him laid out in his casket, some small part of me wanted to head down there right now to say hello,
I had to turn my body and force myself to walk up the drive to the house instead, then through the tacked on garage and into the kitchen. Mom had braids of garlic from her garden still hanging from the high exposed beams, still in the exact same places. I could hear their voices - Claire, Finn, Gabe - off in the living room, so I snuck to the staircase via the dining room and went upstairs to the first room in the hall.
From the center of the braided rug, an ancient yellow lump lifted his head.
"Duke," I exhaled, kneeling down to stroke his gray muzzle. "Jesus, dude. You're still hanging on?"
Duke King, the world's best dog, thumped his tail twice before lowering his big head to the floor with a huffing sneeze. He was ancient and gray-faced and by the smell of him was already starting to decompose while still alive. But he was here. Uncle Gid used to call him the sixth King kid.
The grief hit me like a slow rolling wave. Gid's death. The estrangement. The silence as greeting instead of hugs and backslaps.
I sat down heavily on the rug and reached out to scratch Duke's ears. We'd gotten Duke the week before the talent show that had changed our lives. Before we knew anything about how we'd be on the road more often than not. He was supposed to be our companion, but we'd abandoned him almost the moment we got him, and he'd stayed here with Claire and my parents. And now he was old and fading. It was depressing to think that his lifespan was also the lifespan of the King Brothers' career.
But that was self-pitying bullshit, though. I was still working. I was still punching the clock on stage every damn day. Of course, two night's ago, I had bombed more badly than I'd ever bombed before. So badly I could still hear the boos in my head. But even that was still working. Technically.
I was still a rock star. I was just feeling sorry for myself because the one member of my family who still seemed to like me was dead and the other one was close to it.
"You hold down the fort, Duke," I told my dog. Voices were drifting upstairs. The wake had begin.
Life in Crown Creek revolved around casseroles. Church dinner? Casserole. Potluck supper? Casserole. Someone's family member dies and you don't know what to do and also are super nosey about whether their famous son will show up for the funeral?
Casseroles for days.
I could smell a mix of canned soup and cheese from all the way up here. Hastily I wiped my eyes, lest some neighbor came up here in search of a bathroom and caught me on the floor. With one last pat of Duke's giant head, I headed back downstairs.
In the kitchen, my mother was kissing cheeks with Sheila Foster from next-door. The young woman hanging back on her heels, arms predictably laden down with casseroles, had to be Everly Foster, who I remembered as best as a big-eyed girl staring at me from under too-long bangs.
Always staring. Even though she'd done some growing in the past few years, I recoginized Everly by the way she stared at me open-mouthed as I entered the room. Just like how she'd peeped at me through the bushes when I came home from touring years ago. She'd grown in age, not in subtlety.
"Hi Jonah," she squeaked.
I smiled as best I could. "Let me get those," I told her, retrieving the casseroles before she pitched them to the ground in terror and ran away.
She lifted her face as I got closer to her, a fierce light in her eyes. "I'm sorry about your Uncle Gid," she said, clearly and slowly, like she'd been rehearsing. "He was a great teacher."
I blinked, remembering that Uncle Gideon had been teaching at the elementary school for the past ten years. Everly would have had him when he first started.
A strange tightness clenched around my heart. I'd always thought of Gid as my own personal refuge. When I came home, I'd make a beeline down to the shed and bask in his singular attention. He supported me the way no one else could. When I'd come home after a rough tour, it was like sitting in the warm glow of a fire after months spent in the bitter cold.
It never occurred to me that others might have been warmed by that same fire and I wasn't sure how I felt about it at all. "I'm sure he was," I said to Everly, shooting her a grin.
The fierce light went out of her eyes. She made a small squeaking sound before snatching the casserole out of my hand and shoving it into the fridge.
The house was filling up now. Everywhere I turned, there was another familiar face. The number of lines on the faces had changed, as well as hair color and amount, but I knew them. These people were the background to my life. The B roll.
Being home again felt like the last twelve years had never happened. I almost expected to look down and see knobby knees and too big feet, to see arms still covered in peach fuzz. I kept feeling like I had to shake my head to keep reality from sliding sideways into memory. Shaking my head to keep all that had happened straight in my mind. I was home, yes. But everything about it had changed.
It was hard enough remembering that just standing in this kitchen, so familiar it was part of my DNA. It was even harder as the same little vignettes played out around me like projections of my memories.
Out in the driveway, Chuck Andolino, my dad's buddy from high school shop class, had cornered my father and now both of them were staring at my rental car like it had offended them. Chuck's wife was in here hustling my mother out of the kitchen and loading up the freezer for her. My sister's friends flew by in a flutter of whispers and I glanced up, wondering if Ruby was with them, and then looked back down, oddly disappointed when it turned out she wasn't.
Ruby. She didn't feel like a memory. Something about that hug, that new haircut of hers that made her eyes look impossibly big, felt like the present. She felt brand new, and that was weird because I'd known her since she was six years old.
I wondered where the heck she was. It might be nice to start over again with her. That hug had felt pretty damn good.
"Hi Jonah!" A teenaged girl, probably one of the Hanovers based on the amount of freckles she had, suddenly blocked my path.
"Hi there," I paused and let her supply her name.
Which she did with a breathless gasp. "Andie," she interjected. "I'm sorry about your uncle."
"Thank you."
"I know it's probably not the right time," she started.
I took a deep breath. "No, what can I do for you?"
"It's just, you're never home any more..." I winced. Inwardly. "And I didn't know when I was going to get another chance..."
I tried not to show any expression as she shoved the poster and marker at me. I'd been asked for autographs in weirder places, but my uncle's wake was definitely up there. "Sure," I said, signing my name with a flourish.
Andie peer critically at it. "Could you write my name too? Andie. A-n-d-i-e."
I looked up at her and as I did I caught Gabe staring at me. His expression was halfway between rage and resignation, but when I caught his eye the rage took over. "What's with you?" I wanted to know as I finished signing the poster.
As soon as I said it, I realized those were the first words I'd said to him face to face since last Christmas. Half of me wished I could stuff them back into my mouth and try again.
But Gabe had heard them. He lifted his chin at me as he folded his arms. "You're unbelievable."
"What?" I glanced at Andie over in the corner, staring at her picture with a predatory look in her eyes. She was definitely going to sell it on Ebay. "I was being nice. You wanted me to tell her to piss off?"
Gabe's lip curled. My brother had bulked up since our lean touring days, packed on some muscle around the shoulders and arms. His face was different too. Harder. Less open. Getting his heart stomped on by the girl he thought he was going to marry could have something to do with it, but that didn't explain all the hate I saw in his eyes. "It's a funeral, you asswipe."
"It's actually considered a wake now," I corrected. "And I was doing something nice. She's a fan."
"You can't turn it off, can you?" Gabe spat. "Not even now."
I spread my hands. "Should I have done what you do and tell her to go fuck herself?"