Landslide (17 page)

“Well, is there anything you want from the store? I can buy you some of those raspberry-filled powdered donuts you like if I can find them,” I offer, trying to not feel guilty or dwell on the fact that I sort of misspoke because I’m not actually the one paying for anything I purchase.

Cole has paid for almost everything this whole summer, and even though he hasn’t said word one about it and I argued and won the fight to treat him to lunch at The Stage Deli in New York followed by a matinee Broadway production of
Les Misérables
, I still feel guilty, like I’m a monetary burden to him. Plus, I have a sneaking suspicion that he’s becoming concerned about his bank balance dwindling lower than where he’s comfortable having it. When we first started off, my jaw dropped at the amount of zeros I saw printed on his most recent ATM receipt. But, driving across the country is expensive even without automotive trouble, which we haven’t been so fortunate as to avoid even before this most recent bout with it, so, maybe that has something to do with whatever is going on with him.

“Sure. Card’s in the glove box,” he reminds me, like that’s necessary. He made me memorize the pin number the morning we left home, and ever since, his wallet and therefore debit card is always in the glove box, where I have twenty-four-hour access to it and the constant ability to take advantage of his never-ending generosity.

I watch him plump up his pillow and then roll over, putting his back to me as he gets comfy for his nap. A quiet, yet dejected huff escapes me. “I know.”

Having grabbed the stupid card, I’m about to walk out the door of the camper when Cole halts me momentarily by commanding over his shoulder, “Get beer. Oh, and some smokes.”

Looking to the packed earth just outside the camper steps and the Hefty bag slumped over it, already more than half filled with aluminum just from yesterday, I try my hardest to not sound condemning when I mutter, “You got it.”
 

Tapping the card in the palm of my hand, I walk over to Brian’s and Amanda’s Jeep to meet up with Kylie who’s waiting for us there. “I’m gonna have to hit the ATM when we get into town so I can give you cash…Cole wants beer.”

“No problem. That’s on Wyatt’s and Dean’s wish lists too…they drink like fish when we all vacation together, I swear.”

No sooner are the words out of her mouth before Cole bounces out of the camper and cheerfully greets Brian from across the campsite, apparently foregoing his nap to do God only knows what with five alcoholics while I’m gone.
 

“Wass'up, my man?!” Brian shouts, his booming voice reaching the tippy-tops of the trees, “Want a Coke?” he asks Cole, handing him a red plastic cup at the same time.

Cole takes the offering and tips his head back; coughing, laughing and almost spurting the beverage from his mouth when he goes to swallow. “Coke, huh?”

Chuckling, Brian pats Cole on the back, and then takes the cup from him and sniffs it. “What? There’s Coke in there.”

“True, there is. I think. Little warning might’ve been nice though,” Cole laughs and then catches a cold one that’s tossed to him by the unmarried cousin, Alex, who’s just waking up and evidently about to drink his breakfast.

Just then, Brian and Amanda’s son, Cody, comes jetting out of their RV, only one shoe on, and with Amanda on his heels, scurrying to catch him before he stubs his toes, falls face first on a rock, or trips into the still smoking fire pit. Raising his cup to the side and up past his head, Brian catches and lifts Cody off the ground by the back of his shirt with one hand as the rug-rat tries flying past his large-framed father.

“Whoa, Son…where’s the fire?” Brian rhetorically asks his squirming son.

Cody giggles and points to the fire pit, making Cole, Dean, and Alex all chuckle.
 

“Yeah, that’s right. That’s where fire lives, Son, and it’s hot, okay? You gotta be careful or you’ll get hurt. ‘Manda, you gotta watch him better,” Brian chastises Amanda, who just nods and takes Cody after he gives his dad a kiss and hug goodbye. Then Brian downs his Jack and Coke, afterwards tossing the ice cubes into the dirt as he says to his wife, “I’m out.”

Amanda nods again and smiling, she kisses his cheek. “Okay, you want another fifth, or should I just go ahead and get a handle this time?”

“Get the handle,” he answers and then gives his son a hair ruffling as he quickly kisses Amanda goodbye. “Wait, you better get two of ‘em.”

 
With a wife, a son, and a dog, Brian is like the patriarch of the group. No one questions him, ever, not even Amanda, and as she juggles Cody to get her keys into her other hand and heads our way, I muse to myself that having mutual respect in their marriage must’ve been left out of their vows. I mean, honestly, I can’t ever see myself putting up with that kind of bossy, dominating treatment from my spouse. No way.

“Wish there was a Liquor Barn close by,” Amanda mumbles as she buckles Cody up in his car seat.

“Did I hear him ask for
two
handles?” Kylie asks with raised brows, to which Amanda answers with a resigned head nod and starts the Jeep. “Damn, that’s a lot.”

Amanda concurs by nodding again. She starts pulling forward and waves to all the guys except Cole, because he’s the only one not watching us leave and waving to begin with, as he’s currently engaged in playing fetch with the dog with his back to us…to me. Sitting in the backseat, I blink away a couple renegade tears before turning to sit straight again and notice Brian holding up two fingers in the driver’s side review mirror.

Amanda gives him the thumbs up out of the window and sighs with what sounds to me a lot like compassion. “Yeah, well…you know. Today’s the day…he’s gotta get numb somehow to make it through to tomorrow.”
 

“Oh my God…I’m so sorry, I totally forgot. Let me and Wyatt pay for the Jack, okay? I mean it. If you say no, you’ll just end up with four handles of whiskey, so you may as well just agree now,” Kylie insists kindly.

Amanda smiles at her and feeling like I’m prying but annoyed at having to listen to adult conversation from the backseat like I’m the one who should be buckled up in an infant safety seat, I question, “Today is what day?”

Kylie turns sideways to face me and winces. “Brian’s best friend from Basic and another guy from his unit were killed…it’s the anniversary of their deaths.”
 

“It was really bad. I had just had Cody so Brian was home with us for a couple weeks and he missed the whole thing. He has survivor’s guilt because he feels like he should’ve been there, even though there wasn’t anything he could’ve done if he had been. I mean, Alex was there and he’s told Brian a million and one times that there wasn’t anything anyone could’ve done, but…Brian feels like he should’ve at least been there and I think he’s jealous of Alex in a way because he got to hold them when they took their last breaths. Although, to this day Alex still has nightmares about that, so… The whole day is just really messed up for both of them,” Amanda graciously explains further.

Hearing the story, gut wrenching as it is to think about and even worse I imagine to have lived it, I now know some of the motivation behind the scene I just witnessed among others this last week. The knowledge gained gives me a whole new perspective of every one of the men left standing in our dusty wake, and as we head in search of succor and balm in a bottle for them, my mind drifts to Cole and wonders…wonders if Cole is feeling guilty for something that has nothing to do with me. Something, though, that my very presence isn’t allowing him to move past
.

13

“Story of My Life”

—Cole—

The road so far…the time spent with both Erica and just my thoughts these past two months or so hasn't been what I expected it would be. Endless hours of sitting in traffic that looks to stretch for miles until the ends of the Earth, Erica's predisposition to having some seriously nasty bouts of PMS that no amount of chocolate or Midol can seem to ease, and the breaking down on the side of the road or in the middle of nowhere have all added up to some pretty shitty days. However, there have been some sights seen of beauty unsurpassed and moments of freedom and sheer exhilaration experienced as well, and I think if given the choice, I'd choose to double the crappy parts if it meant I could have the epic ones too versus not being able to have the memories of either.

Walking back up the hill from the cove from where I’d just taken a dip to cool off with Cooper, Brian’s dog, I hear a couple of the guys laughing in camp as they show each other pictures on their phones.

“Ohoho! Hey, in this one the way you’re sitting in front of her makes it look like you’re wearing her ass as a hat, dude! Or you’ve got Mickey Mouse ears,” Dean laughs.

I’m barely through the tree-line when Chad calls over to me and says, “Hey, Cole! Come check out this picture of your sister’s ass!”

Even knowing he isn’t intending to be a dick, I bristle instinctually. I really don’t need to look at a picture of Erica’s ass at the moment and I’d kind of prefer that Chad didn’t either. Even though he’s been told by both Wyatt and Brian that Erica is only eighteen and
still
out of his league, and he’s done nothing in the realm of trying to get in her pants or even pay attention to her really since then, the fact that the twenty-three-year-old had to be told at all still grates.

I don’t let my reaction show though by waving the request away and responding with, “Thanks, I’m good, I’ve seen it. She
is
my sister you know…”

Once out of necessity, I claimed Erica as my sister. The camper’s septic tank needed to be emptied desperately, but it was late, nothing was open, and we couldn’t find a legal or suitable place to do it, so rather than suffocating on the rank odor, we tried checking into a bed and breakfast for the night. We were deep in the Bible Belt at the time though, and the elderly woman running the kitschy little place made a stink about the sanctity of the marriage bed. With an inherently censuring frown, she’d pointed to a sign on the flower-papered wall heralding God’s severe opinion about those couples who live in sin. I’d taken one look at it and started laughing. A light bulb had gone off in my head though, so I apologized for my reaction and explained there had been a misunderstanding...that Erica and I are brother and sister. I smoothed things over even more by solemnly agreeing with her staunch and archaic opinion on sharing sleeping space out of wedlock, and I openly and outright accused my own parents of spending their afterlives in perdition for not ever being married and creating bastard children, even though I have no clue whatever became of my mom or whether I might have a half-sibling somewhere out there. But I also used that conjecture to further explain away the difference in Erica’s and my last names.
 

It was fun. I felt almost vindicated in a private way.

Erica had a different outlook when we finally unlocked the door to our room though and saw the four poster bed judging us from its position in front of the French doors that led to a small veranda-type balcony:

“We’re so going to Hell…”
 

Against my good judgment, I went ahead and met her eyes. Then I walked out onto the balcony and sighed. “Yep.”

That was the one and only time since the parking lot of Walmart we ever acknowledged in any way our joint sins out loud. However, the brother and sister lie stuck. Maybe because we’ve grown tired of correcting the inhabitants of quaint country towns where it’s commonplace to verbally recognize such things by commenting on what a good looking couple we are, only to then receive raised eyebrows and disapproving pursed lips when we explain we’re not married or even together, or we’re just done with the interested looks and being questioned altogether. Whatever our reasons, we’ve continued the charade for the eyes of the public from that point forward, simply introducing ourselves as siblings or using terms of boldfaced lying endearment for each other like “Sis” and “Brother, mine.”

Although we don’t discuss it as an unspoken rule, or even mention it, ever, our behavior sometimes behind closed doors or when no one’s around is anything but familial. She’s still grieving Holden’s loss—I am too in my own way; I’m still mad at him for what his dying did to put me in such a particularly unenviable position where Erica is involved, but I miss him and can acknowledge that now. Even knowing that allowing her to occasionally use me like she does isn’t healthy for either of us, and it’s even sometimes excruciating for me because it should be Holden, I’m starting to realize that being with her like this isn’t remotely what I want…that I’m probably only hurting myself by giving in and that having the kind of relationship I want is impossible while I’m in this dysfunctional one with her. Meaning, I’m starting to understand that what I’m doing is putting myself aside, and what I’m beginning to acknowledge that I want deep down is being shoved away and ignored in the process but…sometimes, it’s just flat-out easier to man up and give her what she needs from me at the time.

And it’s not like she’s the only one doing the taking. I might be more conflicted than not about what Holden is prodding Erica and me to keep doing, but I could just as easily stop participating and enabling her. I could also just clue her in to my struggle and tell her why even holding her hand isn’t always easy for me. I’ve considered once or twice now doing just that; however, I haven’t yet actually managed to do it. You’d think I’d get points or be let off the hook a little or something for at least thinking about it but, no such luck.

We don’t ever go nearly as far as the night of his funeral, and she doesn’t push me to like she did that once when her heartache was hardcore and crippling to the both of us but, there have been more than a few times deep in the lonely hours of some nights when we’ve shared a level of intimacy; one that siblings ought not share. To be perfectly honest though, that stuff isn’t too terrible to get through; it’s the simple or seemingly innocent kiss under the stars in the evening when we’re sitting alone together, staring up at the sky, and I look at her to see she’s getting that telltale look on her face and I know she’s about to cry…or when she already is and I lift my blanket in invitation for her to climb into my bed and snuggle up next to me so I can just hold her while she tries to go back to sleep. Those are the harder of intimate moments we share. I’m guessing that’s probably because that’s when we’re both thinking about him, and I have a feeling that with the other times, one of us is and the other isn’t.