to Big House early that morning, shortly after coming down off the roof. Cal wraps an arm around my shoulder as we walk, and I relish the feel of him against me. He is chattering away, telling me about a squirrel he saw in the forest during his self-imposed exile. It seemed to follow him over the course of the five days. He is clearly excited about the animal, and I can’t help but grin at him as he imitates the sound it made, a high-pitched squeak that he performs by sucking in his cheeks and sticking out his lips. It’s not a sound a big guy like him should be able to make.
We are barely on the porch of Big House when the door flies open and Nina barrels out, knocking me out of the way in her rush to tackle Cal. He laughs as he picks her up, spinning her in a circle, her legs kicking out as they whirl. Under his laughter, I can hear her saying, “Blue, Blue, Blue,” over and over again. He finally sets her down, brushing the tears from her face.
“I am happy to see you, little one,” he says with a smile.
She smiles sweetly for a moment… then punches him in the arm. Nina is a lot stronger than she looks, and I wince at the meaty thud. Cal grunts, though I think more from surprise than pain. He stares down at her, eyes wide. “What was that for?”
“Leaving,” she says with a scowl. “You going to do that again?”
A low blush rises up the sides of his neck and into his cheeks, reddening the skin and making his facial hair appear even brighter. “No.”
She watches him for a moment, trying to figure out if he is telling her the truth. She finally sniffs once and looks him up and down. “Good,” she says. “People missed you here, Benji especially. I was sad. We were all sad. If you do that again, I am going to be very angry with you. This is your home now, you know. You can’t just leave your home.”
It’s my turn to flush. I’ve never really thought about that. About where this is going, what he and I could mean to each other in the future. Would he stay? Could he stay? The Strange Men whisper in my head, saying it isn’t possible, that he is getting weaker. I shove them away when he glances at me with a low smile before looking back at my little aunt. “I promise I won’t do it again,” he says with complete seriousness.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” she asks with curiosity.
He hesitates for a moment. “I think so, though not in the way I thought.”
“Is that okay, then?”
“It is,” he says simply. He looks at me again and my face feels like it’s on fire.
She grabs him by the arm and pulls him toward the house. He reaches out and snags my hand, pulling me with him.
Mom is gone. Turns out she opened the store herself that morning instead of
asking Mary or Christie. I should be surprised at this, but I’m not. We each have our own ways of dealing with things. My mother and I don’t know how to articulate our feelings very well. After Big Eddie died, there would be times that days would go by before we would see one another, each of us sequestered in separate parts of the house, or in separate parts of Roseland. The Trio tried to get us together, to eat meals, to watch TV, to have conversations neither of us felt like having. It was a good effort, but none of them could really understand the depths of our heartache. We were points of a triangle: her, me, Big Eddie. It had been the three of us. But then that triangle had been shattered, leaving us to drift aimlessly.
I know people think that she, as my mother, should have been the one to direct me, to point me toward the future. She should be offering guidance, I’m sure they said. Yes, she lost her husband but he lost his father. There’s a difference. Maybe there was. Maybe there is. I lost my best friend on that day, but my mother also lost the only man she’d ever loved, the man who had been by her side since they were kids. Her first, her only. We didn’t have him to hold us together. Even though the Trio tried, it