took that away from him, way too early. What would it do to me?
“Oh, Keaton, sweetheart, you’re here!” My mom was stirring a pot on the stove, and I went over to kiss her cheek as she stuck it out for me to greet her.
“The golden child graces us with his presence.” Forrest rolls his eyes as he sets plates out on the table we’ve been eating at since I was five.
Forrest and Fletcher are twins, and six years younger than I am. Forrest is older by a minute, something he never lets our brother forget, and they both still make just as much trouble as they did when they were ten.
Although, they do it in different ways. Forrest just received his fourth warning from the state police department to stop hacking into things he shouldn’t, except they’ve also extended two job positions so he doesn’t take the warnings seriously. He’s the county’s only forensic detective, and the kid is a goddamn genius, not that I’d tell him that. It would only go further to his head.
Fletcher walks in, cradling a beer, and by the gait in his step, I know it’s not his first. My baby brother could be just as successful as his twin, but of all of us, he has the biggest weakness. Alcohol is his crutch, his weapon, his medicine, and his addiction. I’ve tried twice to get him sober, and they’ve both ended in him not speaking to me for months. I’m afraid of what is going to happen if we don’t all intervene soon.
“Sorry, I run my own office.” Opening the fridge, I grab a beer and use an opener to flip the top off, taking a long pull.
“Always rubbing the business owner card in our face. Ever think that some of us are happier as worker bees?” Fletcher laughs.
He’s currently on his fifth job, and second auto body shop, since graduating high school six years ago.
“Boys, stop it. Can we just have one nice Friday night dinner with no teasing?” Mom scolds us, and we all shut up.
My mother is petite, more than a foot shorter than all of her boys, with dark hair and darker eyes. She’s a third Native American and her looks prove it. We’re all a mix of our parents, except for me, the only one with Mom’s eyes. Their dark brown hair mixed with translucent blue eyes, courtesy of our father, don’t quite match my dark eyes and dirty blond hair.
“Listen to your mother.”
A deep, annoyed voice sharply snaps from the doorway.
Bowen, the middle child, walks in, still in his boots and apron.
“Hybrid, much, Bowie?” Forrest chuckles.
“Shut up, Jungle.” Bowen flips him the bird and sits down next to me.
The nicknames never stop when you grow up among four immature boys.
“Did you have a call today?” I take in the boots dirtying Mom’s floor under the table.
He nods, stealing my beer. “A small electrical fire a couple miles from town, before you reach the highway. Had to close up shop to respond.”
By day, Bowen owned the barber shop in Fawn Hill. And by other day, and some nights, he was one of the only four volunteer firefighters we had.
“Everything go okay?” I scowl at my pilfered drink.
He nods. “Yep.”
Bowen is a man of few words, but we were closer with each other than we were with the twins. We were only two years apart, we’d grown up in tandem, and no one would ever have the bond Forrest and Fletcher did.
“All right, come help bring the food to the table,” Mom hollers and we all jump up.
“Thanks for cooking, Mom.” Bowen kisses our mother as he picks up a bowl of mashed potatoes, and she pats his arm.
“You know, there is nothing I like better than sitting down to a meal with my boys.” The sadness in her eyes for the person missing from this dinner table is unmistakable.
“Mom, did you get to the library this week?” I try to distract her.
She nods, as the serving dishes are set on the table, and we begin to dig in. “I did, helped Lily put away the new shipment of children’s books. They are just so darling, all of those little cardboard-bound stories. If only I had a grandchild to read them to.”
Her sigh echoes around the table, and none of us are touching that with a six-foot pole. She’s been dropping the line for a year now, telling us that the family is lonely and needs some happiness and