press our bodies together.
A throat cleared in the hallway, interrupting what had gone from a simple kiss to a make out that felt like it could have lasted hours and still not been enough. With all the upheaval, I’d really needed to reconnect.
“Dad sent me,” Jeremy said quietly. “He wants his dip, and he’s threatening to force us to play Risk all night if he doesn’t get it in the next five minutes.”
Their dad was obsessed with the strategy game, and he had a way of making it last for hours. We broke apart, Benji blushing.
“We better get out there.”
“I’ll just drop off my bag in Jeremy’s room and meet you guys.”
Jeremy looked surprised. “You sure? I kind of thought…”
Benji spoke up. “Maybe we could all use some time to get used to change. Next visit, Ace will be mine.”
“And now I feel like a toy you guys are fighting over.”
“He always did want my toys,” Jeremy joked. “Watch out, Ace. As soon as I bring home a new best friend, he’s going to forget all about you.”
Benji
Dad inhaled half of the bacon-cheese dip by himself, before getting up and announcing, “It’s bird time. Who wants to learn a new way to cook a bird that is tasty and moist in half the time?”
We all exchanged glances, then fixed our eyes on the television, where a Cowboys-Giants football game had just started. Mom was a huge football fan, so she reclined her chair and settled in for a nice, long break from the kitchen.
She’d made all the pies Wednesday and done most of the prep work for the side dishes she made every year: apple-cranberry dressing, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, buttery rolls, and more.
“Benji,” Dad boomed out. “You’re a grown man now. Might as well learn how to do a bird.”
I startled. Of everyone in the room, I thought Dad might pick on Ace. “Oh, but Ace and Jeremy are—”
“They’re watching the game,” he said. “I know you don’t like football. Come on, this will be fun!”
Shoulders slumped, I followed Dad to the kitchen. He was already talking about brine and aluminum foil and oven settings. Glancing back over my shoulder, I saw Ace and Jeremy with their heads together, talking.
Well, that was something. Maybe they’d get over themselves and stop acting like I was—
I didn’t finish the thought. They both stood up and walked out the door.
Where were they going, and why hadn’t they mentioned their plans to me? I didn’t have time to wonder long. Dad pulled me into the kitchen and turned me toward the kitchen counter, where a very large, very raw turkey rested on a cooking sheet.
“Okay, first off, you need to reach inside the bird to remove the giblet package…”
This was going to be traumatizing. I couldn’t believe Ace had abandoned me to this fate to run off with my brother.
At least they’re friends again.
That was good. But an insecure part of my brain reminded me, When they were friends, they ran off without you all the time. Why are you surprised now?
“Come on, Benji,” Dad encouraged, dragging me toward the turkey. “Let’s show him who’s boss.”
I looked down at my hands, my precious, artist’s hands that drew beautiful things — and sometimes naughty things — and sighed mournfully. With a mental apology to them, I stepped up to the counter and prepared to molest a turkey.
Ace
Jeremy pulled up across the street from my parents’ trailer in the Twin Oaks Trailer Park. Twin Oaks. As if it were a nice subdivision instead of a rundown park full of deteriorating trailers that took advantage of poor people by raising their rent every year and tacking on exorbitant late fees, knowing that residents had no way of moving their crappy homes.
God, I’d been happy to leave the days of worrying about bills and fees and utility shutoff warnings behind. To leave behind my mother’s long rants about the unfairness of the world.
She wasn’t wrong. The world was unfair on so many levels. But damn, it was no way to live. Her anger, her constant yelling — either at bill collectors or at her husband or at me. Always someone.
Jeremy leaned past me to look across the street. “Looks about the same,” he said.
In the three and a half years I’d been gone, the trailer had lost some skirting around the bottom and added some hail dents. It was beat-up but in better shape than some of the other homes in this park. Some trailer parks