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  “It was the only thing she refused to budge on,” Dad added.

  “It’s a beautiful color,” I commented in between bites.

  Mom smiled, truly pleased. “I’m glad you like it.”

  “The room looks great, really. I can’t believe Michael did all this.”

  It wasn’t that I thought my brother was incapable of doing good work, I knew he was brilliant, but I recalled many a time when he went all Godzilla on mine and Melissa’s doll houses. It was nice to see that he could build and not just destroy, granted his demo years were long before he’d even hit puberty.

  “He’ll do a great job at your place, too,” Dad assured me.

  “I might even have him expand some of the windows, since they need to be replaced anyway.”

  After seeing Michael’s work on my parents’ kitchen, I was confident my father was right and that Michael would do a fantastic job. He would make my cottage something beautiful, a place where I would feel at home. It’d been a long time since I had a place like that, and I was looking forward to the fresh start.

  - 6 -

  The sound of tires crunching on the gravel driveway signaled the arrival of my brother. I was both excited and nervous. Excited because this was the first step in getting my house ready for the movers, and I got to spend some—hopefully—quality time with my brother in the process, and nervous because I wasn’t sure we’d ever have the easy comradery we’d once shared as kids. Something was off.

  I crossed the dirty living room carpet and stepped out the open front door onto the small, creaky porch. A board wobbled under my feet, and I added another thing to my mental fix-it list.

  The large, white pickup truck parked next to my Audi was a beast. It could have eaten my little convertible for breakfast. On the side of the beast was a decal that said “P.T. Construction.” Interesting, I thought. The P obviously stood for Price, but the T? It didn’t take too long for me to figure it out. I waved as Michael got out of the driver’s side of the truck and froze when Dean Thompson got out of the passenger side with a clipboard in his hand.

  T for Thompson. Dean Thompson, apparently. The middle son—Danny’s younger brother and a spitting image of him, at that. The same laughing eyes, messy hair, and five o’clock shadow. They could have been twins, except they were four years apart in age. Good genes in that family, I thought as my heart did a double beat. Three years of no Thompsons, and suddenly they were everywhere.

  “Jessie!” Dean called out, jogging across the yard and hopping up the two small steps to where I was standing. Before I could get a word out in greeting, or tell him not to call me Jessie, Dean wrapped his arms around me in an unexpected embrace and spun me around.

  To say I was stunned was an understatement. Shouldn’t he hate me? Or at least dislike me some? His brother and I were divorced. Wasn’t that a big deal? Wasn’t there a bro code for that kind of thing?

  He released me and took a step back, his hands resting on my upper arms as he took in my appearance. “You’re a sight for sore eyes. How are you, Jess?”

  “I-I’m fine,” I stuttered out. Then I remembered my manners. “How are you, Dean? You look good.”

  He grinned that mischievous grin the brothers shared. The one that had always melted my heart. I felt a little twitch inside my chest and knew it still had that effect, only it wasn’t the right Thompson brother.

  “I’m good, Jess. Real good. When Mikey said he was coming to check out your place this morning, I had to tag along. It’s been ages.”

  It had been ages. The last time I’d seen Dean I was still married to Danny. It was during one of our trips back home for the holidays…before things went bad. Deciding against a trip down memory lane, I redirected the conversation to the guys.

  “I didn’t realize you guys were partners,” I said, nodding to the truck, then looking at Michael.

  “Yeah, we started up about two years ago, after we remodeled your mom and dad’s kitchen and realized we had something,” Dean answered. “There’s only one other construction company in town, so we figured we had a decent shot. Myers Construction does mostly residential, so we figured we’d focus on commercial.”

  “You sure this won’t be too much?” I asked, gesturing to my house. “Sounded like you guys were pretty busy when we spoke yesterday,” I said to Michael, hoping he might actually answer me. He hadn’t spoken since he got out of the truck.

  “Nah, you’re family. We always have time for family.” It was Dean who answered. Michael continued to stay silent, just staring past me at the house. This was awkward. Shouldn’t it be awkward with my ex-brother-in-law, not my actual brother?

  “Well, I appreciate it,” I told them. “How about I show you around?” I asked, feeling a little silly for saying it since they could probably see the entire place through the open front door.

  “Sounds good,” Dean said, looking between Michael and me and taking the lead once again as it was clear my brother wasn’t going to. “Why don’t you tell us what you’d like done, then we can do a sweep and see if there’s anything else.”

  “All right, follow me.” I stepped over the threshold and walked them around the small space.

  I pointed out the carpet and the walls, and told them I’d picked out paint colors and that I wanted to do the painting myself. They walked around the room, knocking on walls and checking out the windows. They opened and closed cabinets and doors, then played with the light switches and faucets. I stood off to the side, out of their way, letting them do their thing.

  We reconvened on the porch after Michael and Dean did their assessment. “This might need some work, too,” I said, toeing a loose board.

  Michael leaned a hip against the railing, causing a few chips of old white paint to break free, while Dean squatted down to look at it. “You’re probably right. I don’t think it’ll need a full replacement. Maybe just a few boards.” He stood back up and looked between me and my brother again—my brother who hadn’t said two words to me since arriving. Before Dean could speak, his cell phone chimed with an incoming message. He took it off its belt clip and tapped the screen, reading whatever came through.

  I chanced a look at Michael, but he was staring off into the yard. His silent treatment was starting to piss me off. If he didn’t want to take the job, he should have turned me down when I called yesterday and given me the number to the company that did the residential work. What was the point of him coming if he wasn’t going to speak to me? What would he have done if Dean hadn’t come with him? Would he have spoken to me then? At least I would have known where I stood had he had just blown me off from the get go. Instead he was sending me mixed signals.

  I was about to give him a piece of my mind when Dean spoke up. “Sorry, I gotta run,” he said, taking off down the steps. Michael made to follow him but Dean waved him off. “I’m gonna take the truck, gotta check on a delivery issue. You should stay and go over the repairs with Jess,” he told Michael. I could see my brother’s body stiffen at Dean’s words, and it pissed me off even more. “You can give him a ride to the site when you’re finished, right, Jess? It’s just down the road.”

  I gave Dean a reluctant nod, and he grinned…and I think he…wait, did he wink at me? That little shit. He was setting us up! Delivery issue my ass. The sneaky bastard. Michael and I watched Dean get into the beast of a truck. He waved, still grinning, as he backed out of the driveway.

  Michael sighed. “Let’s get this over with,” he said, and stomped back up the porch steps and into the house.

  - 7 -

  Oh, hell no. He was not going to act like a juvenile and get away with it. I turned to stomp into the house behind Michael, but the moment my right foot pounded down on the porch, it went straight through a rotted-out board, and I fell on my ass.

  “Son of a bitch!” I yelled, yanking my foot up through the hole. I tore a hole in my leggings and lost my shoe in the process. Rubbing my hands over my face, I wondered, could this morning get any better?
/>   “What’s the matter?” Michael asked, poking his head out the door. “Are you okay?” he asked when he saw me on the floor.

  “I’m great. My porch tried to eat my leg, and you’re being a dick. Just peachy.”

  He looked down at my shoeless foot and the new hole in the porch and shook his head. He walked around me, down the steps, and got down on his hands and knees in the grass to look under the porch. I heard scratching noises below me for a minute before he got back on his feet and handed me my lost shoe over the railing.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled, shaking the dirt out of my flat before slipping it back on my foot.

  He grunted a response and walked back up the steps, past me, and into the house. “You coming?” he hollered over his shoulder.

  I leaned my head back and looked up at the cracked porch light. Yet another item to add to the list. Taking a couple of deep, cleansing breaths, I got up and followed him into the house. He was standing at the kitchen counter, looking over the clipboard Dean had left behind and making some notes. I walked right up to him, about to ask him if we could just hash out whatever was between us and get it out of the way, when he started speaking.

  “It looks like you’ll need some repairs to the front porch deck, new exterior light fixtures, and some patchwork on the walls. A couple doors aren’t set right, and I’d recommend just going ahead and replacing all of them so they’ll match. I don’t think they make the style you have anymore so we wouldn’t be able to match just one. There’s only three of them and there wouldn’t be much of a difference in cost. We can smooth out the popcorn ceiling, if you don’t like the look, repairing the water marks while we’re at it with some new drywall. Then there’s the flooring and the paint. You’ll want new carpeting, for sure, or hardwood. The kitchen and bathroom cabinets are outdated, but they can be refinished to look good as new, and the appliances aren’t too old, so I think you’ll be all right with what’s here if you’re not eager to replace them. I’d recommend installing ceiling fans so you don’t have to run your A/C in the spring. Oh, and the windows that aren’t broken aren’t sealed properly. We can seal them, but they’re pretty poor quality. They’re single-pane so you’ll end up with drafts in the winter, so you may want to replace all of them. The exterior looks pretty good. Brick stands up to weather and wear. I know a roofer who can take a good look at the roof to see the source of the leaks, but tin roofs tend to keep well, so I’d bet it’s fine. Probably just condensation from the HVAC unit, so we’ll have someone take a look at that. Mr. Smith had a tenant not too long ago, so my guess is the plumbing and electrical will be fine when they’re turned on, but we can have people look at that, too, if you want.” Michael finally looked up from the clipboard. I just stared at him. “What?” He said.

  “What?” Is he serious?

  “Yeah, what? Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “You haven’t said two words to me since you got here, and when you do, it’s all mechanical drivel about the house. How about, ‘Hey, sis, how’s it going?’ or ‘It’ll be nice working with you on this,’ or even just a big fat ‘Fuck you?’ Why the cold shoulder, Mikey? If you didn’t want to do the job, if you don’t want to be around me, why didn’t you just refer me to someone else? Why go through all this?” I asked, waving my hands around. I tried keeping the emotion out of my voice, but I cracked over the last few words.

  “All right, Jess,” he said, standing up straight and facing me with a sneer. “Fuck you.”

  I gasped as he pushed past me and walked out the front door. Tears filled my eyes, but I didn’t let them fall. I couldn’t. I had no right. My brother was clearly more upset with me than I’d realized. I was naïve to think that just because everyone else had welcomed me back with open arms that Michael would, too. He had every right to be upset with me. We didn’t really hang out a lot growing up, but he’d always been the most sensitive out of all of us. Bryan, Melissa, and I were the outgoing ones, participating in all the school activities and hanging out with our friends. Michael kept to himself. He was the quiet, shy one our parents never had to worry about since he was pretty much always at home studying.

  But thinking back, we’d always talked…Michael and me. In high school, when I was still living at home, I’d always checked in with him, making sure everything was okay and no one was picking on my nerdy little brother. That continued through college. When I’d make my weekly phone calls back home, I always asked to speak with him, and we’d spend some time talking about his days and his classes. I carved out time for him when I came home on breaks, too. It was a given that I’d spend time with Melissa and Bryan because we ran in the same crowds, but I didn’t have that guarantee with Michael so I made sure I spent time with him. When Danny and I got married and I started my career, I still made time to talk to Mikey.

  Then my world started to fall apart and I stopped. I went from talking to him at least once a week, to not speaking to him at all for nearly five years. How could I have forgotten that?

  I was a terrible sister.

  In my sessions with my therapist, we’d spoken about my family briefly, basically highlighting how they had always been supportive, and how I’d assumed they would always be supportive. The crux of my issues laid with Danny and my infertility, so the doctor and I hadn’t really touched on my other interpersonal relationships or lack thereof. Maybe if we had, I would have thought about the dissolution of my relationship with Michael sooner.

  I sighed, looking down at the clipboard he’d left on the counter. I picked it up and did a quick walk-through of the house, making sure the lights were turned off and the windows were closed. I was certain Michael would be long gone. Living in a small town meant you could pretty much walk anywhere you needed to go if you really wanted to, and I was centrally located right off Main Street, so I imagined he’d begun hoofing it to wherever his job site was.

  I stepped out the front door, locking it behind me, and reached into my bag for my cell phone. I would call my mother and ask where Michael’s office was, then drop off the clipboard. I wasn’t about to call him. He probably wasn’t ready to deal with me yet, and I couldn’t blame him. I wouldn’t be ready to deal with me if I were him, either.

  I was looking down at my phone as I walked, so I didn’t see the figure leaning up against my car until I almost bumped right into it.

  I jumped, dropping my keys to the driveway.

  “You scared the crap out of me!” I scolded, holding my hand flat against my chest.

  “Sorry, Jessie.”

  - 8 -

  Okay, so I lied. There were two people I let get away with calling me Jessie. One was Danny; the other was my little brother Michael.

  “I thought you left,” I said stupidly. Obviously he hadn’t left since he was standing right in front of me.

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry for what I said to you in there. It was out of line. I was out of line,” he said.

  “I deserved it.”

  “No, you didn’t,” he shook his head, sighing with the weight of whatever was on his mind. “That was several years of pent up frustration.”

  I set the clipboard and my purse on the hood of my car and leaned my butt against the door beside him, mimicking his stance. “Want to talk about it?”

  He let out a deep breath and, surprising me, started talking. “In the beginning, I understood. Somewhat, I guess. I knew you were going through something, but I wasn’t sure what. Mom and Dad didn’t get into details. I was pretty busy with finals and getting ready to graduate, so I didn’t think much about it. Then the weeks turned into months…”

  “I’m so sorry, Mikey,” I said, resting my hand on his crossed forearm. He shrugged as if it didn’t matter, but I knew better. My silence had hurt him badly.

  “A whole year went by, Jess. A year,” he said firmly, and I flinched. “We’d never gone that long without speaking and the only saving grace, which wasn’t much of one at all, was that you weren’t talking to anyone else either, so
at least I didn’t take it personally, but I still didn’t understand. I was still pissed you stopped talking to me.”

  “I didn’t know what to say,” I told him honestly. “I was so lost, Mikey. I honestly wasn’t thinking about anyone but myself and everything that was going wrong.”

  He nodded. “I get that. I just wish you would have leaned on us. Especially Mom. She was devastated she couldn’t be there for you. You don’t know how many times she packed an overnight bag, ready to drive out to the city. Dad had to talk her down.”

  Tears filled my eyes as my heart broke for what felt like the thousandth time. I hadn’t known that. “I’m sorry I caused you all so much pain. I was so depressed, Mike. I wasn’t thinking about anyone. I was barely even thinking about myself. I just wanted to…lose myself. I don’t know how to explain it.”

  “I understand,” he said simply, and the deep sadness in his eyes told me he did understand. It was an emptiness that only someone who had also experienced a deep grief would recognize. Michael had gone through something while I was gone.

  “What happened?” I asked him, and his sad eyes lifted to mine with surprise. “The look in your eyes tells me you know a thing or two about loss.”

  He nodded and looked off into the woods behind the cottage. “I had a girlfriend,” he started, and my heart broke at the past tense and the sorrow in his voice. Did she leave him? Had she died? “Kara. We met at the beginning of freshman year.”

  Kara, I said to myself, wracking my memory. I remembered him talking about a girlfriend long ago when I’d call him, and I vaguely remembered the name Kara. So much of that time in my life was fuzzy. “You brought her home for Christmas?” I remembered him with a petite brunette at a holiday or two. They seemed happy.

  “Sophomore and senior year,” he nodded.