Page 27 of Worthy Promises
“Can I ask you a question?”
Sitting on the stairs so he was closer to eye level with his brother, Oliver offered him a smile.
“Of course,” Oliver replied. Although they weren’t nearly as close as Oliver would’ve liked, they at least talked every day. The budding friendship was a huge step from the first seven years of his brother’s young life and the separation their parents had insisted on keeping.
“Why do I need a nanny?”
Nannies were another sore spot. They’d gone through several, trying to find a good fit, but Orion had hated each of them. While Oliver now mostly worked from home, there were still times he had to leave, and he refused to leave the seven-year-old by himself.
“Because I can’t always be here.”
“I can take care of myself though.”
Oliver begged to differ, but he didn’t want to hurt his brother’s feelings, so he nodded. “Yeah, but this way you have a friend around in case you want someone to talk to or to play a game with.”
“Oliver?”
“Yes?”
“Are you going to drive anywhere tonight?”
It was a question Oliver answered routinely, and he understood Orion’s fear about cars and driving since it was that awful car accident that had changed both their lives. “Just around the corner to the Dérive station. I’m attending an event in Las Vegas, so I need to be teleported.”
“When I’m grown up, will you take me to Las Vegas?”
“Of course. I’ll take you wherever you want to go. But we don’t have to wait until you’re grown up to visit. We’ll go on a weekend. Tonight, I’m going to an enormous garden, and I’m sure you’d love to see it. There are beautiful flowers and plants everywhere. Many of them are created by magic. There are lots of dragons in Vegas. We could sit in the garden and watch them fly.”
The little smile that appeared on his brother’s face made Oliver feel ten feet tall. “We could do that?”
“Yep.”
“Soon?”
Oliver chuckled. “Yeah, we’ll do it soon. I’ll find out the best times to see the dragons, and we’ll go.”
“Okay, I hope you have fun at the garden tonight.”
“Enjoy your book. Or better yet, save it for later and play with some toys. Run around the house. Jump on the bed,” Oliver said, ruffling his brother’s hair. “Be a kid.”
“Are you going to have drinks at the garden?”
“Drinks?”
Orion shifted from foot to foot. “Mommy and Daddy liked to drink a lot. Sometimes they slept in my room because they fell asleep while I played. They would laugh hard even when stuff wasn’t funny. At my plays and stuff, they’d yell really loud, and the other parents would get mad. Sometimes I wished everyone didn’t know they were my parents. I asked them to stop drinking. They promised they would, but they never did.”
Until Oliver had learned his parents were drunk the night they died, he hadn’t understood how troubled they were. One conversation with the housekeeper and Oliver had learned that they’d drunk copiously for years. Since he was so removed from their lives, he’d somehow not noticed. It was awful because they had been raising a child, and Oliver hated that his brother had had to deal with it alone. Oliver had neglected Orion, and his guilt was no small matter.
“I’m sorry, that must’ve been terrible for you,” Oliver said. Although he dearly wanted to hug Orion and offer him some comfort, his brother grew stiff in their embraces and escaped as soon as he could. Oliver was trying, but they were still strangers. “I might have one glass, but that’s it. You have my word, okay?”
“Okay. Can I go read my book now?”
“Yeah, don’t forget to brush your teeth.”
“Oliver?”
“Yeah?”
“Could I maybe get a kitty?”
