Page 2 of The Mistakes I've Made
There went my plans for the day. No doubt he was going to put me to work, doing one thing or another. Dean was only five years older, but it felt like ten. Without our dad around, he’d taken the older brother role to heart. He’d skipped college to help Mama with the family business, and he took it all really seriously.
Sometimes, I swore, he had been born with a fishing pole in his hands, ready to fill my dead father’s shoes the first chance he got. Me? I didn’t hate it, but I could probably find a dozen other things I’d rather be doing than discussing tides and cleaning fish guts off the decks of a dozen boats.
“What are you doing?” he whispered as he stepped inside, wiping his brow with the bottom of his T-shirt.
“I could ask you the same thing. It’s hotter than the devil’s armpit out there.”
“Charming,” he said, rolling his eyes as he held up his wrist at eye-level. A quick glance at his watch had judgment written all over his face. “You know it’s almost noon?”
“Yeah. So?”
Letting out a disgruntled sigh, he motioned for me to follow him. I’d learned over the years to not mess with my big brother, so I gave into the inevitable and followed him. To do otherwise usually resulted in purple nurples or some other sort of uncomfortable situation.
The disapproving glare only worsened when he saw my cereal on the counter, but he chose not to comment on it. Instead, he went for the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of water, and I watched as he drained it in seconds.
“Sit down,” he commanded.
Looking longingly at my bowl, I begrudgingly did as I had been told, taking a seat at the kitchen table as he did the same.
“I was going to wait to tell you this,” he said, his gaze shifting to the floor as he let out a huff of air. “Actually, you know what? Just eat your Apple Jacks and go do whatever it was you were going to do today.”
He’d just given me my out. It was exactly what I wanted, but something in the way he said it grated on my nerves. Maybe it was the disparaging tone of his voice or the shake of his head as he cupped his forehead in his hand.
He looked lost.
My brother never looked lost.
“Tell me,” I said. “I want to know what’s going on. Does this have to do with what you were talking to Mom about, all secret-like, outside?”
He nodded.
“Well then, tell me. If it has to do with the family, it has to do with me.”
His brows lifted, as if he finally agreed. “The business isn’t doing so great. We’re having serious financial difficulties.”
“But I thought we were doing better since Abernathy’s Fishing Company closed last year. More fish for us, right?”
His head tilted, and he began to rub his temple like I’d just said the stupidest thing in the world.
Maybe I had. I really didn’t know shit about our business other than what they told me.
“They closed because they had to,” he explained. “And, if we don’t figure something out, we might need to as well.”
“Oh.”
Silence fell between us as I tried to sort all this out.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Abernathy’s has been closed for a while. If we’ve been having problems for so long, how come you’re just telling me now?”
He leaned forward in his chair, his gaze leveling with mine. “Because, up until yesterday, you were a kid Taylor. And you deserved to be a kid for as long as possible.”
“But, now, I’m not,” I said, filling in the rest of what I assumed he was thinking.
I’d woken up that morning, thinking of only one thing.
Freedom.
Adulthood equaled freedom, right? Freedom to wake up when I wanted—well, I’d already done that, I guessed. But what about the freedom to go where I wanted, when I wanted, and the freedom to choose my destiny…
