Page 41 of The Older Brother
“Sounds great.” I think she’s bummed my hair isn’t in worse shape. I feel guilty that I’ve gotten it cut by someone else. It’s tough to make it down here often enough, though, and I was starting to get a bit shaggy last week. I wanted to look good for Caleb’s graduation party, mostly so my father had one less thing to pick at. It’s bad enough I work in a garage, I don’t have to look like I do . . . at least, according to him.
“I know it’s been a few years since I’ve seen her in person, but she grew into a lovely woman, didn’t she? At least from what I could see on your brother’s social media. I’m assuming they’re still together?”
The scissors snip above my head as I wince, squinting one eye more than the other.
“Well?”
My mom stops cutting and shifts her body weight, jutting out a hip as her hand with the scissors moves to the side.
“Rowan.”
Her tone is the scolding kind.
“Don’t make assumptions. It’s not like that,” I start.
She punches out a short laugh, then goes back to trimming the top of my head.
“So, it’s not like you decided to hook up with your brother’s girlfriend, who you’ve babysat, might I add?”
Ouch. She had to add that part?
“In fact, no. It’s not,” I insist, though her summary is fairly accurate. “Just so you know, Caleb broke up with Saylor. There wasn’t some sordid overlap of her hooking up with both of us.”
“My god, I hope not for her sake. You’re botha lotin your own ways. I can’t imagine the baggage she’d have to deal with if she were stuck between both of you.”
I purse my lips, and my mom softly laughs, stopping the trim to squeeze my shoulders briefly.
“You know I’m saying this with love, and, well . . . I take ownership of most of that baggage. But lord help that girl if she’s found herself at the point of an Anderson brother love triangle.”
“Ohhhhh, no. No, no, no, no—” I wave a hand in front of my body as if I’m cleaning a window. “This isn’t a love story. No L word. It’s not like that. It’s just?—”
“Rowan, I know we have a close relationship, but if you’re about to tell me this is just about sex, and it’s with a girl I helped raise in many ways, well?—”
I squeeze my eyes shut tight. I should have kept Saylor off the discussion table too. I pinch the bridge of my nose and exhale.
“I’m not. Of course, I respect Saylor more than that. I’m just saying it’s not like I was waiting around for her to break up with Caleb. I wasn’t pining after her for years. Hell, until this summer, I still saw her as the bratty little sister who wanted to sneak into my room and snoop through shit.”
I flash back to the time Saylor found my weed under my bed and took it to my mom. I think my mom is remembering that too, based on the faint smirk on her face.
“Alright. I’ll let you off the hook. Let me just say this . . .” My mom pauses with the scissors above my head again, sucking in her top lip as she appears to think. “However long you’ve seen Saylor with new eyes, you can’t forget that she also carries a history with you. So, navigate this situation with care, for you . . . and for her.”
My gaze meets my mom’s in the mirror.
“Did you give Caleb that same warning when he started dating her?” My chest tightens at my word choice,dating.Thankfully, my mom seems to acknowledge it with only the slight tilt of her head.
“Caleb and Saylor have a different history than you and her do, and you know that.” We hold our stare for a few long, painful seconds. My mom is part of that history too, even though shedoesn’t verbalize it. She doesn’t have to. It’s a scar that she and I share, a wound we both try to heal for each other. And I get where she’s coming from. Saylor doesn’t have that wound, and I have the power to keep her safe from it.
“I understand,” I finally utter.
My mom nods, then flits her gaze down to the top of my head before finally beginning to trim my hair again. I keep my mouth shut for the next several minutes while she works, and I almost feel my shoulders begin to lower by the time she runs the hot towel along the base of my neck.
She pulls the apron from my body and shakes away the tiny golden-brown hairs, and they fall to the floor like dust. I grab the broom from the corner while she carries the cape to the back. I’m sweeping the clippings into the central vac along the back wall when she exits the back room with the small box I drove down here to retrieve.
“Thank you again for picking this up and giving it to your brother. I would have been at the ceremony, but I couldn’t close the shop for a whole day, and . . . well . . .”
I nod, excusing her from saying the painful part. She wasn’t really invited. Not to the graduation, and not to the party at my father’s house afterward. Besides, showing up would have reopened a lot of ugly chapters we’ve all worked hard to put behind us. Me, her, Saylor’s family, and my dad.
“It’s fine. I like seeing you anyhow. I just wish Caleb could have come himself.”
