Page 63 of The Handoff

Chapter 35

David

Oncedinnerwasready, we all took our places at the table. It was a little early, we never ate at this time, but as much as the extractor was extracting the air, it couldn’t take away the smell. The meatloaf looked good, and I had a feeling that it was going to taste even better. I didn’t want to be away from taking the first slice, because Dane was greedy and Daxon even greedier, I knew that they would happily start eating and take most of the good parts, and leave me scraps.

“This smells so good,” I said as I moved towards the table.

“Your eyes are all bulging like a bunch of hungry wolves.”

“We haven’t eaten well for a while, and besides mom never lets us sit in the kitchen let alone help when she’s here,” Dane said.

“Oh?” Lisa asked while raising an eyebrow. Dane brought over the salad and started to pick at it.

“No, not till we sit down to eat!” She scolded Dane and at that moment I wondered if she really was Dane’s girlfriend or our mom as he automatically dropped the cucumber that he was about to put in his mouth.

I couldn’t remember the last time we sat at the table like this, lately with us being so adrift we tended to avoid each other like the plague. Now, here we were sitting and laughing together like we used to do.

Once, the table was completely set, and we were ready to eat. We looked up, at Lisa who was smiling. She was looking at all three of us, as if she was taking in our features, probably remembering the time that we spent together and not like before when she discovered the truth, no more did she seem disgusted by the whole idea of being with all three of us. It was something which had never crossed my mind, until now.

“Eat!”

She didn’t have to say it twice, as Daxon stood up and we handed him our plates as the aroma of the meatloaf started to cloud our minds.

“This looks too good!” I said as I took a deep breath and then took my first bite.

“Hmm,” I chimed and my brothers did the same.

I noticed that Lisa wasn’t eating, but watching and observing us.

“You’re not hungry?”

She smiled. “Yeah, but I just love watching you guys enjoy my cooking. It’s a nice feeling.”

“Tuck in. Please?”

She did, and we sat smiling passing plates and enjoying each other’s company as the real us, not as Dane and it was a nice feeling. One that I hadn’t experienced in a long time and judging by the look on my brothers faces they were feeling exactly the same as I was. We could be with someone other than mom, and be just us.

“I spoke to Mom and she says that she’s taken some weeks off work and won’t be back for a while. I told her about what happened in campus and everything, she said that you can stay as long as you like.”

I nodded my head, feeling relieved that she didn’t have to leave in a hurry, but then anxious about the idea of her leaving, and this feeling of having Lisa as a girlfriend wouldn’t be an option.

“Do you have plans for Thanksgiving?” Dane asked.

“No. Nan did say that I could go home, but then I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Oh?” David asked as he rested his arms on the table.

“You see, the thing is that dad’s in prison, he took the wrap for everything and mom claimed her innocence, but the truth of the matter is that mom knew. She was even part of the scheme. She was quite happy taking the money and spending it. She didn’t care that people were losing their money, because she was rich. That’s all she cared about, being rich.”

“What’s that got to do with you not going home for Thanksgiving?”

She took in a deep breath as she spoke, and rested her fork on the side of her plate.

“No one knew Mom wasn’t innocent. I never did until Dad was arrested and I heard Mom talking about it to her lawyer. Last week when I went to the farm, I told Mom that I knew her secret and Nan overheard. Mom has been telling everyone including the family that she never knew the truth about dad, but it was all a lie.”

“Shit! You can’t choose your parents, right?” Daxon said, and then he continued. “Imagine, our dad was married to our mom for over twenty years, cleared out her bank account, left her and us and she’s gone to London for his funeral. It makes no sense and then she’s pissed at us, for not giving a damn. I mean he never gave a damn about us.”

Dane and Daxon agreed, and it was at that point, as we talked about the past, and our feelings. That I realized that we had more in common than I’d ever realized, which was probably the reason why we got along. It had nothing to do with sex, it was about how our lives had changed in such a short space of time. Sure, we were never rich like Lisa, but we had a big house, cars, friends in the suburbs and we lost all that to live in a two-bedroom apartment and pretend to be one person.

“Sorry guys, I didn’t make desert.”

Dane raised an eyebrow, and said, “I know one thing that I wouldn’t mind on the menu right now.”

Maybe it was the mood of the night or the fact that for the first time I had actually expressed how I’d felt about my life up until now. But I knew what I wanted, and judging by the look of lost on my brothers’ faces, I wasn’t the only one.

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