Jake runs down the porch steps to greet me and I sweep him up with one arm giving him a hug and a tousle of his hair with my other hand. “How’s it going little man?”
“Good,” Jake smiles at me. “I made you a drawing.”
“You did? Awesome, I can’t wait to see it.”
Keira comes down the steps behind her son and watches me put him down. I give her a hug and smile, I’m genuinely happy to be here. Inside the house, nothing is the same as it was when we were kids. She wanted to put her own mark and did it with a chic, stylish décor, clean lines, muted greys and blacks, lime green accent colour. It didn’t stop me picturing our old homey, packed to the gills house. Mom is a hoarder. There are still plenty of photos on the walls of us all.
“How’s work?” I ask following her into the kitchen. She sets about making me a coffee.
“Busy, but I love it.” She owns and runs her own clothing store, it’s really popular and she recently started selling online.
My sister looks like me, right down to her short, cropped hair. Mom went ape shit when she first cut it all off because she had always had long, wavy blonde hair, but I thought it suited her, though I gave her some shit about wanting to look like me. As she hands me the coffee, Jake comes barrelling in with a piece of paper in his little hand. It’s covered in squiggles and blobs of paint and I have absolutely no clue what it is supposed to be.
“Jake saw a clip of you at the LA show,” Keira points out helpfully, indicating with her eyes towards the picture.
“This is awesome buddy, is this one me?” I point at a blue blob with lines coming out of the head and bottom. He nods emphatically. I tilt my head. “I see the resemblance and that is the exact outfit I had on that night.” It wasn’t far from the truth, the crowds couldn’t see me up close and personal but I looked like shit that night.
Keira laughs as her son beams. “Jake why don’t you go wash up before dinner.”
He skips out happily and I get to my feet. “He’s grown so much,” I tell her.
She nods and rests her hip against the centre island. “So to what do I owe the pleasure of a visit from the Rock God?”
“You know I don’t get much free time, sis,” I say with a touch of guilt.
“I know but you usually don’t want to spend it with me.”
I toss an apple from the fruit bowl towards her but she catches it before it can hit her. “I still don’t, I’m only here to see my nephew.”
“Turd-face.”
“Butt-hole.”
We both laugh at our childhood taunts. Keira is three years younger than me and a single mom. Jake’s dad didn’t want anything to do with him because he was still in college when he knocked my sister up. Keira handled it better than I did. I beat the shit out of the asshole. I’m fairly sure she still has no idea I did that, let’s face it, the scumbag would never admit I’d broken two of his ribs and messed up his pretty boy face. She would kill me if she knew. Jake is a happy kid despite not having a dad around and the whole family dotes on him. Even when I’m not around I send stuff to him all the time. And I’m currently teaching him how to play guitar, even got him his own pint-sized instrument.
“Caught the show on You Tube, you weren’t too bad.”
“Supportive as ever.”
“You know I love you. And I’m really proud of you.”
I stare at her, then we both laugh. “I’ve missed your ugly mug.”
“Why don’t you go get set up in your room and take a shower, you look like shit.”
“Mommy, what’s shit?”
I burst out laughing, giving Keira a look that tells her she has some explaining to do.
“I only do this when you’re here,” she chides me. “You’re such a bad influence.”
I hold out my hands, the picture of innocence and laugh as Jake asks again. Keira is busy telling him to stop repeating the word as I head to my room. Keira has changed everything in here too but there are still some of my things on the dresser, old photos and trophies from when I played baseball in middle and high school. I pause for a minute at a photo of me with Chris, my old friend who was killed. I didn’t know I had pictures of him here, but it is a blow to the heart seeing it. We were probably only thirteen or fourteen in the picture.
He always wanted to be a part of the band but he couldn’t play very well and the other guys didn’t hang out with him as much as me, they didn’t want him messing up our chances. I still feel guilty I didn’t push to keep him, to help him learn to play better. It was what eventually ended our friendship, seeing us become successful and leave him behind.
I toss my bag on to the double bed, which I’m grateful for because I used to have a single when I lived here, and head into the shower.
The water pressure is terrible, just like I remember but it feels good to clean off the travel. When I return, Keira has laid out a meal and we sit down and reminisce, talk about our parents and Jake’s new friends in pre-school. He shows me all of his new toys and I teach him some basketball, lifting him up high to make his shots drop through the hoop, he squeals in delight.