“Fantastic, babe. Now I’ll let you get back to your sister.”

With my belt undone, I gave up on my slacks, sat on my bed and blurted, “Her husband isn’t here.”

“Say that again?” Johnny demanded.

“Perry. Her husband, who I want to like, I’ve tried to like, but I can’t like because he’s a loser, isn’t here. She’s here. Brooks is here. And Perry is not here. She’s not telling me why. She’s keeping something from me.”

“Shit,” he muttered.

“Yes,” I agreed.

“How’s this guy a loser?” he queried.

“He can’t hold a job because he’s convinced himself he’s the next Chris Robinson and has to be available for gigs that never materialize since he’s no longer even in a band. But he’s okay watching TV, drinking beer and going out with his buds while she holds one down and does overtime. They had Brooks, and for Perry it was about someone giving him something to play with. Not the responsibility of raising a child and all that comes with that like diaper changes, feedings in the middle of the night, looking after him because he can’t fend for himself, and oh, I don’t know . . . contributing to the household to keep a roof over his head.”

“Shit,” Johnny repeated in a mutter.

“Yes,” I repeated my agreement.

“Where are you?” he asked a strange question.

“At home,” I answered.

“No, spätzchen,” he said quietly with gentle humor. “Where are you that it seems like you can talk without her hearing?”

“I’m in my bedroom. She’s in the kitchen.”

“So you can talk without her hearing?”

“Yes, Johnny.”

“She needs to dump this guy.”

I blinked at my bare feet at his frank and inflexible decree after I’d shared the little I’d shared about Perry.

“He’s her husband and the father of her child,” I reminded him.

“Don’t give a shit. She’s there, that’s good. Something’s going wrong at home, she’s the best place she can be. With her sister. With family. With someone who’ll take care of her, look out for her and have her back. There’s a scale of assholes to dipshits. Murderers and rapists are at the top of that scale. But men who don’t look after their wives and kids aren’t closer to the dipshit end. They’re up top. She needs to scrape him off, and since you got her, you need to guide her to that.”

“She loves him,” I shared.

“Love isn’t everything. When it comes to this kind of thing, love is nothing. I can see those people who stay together for their children because they both love their kids and they both want to work at giving them a good home. I can’t see those people who stay with someone who’s a fuckwit because they love him.”

“This makes sense,” I murmured, even if his declaring at all that “love was nothing” was a tad alarming.

“Izzy, baby, there are good guys out there. She scrapes this one off, she’ll find one of those guys.”

“My mom didn’t,” I told him.

“My mom left, my dad didn’t find a good one either. But he had fun trying. And she gave him two things that meant everything to him. His sons. So your sister, she’s doin’ all right. She’s got you and she’s got her boy and whatever comes after that comes. We all gotta settle in with what we got and just rejoice if life gives us more or gives us better. She not only has more, she’s got her son, so she’s got better.”

I wanted to know about his mom. I wanted to know about his dad. I wanted to know about his brother. I wanted to know why he seemed to have all the time in the world to listen and advise about a possible problem with my sister that even I didn’t know what was happening.

And I wanted to tell him how much it meant to me that he’d listen and advise but also that he was the kind of man who would say the kinds of things he was saying.

But being careful and looking out for me, I wasn’t going to give myself any of that.

“We’re having a margarita night so maybe I can pry something loose and give her your honesty,” I said.

“My experience with you is that margarita nights lead to really good things, so I’m rooting for you, baby.”

I again stared at my feet as those particular words made my toes curl.

“Now I’ll let you go be with your sister. Take care, Iz.”

“You too, Johnny. ’Bye.”

“Later, spätzchen,” he murmured then he hung up.

It was then I realized he didn’t say “bye,” he said “later,” and that was a version of “bye” but it could also mean something entirely different.

After realizing that, I realized that I was paying attention and picking apart some nuance that Johnny had given me instead of just letting whatever we were becoming be.

Anyway, I had to change clothes and get down to my sister. She didn’t live close so I didn’t have near enough of her.

And she wasn’t talking but I knew she needed me.

A Reunion

Izzy

“WE’LL GET A patch of grass, stake our claim and then we can go back and start sampling,” I suggested to Addie as we wandered down one of the many crisscross walks in Matlock’s town square late the next morning.

She was pushing Brooks in his stroller and we’d made a loop to check out all the booths and tents.

This year’s festival was bigger than the one I’d been to, some of the stalls going down alleys and one of the streets off the square shut down so food trucks could roll in.

There was everything a festival could have that was all about food but also all the festival vendors with all their wares on display, not to mention the face painters, hair braiders, flower laurel makers, balloon animal sellers, and then some.

The place wasn’t yet packed, but it was busy and festive.

But I was in hell.

My hell was due to three reasons. Drinking too many margaritas the night before. Staying up until four in the morning talking to my sister. And the fact she’d firmly avoided any chat about Perry, but I’d spied she’d obviously loaded up her car to the gills and brought it all to my house, mostly Brooks’s stuff.

I didn’t have a kid and I knew when you had a baby you didn’t have the luxury to travel light.

But you didn’t have to travel like she’d done to spend a few days off with her sister.

She had a portable crib, a portable high chair, a ton of his clothes (and hers by the way), several bags of diapers, wipes and the rest, what had to be every toy he owned and enough food to last a month.

So as we wandered I was tired, hungover and very worried, and to top that off, the sun was shining bright. The day was the warmest we’d had that year so far, and all I felt like doing was lying down and taking a nap or shaking my sister and demanding she tell me what was happening.

But I knew my sister. She wasn’t one to hold things in forever, she shared when it was her time. I just had to wait it out.

I didn’t like it but it was my only choice.

“How about here?” I asked, motioning to a wedge of grass shaded by a large tree, the surrounding areas quickly being taken up by other festival goers.

“Works for me,” Addie replied, looking rested and alert, something I found annoying but then she was a mom and she was a waitress at a high-end restaurant. She was used to late hours and lost sleep and being run off her feet.