“We’ll rejoin the girls after this one” he observed, tossing another cold one to Joey. “Nah, let’s wait awhile,” said Joey, “they think we’re in here cementing our new-found brotherly togetherness, why disappoint them? Dude, the beers are in here, they’re cold, siddown!”
Robbie looked at Joey over the top of his glasses. “So bro, level with me, really, how freaked are you by this whole thing, this ‘brother’ business?”
Joey looked pensive. “On the How Fucked-Up Is That scale, this rates no more than 3/10; I was more freaked when Elvis Hood, the best goddamned defensive tackle in the history of Ellenbrook High tried to kiss me in the locker room; that was a fucking 8, believe me! Even now, I’m more freaked by what you’re doing to my kid sister, you fucking sicko pervert, wait there while I find my shotgun!”
“Screw you, I saw her first!” grinned Robbie, “You’re just jealous ’cause she makes me pancakes and sausage for breakfast, the Food of The Gods, and you just get muesli, The Food of The Goats!”
Joey looked back at Robbie. “Seriously dude, finding out you really are my brother was no big deal, Mom kind of defused that one over the years, so no biggie. Casey was more affected, if you want my opinion, so perhaps you should go easy on the ‘I hate dad’ thing for a while; she knew he was no prince, but this was just another slap she didn’t need. Just saying. And with that, I think we should rejoin them, they probably think we’re getting naked by now, so a good time to end this.”
Robbie acquiesced, draining his beer and getting up. “One thing, Joey, I’ve been kicking around an idea, I want to talk about it with you tonight, show you some stuff, can you spare me an hour? I think it might be worth your while.”
“Sure thing butthead; is 7 o’clock OK with you? ”
“7 o’clock it is then, and we’ll take mom and the girls to dinner at 8, make a night of it, OK?”
Joey grinned and nodded, as they trailed back into the sitting room, Casey and Karen looking at them expectantly. Joey burped reflectively, and Karen grinned.
“Nice beer, Joey?”
Joey looked guilty. “What beer? Robbie and I were discussing the bone-chilling horror of actually being related, but then we realised we love each other, in a very special, Man-Love way, so the engagement’s off; however, now that you’re both single, if you and Casey want to make out…?” He leered suggestively.”
“You’re disgusting; Sarah, tell him he’s disgusting!” grinned Karen as she threw a cushion at him, Joey sidestepping it neatly to watch it smack into Robbie’s surprised face.
Joey grinned “See, I warned you, long-term relationships can be so destructive!” he preached at Robbie, in his saddest and most sententious voice, “the first thing to go is any respect they might have had for you!”
He ducked as Karen picked up another cushion to lob at him, grinning that grin, the one that always made her grin back, no matter how mad she was.
Sarah was relieved to see that the revelations earlier hadn’t rocked them; they were still like a pair of 12 year-olds when they got in the same room together, next thing they’d be digging out Joey’s old telescope and looking up the street to see if the Hollister tramp still undressed with her shades up.
She smiled as she remembered the strip she’d torn off them when she found out about that, while laughing her ass off inside; it was such a very… boy thing to do, and they were nothing if not normal boys.
Lunch was a revelation to Casey. Joey and Robbie set the table and brought the dishes in like table staff in the best restaurants, every move telling of long practice under Sarah’s watchful eye, but at the same time it was obvious they enjoyed doing it, that this really was their home, and the unconscious precision of their actions spoke volumes about the ease they felt when they were here. Casey hoped that one day she and Robbie would dance around each other like that, in their own home.
When the food was served, Casey couldn’t help but notice the serious attention Robbie paid to it; again, it was obvious he missed having his mom cook for him (how strange now, that she could think of Sarah as Robbie’s mom, not Angie!) and that coming back here was more than just a trip to tell Sarah about them, it was his chance to reconnect with his home, here. He’d left, but he’d never left it behind, and that was a good thing, Casey realised; this house, this family, these were his roots, and would always be an important part of him and his identity. Sarah had moulded the boy, and the man she had made was here now, and Casey was reminded of the old maxim; ‘as the twig is bent, so grows the tree’.
Sarah watched Casey as she watched Robbie, understanding the insights Casey was having into his character, into what and who he really was, and Sarah noted with pleasure and reflected how much Casey had changed as she embraced his world and looked out through his eyes, seeing his family as he saw them. Sarah was pleased; now the old Casey really was gone forever, and the real Casey was left in her place.
Lunch over, Joey and Robbie washed up, their chore since boyhood, while the women talked about weddings and plans and life with their men. Once Robbie came back in, he took Casey to show her around his home, the little gym he and Joey had built-up over the years, finally lounging together on the porch to soak up some of the late afternoon sun. It was there that Sarah found them, Robbie stretched out on the lounger, Casey on his lap, her arms around his waist and her head on his chest as he absently toyed with a lock of her hair, the pair of them the picture of carefree relaxation.
Sarah sat down and cleared her throat.
“Casey, I wanted to ask you earlier; are you planning on seeing your parents while you’re here? I’m guessing you’ve not been home for a while now, so are you planning on seeing them at all?
Casey blinked as she thought about it, then slowly shook her head.
“No Sarah, I don’t think I want to see them again. I don’t feel a part of them at all, and I can’t find any real feelings for them except anger and contempt, for what they did to Robbie, and for what they turned me into. I’ve learned more in the last few days than a lifetime with them, and I don’t think seeing them will do anything for me except remind me what they did. I guess I love them, and I’ll always owe them for everything they did for me, but it was really for them, you know what I mean? Robbie didn’t fit into that plan, so they did nothing for him at all, ever, just left him in free-fall, and that is the most contemptible thing, the one thing they should never be forgiven for. They warped me into some weird spin-off edition of them, and I can’t forgive them for that. My reality is right here.”
She slid her hand inside Robbie’s shirt, to pat his muscular stomach and feel his warmth, her hand coming to rest against his side, her arm inside his shirt, wrapped around his midriff. Robbie stirred and kissed her forehead lightly.
“Are you sure, baby?” he murmured, “whatever their motives, everything they did was for you, which kind of lays a big obligation on you. Would it really be so traumatic to at least go see them, even if just to say goodbye? Be the bigger man, Case, go say your goodbyes, at least; you’ll probably always regret it if you don’t.”
Sarah looked at him in astonishment. There really was no bitterness in his voice when he mentioned his parents, when he had every reason in the world to hate them like poison.
Casey also looked at him in surprise, indecision wavering in her eyes.
“Maybe you’re right, but it feels… disloyal, walking back into that place where so much was done to you for so little reason. Let me think about it for a little, I need to give this some thought…”
She stood up , stretching and yawning luxuriously, Robbie watching her lithe form and grinning appreciatively.
At that moment, Angie Dolan, on her drive past the Anderson residence on her way back from doing the receipts, as she did every day at 4 pm, never once acknowledging, even in the privacy of her own head, that she came home this way every day hoping to see her son again one day, rationalising it instead as the better route home, looked on in stunned disbelief as a girl she could have sworn was Casey stretched out and yawned on Sarah Anderson’s porch. Angie’s first instinct was to dismiss the image. It couldn’t be her daughter; she was in California, half a continent away, not standing and stretching on Sarah Anderson’s porch!
She slowed to look again at this girl who’d reminded her so vividly of her daughter, and at that moment, a tall, boyishly handsome young man who looked somehow familiar, stood up from where he’d been sitting on a lounger and hugged her, the girl smiling and kissing him on the lips, like lovers would. As the girl pulled back from the kiss and turned her head to say something to Sarah, Angie looked directly into the face of her daughter, here, in Springfield, on Sarah Anderson’s porch! Her head whirled with unanswerable questions; why was she here, and not at home; what was she doing here; how long had she been here, and why the Anderson residence, of all places? And just as troubling, who was that tall young man with her, where was he from, and what did he have to do with this, with Casey?
Her head spinning in shock, Angie drove on past, trying to find an explanation that fitted what she’d seen, her mind turning the image of Casey hugging that boy so closely, standing there so completely at ease with Sarah, over and over in her mind, trying to tell herself there was a simple explanation but unable to believe it for one second. She decided that she had to tell Steve; he was at home today, it was Monday, golf day, so he should be back by now. They had to go over there, find out what the hell was going on.
Angie drove through downtown (such as it was) remembering the look of happy relaxation on Casey’s face, a look she’d almost forgotten, it was as though whatever had been troubling her these last few years had finally dropped away. Then the image of that young man dropped into place, overlaid with memory and recognition, and she gasped in horror as she screeched to a halt, earning her an angry blare from the beat-up F150 behind as he swerved to avoid her.
Robbie! Oh my God, she’d been kissing Robbie! In public, like two lovers! What the hell was she doing kissing Robbie, and where had he been all these years? Her eyes blurred as she thought of her son and daughter being … like that… with each other. Steve had to know about this, she had to tell him, get him up here and get some answers; this was just wrong, so utterly, disgustingly wrong!