Page 6 of Thicker Than Water
“Well, you will. Soon. He’ll wake up and the two of you can get back to planning your big trip. You’ll have tons of time to connect in Paris. And Venice. And Prague. And wherever else you’ve added to the list.”
Usually, just the thought of their second honeymoon is enough to make Julia smile. When she and Jason got married, they were more concerned with affording a stroller and crib than a lavish vacation, opting instead for a couple nights at a Berkshires cabin. But their fifteenth anniversary was in January, and Julia’s been collecting travelmagazines and curating Pinterest pages since at least their tenth, all in preparation for their European tour later this year. Now, though, Julia’s face darkens even more, as if I’ve only reminded her of something else she might lose.
“He’s going to be okay,” I assure her. Assure myself, too, because it’s difficult to fathomokaywith Jason’s body laid out like a corpse in front of us. I lean closer to inspect his face. Did our parents look like this, purple and bloated, after Clive Clayton drove drunk and killed them? Or did the stopping of their hearts keep their capillaries from breaking, their blood from pooling? By the time I saw them in their coffins, they’d been scrubbed clean, made up, had their organs scooped out. Only their fingertips, tinted the faintest blue, outed them as dead instead of sleeping.
“Hehasto be okay,” I insist. “Because I can’t stop thinking about Clive Clayton. I know this is different, but—” I pause as Julia squeezes my palm. “I can’t lose another family member to a car crash. Jason’s the only reason I survived the last time at all.”
When our parents were killed, we inherited our childhood home, and my brother urged me to ditch my campus apartment to stay with him there. I only lasted a few weeks in my old bedroom, haunted by phantom echoes of my parents, but during that time, Jason shelved his pain to make space for mine. He cooked me blueberry pancakes for breakfast, reenacted funny scenes from my favorite movies over dinner, coaxed smiles from me I didn’t know I was capable of.
“He’s always been so good to me,” I say, “helping me whenever I needed him. And I can’t do anything for him now.”
With her free hand, Julia strokes Jason’s arm, careful not to disturb his IV. Then something like a laugh gurgles in her throat.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing. It’s not appropriate.”
“Say it.”
“It’s just that story you guys tell—about him putting dead bugs on your pillow.”
“Um, don’t forgot how he alsonamed them, so I’d feel sad about throwing them out.”
Julia rubs the space between her eyes. Another laugh escapes her, breathy this time. “You said he’s always been so good to you, and that popped into my head—the bug pillows, which isnotbeing good to you.”
A chuckle punches out of me. “To be fair, I put bugs on his pillow first.”
She’s right, though. As kids, Jason and I tortured each other. I’d spit in his cereal bowl; he’d spit on my toothbrush. I’d hide the controllers to his video games; he’d hide under my bed to grab my ankles. In the back seat of our parents’ car, we were always poking and pinching each other, twisting each other’s arms.
“But you know what I mean,” I say. “He’s been good to me since Clive.”
Julia nods. She knows this story, too, knows I’m not thinking of my parents’ crash anymore. I’m thinking, instead, of a night six years before that: the first time Clive Clayton tried to wreck my life, and the night that changed everything between Jason and me.
Something beeps on one of his machines, yanking me from the edge of that memory. A nurse bustles in to fiddle with Jason’s IV, check his tube, press something on his monitor, before exiting with a smile. I’m jealous of her knowledge, her easy ability to quiet a machine, keep my brother breathing.
“Oh god,” Julia says, startling. “I have to call Aiden. It’s been hours!”
Earlier, as we scrambled out the door, Julia yelled up to him, voice choked with fear, to come down for a minute. Instead, he stayed at the top of the stairs, staring at us warily, and Julia toldhim that Jason had an emergency, that she’d call when we knew more.
“It’s okay,” I say. “He’s probably asleep by now.”
Julia shakes her head. “He was up late the other night—two in the morning, on his phone. For all I know, he’s up late all the time now; he’s a teenager, that’s what teens do—” She stops, mid-ramble. With the hand not holding mine, she grabs her phone, then gapes at it like she has no idea what it’s for. She looks at me, hazel eyes wet and red. “What do I say?”
Even now, I test her:One… Two… Three…I count like this, slow and steady in my head, whenever I’m hoping she’ll find her own words and feel confident enough to speak them herself. Normally, I make it the whole three seconds, uninterrupted—which always disturbs me a little, the way she’s so content to be quiet, to keep such distance between her thoughts and her words. This time is no different. Onthree, she’s still just blinking at me, lashes dewy with tears.
“For now, just text him that you’re on your way back.”
Julia’s gaze darts toward Jason. “I can’tleave. Not yet. I—”
“You heard what the nurse said earlier. They recommend we go home overnight. I’ll stay, though—yougo tell Aiden in person. And try to get some sleep. Jason would want that.”
“But what do I say?” Julia asks for the second time, and I give her a script, parceling it out slowly so she can rehearse each phrase aloud. When she repeats the final sentence—don’t worry, Dad will wake up soon—it comes out shaky. Unsure.
“You’ve got this,” I say. “Drive safe. I’ll call you if anything happens.”
But our hands won’t come unclasped. We look at them, then look at each other, and when we separate our fingers, slowly unstick our palms, it’s like we’re ripping stitches that have sewn us together.
Just before she leaves, we hear a couple nurses in the hallway,gossiping about Gavin Reed. We share a final glance, and I know Julia’s thinking the same as me: it was only hours ago we were talking about Gavin ourselves. But with Jason in this bed, hooked to these machines, his boss’s murder no longer has anything to do with us.
