Andrew

Jeanine

As far as the kids were concerned, Andrew’s mobile home in rural Osceola County was a wonderland.

His home backed up to the muggy, mercifully shaded swamp. His camp was connected to two roads: one that led to the main drag of the city, the other to Interstate 10. Andrew kept good relationships with his neighbors, but he stayed away from their business and they returned the favor.

I accidentally raised my three children in the city. Brandy was already talking about leaving for a real metro area when she grew up. I hoped the fresh air at Andrew’s would change her mind. My husband, Evan, woudl never believe me if I told him that’s the real reason why I brought them to spend the day at my high school sweetheart’s home. As far as he was concerned, I was paying a visit to my girlfriend from the Toys for Tots volunteer board a visit.

My heart had dropped at the sight of Andrew’s friend request – the same way it felt when he broke up with me junior year, then the same feeling I had when I met Evan. Andrew and I spent weekends at the very same lot where we explored the swampy underbrush and planned our lives together. He had fit right into our country high school, his signature camouflage matching the uniform of the school mascot, a deer that did not understand irony. I would spend years wondering whether my children would have turned out the same had the school district not changed our street’s zoning. I’d spend even longer wondering whether Evan would recapture some of his old charm.

Evan had not asked questions when I told him about my day plans. Those days, Evan didn’t really go off script. For that, I relied on Brandy, my oldest. I had asked her to not be like other teenage girls and be my confidante. She agreed to the role in her final years before middle and high school molded her into a new person. She and my mother were the only ones who knew about the man who was almost my husband.

Brandy felt like my mini-me as we knocked on the door, her tiny knock echoing mine. As Andrew swung open the door and scooped up the kids, my heart grabbed onto my insides as if it were falling all over again. At 38, he still stood as tall as he did at 18. He didn’t need the beard to look good, but boy, did it frame his well-tanned face and the brown eyes cratered by laugh lines well earned. His family was always celebrating and laughing when I visited. Sometimes, they didn’t even know why they were celebrating.

Now, Andrew treated the children as if they returned home from a summer at sea. The boys laughed as he set them down from being swung like rag dolls. For Brandy, Andrew took off his hat and knelt down to her. It was the best way possible to greet a 12-year-old girl who was just starting to realize she was, in fact, one.

“You look just like your mother when I met her. Only prettier,” he said. Brandy blushed and said thank you.

I tried not to do the same as he took me in. I fought the urge to measure my souvenirs from years lived to his as he drew me in for a hug.

“Damn, girl,” he said. “You look like hell.”

I pushed at his chest, though that didn’t loosen his grip on me. He laughed and said he was kidding as he ushered us in. He had a few varieties of chips laid out, which he obviously picked over while he played Grand Theft Auto IV. Andrew motioned to them as offerings. But his best offer was what was dangling between his fingers: the keys to his two four-wheelers.

As the kids screamed, I leaned into Andrew. “I’m not getting on one of those again,” I said.

“You’re going to disappoint them, then. They need a driver,” Andrew said. “Speaking of, your youngest? Hoo boy, that is a spitting image of Evan.”

I’m sure Andrew noticed when I crinkled my face at the mention of my husband’s name. It felt like Evan could hear it while working at the same job he had kept his entire life, while saying the same lines and keeping the same inventories both physically and mentally. Andrew didn’t say anything as he grabbed the boys in one hand and Brandy in the other.

We spent the afternoon gliding up and down the hills that kept the interstate above ground. The kids screamed on the descent, in shock that getting so close to cars was legal and that they would not die at the bottom of the hill. After a few rounds, Andrew let Brandy and my oldest son take the lead after a quick tutorial. We led them to the grassy flat area by Andrew’s home, where we asked them to stay while they got comfortable on the four-wheelers.

When they were off, we grabbed beers and watched from the wooden porch added on since the last time I saw them.

“You know, I can pay for gas,” I said. “Those kids are not going to want to get off of those things.”

“Please, girl,” he said. “I make more money contracting than you do at your assistant job. Besides, it’s good to see you all.” He reached over for my hand. After a moment of consideration, I gave it to him.

We sat in silence for a few minutes. This silence felt different than the ones at home had felt lately. It was a natural,weightless gap that I felt myself savor. Andrew and I breathed into the years we had been apart and the moment at hand.

“So I have a question for you,” Andrew said after a minute. “Does Evan know that you’re here? Because the way you talk about him doesn’t suggest he would like hearing about this.”

I shook my head. “Evan’s been going through a hard time since his father died.”

“Jeanine, that was two years ago. That’s a long time for a man to not talk to his wife. That is unless he became one of those nuns.”

I stifled a laugh. “He may as well be, the way he’s acted since then, I’ll tell you that much.” He laughed.

“I guess my question is,” he said as he moved the chair to face me dead on, our knees barely touching as if in an acting class together. “If he’s the love of your life, why are you here right now?”

Before I answered, I saw Evan’s name light up on my phone screen. A second later, I heard the sound of a muddy thud. I looked up just in time to see Brandy cry out.

Brandy

As it turns out, neither the four-wheeler nor my mom were as reliable as I expected.

The moments after I hit the mud unfolded slowly. Mom and Andrew pulled me out from under the four-wheeler and sat me on one of the lawn chairs. My mom called my dad, whose voice sounded dire, even for him. Her mouth said she’d get us back home right away, but her eyes said otherwise.

My life after the crash became Mamma Mia, but with a trio of doors instead of old men with questionable singing skills. The first door was the bathroom of Andrew’s seedy trailer. The hiss of the water obscured the adults’ conversations that I hoped my brothers couldn’t hear. I cleaned up, but I felt dirty for being along for my mom’s mid-life crisis. The four-wheelers were a distraction from the not-quite-cheating, not-quite-innocent affair at hand.

At home, the four-wheelers were a scapegoat. From behind my bedroom door, I heard my mom shout that my brothers and I rode the four-wheelers until they broke over coming home sooner. I had taken dinner to my room and ducked past my dad, who asked about my day with a tone that made me utterly uninterested in sharing.

I logged onto a group chat as I loaded up Wizard 101 on my computer. The magical swooshes and twinkles that came with the loading screen were the soundtracks to my parents’ argument that took up the entire house.

My dad’s voice was baritone and sounded pained in a way I had not heard since his dad died. Even then, there wasn’t an undercurrent of anger. He didn’t know about Grand Theft Auto, and unless my mom wants us all to get killed, it would stay that way.

After she blamed me, my mom refused to apologize. She said she was connecting with people because she couldn’t connect with my dad. That Andrew connected with even us in a way that my dad no longer could.

I rehash this to my friends over Facebook Messenger while we play Wizard 101. They’re half intrigued, half talking about the upcoming school year.

Yeah, but did your mom do him?” Jared asked, followed by other friends telling him to shut up.

Outside, a pause. My dad had just asked a more guarded version of the same question.

“It’s not anything. He didn’t try to do anything with me. You just never let me talk to my friends from high school,” she said.

I shrink a little. Because I may have been entranced by hills that are Florida-level high, but in my periphery I could make out my mom holding hands with this man I barely knew. When I saw them inch together, I tried to drive faster. If I didn’t see, I could at least temporarily excuse myself from being my mother’s therapist.

I fought that same urge as I left my room and breached the living room cage match. Both of them looked at me with wild and pleading eyes. I looked between the two of them and considered coming clean. Of sharing my mom’s admissions to me on the car ride home, when she said she had not felt like she had a partner in years – that I was her only partner. An ally to a man who insisted on living life as a rock.

“I’m getting seconds,” I said as I hoisted up my bowl for dramatic effect. It was a nonchalant act, and if I concentrated on it, I could convince the two of them that I was nonchalant about their trouble. I run to the kitchen, scoop some more meatballs and run back to my room. Maybe if I practice saying nothing, I could grow up to be just like them.