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Aaron's silences were deafening, Nicky found. Andrew's yo-yoed between razor sharp and truly empty, Neil's could be calming or devastating, but Aaron had a way of making his silence loud.
Neil was having a bad day, a Bad Brain Day as they usually called them and Andrew had stayed home to guard him, leaving Aaron and Nicky to grocery shop by themselves. And, because it was late summer in the south, they were being drenched by pouring, tropical rain.
And maybe it was that awful silence and the pounding rain but as they passed the international food aisle, Nicky paused, the rhythmic squeaking of the buggy rolling to a stop as he stared at the display of tortillas and dried chilies.
He was struck, as he maneuvered the buggy deeper into the aisle, rolling to a stop before the bags of masa, by the memory of the first and only time he met his grandmother. She'd been at the house when he woke up, a small, stern woman, who'd lifted him to her hip as she pressed out freshly made tortillas on a press he'd never seen before. He couldn't remember much about her face, but he remembered her gentle hands and her smile and the thunder of a summer storm as she handed him a buttered tortilla and sent him to sit at the table to watch her assemble enchiladas. More than than he remembered how the house felt that day; warm and full of love.
A bright spot in a dark place.
Nicky thought of Neil and how he’d looked that morning as he sat staring blankly at the rerun game on TV, hand limp in Andrew’s. Andrew had been murmuring in quiet Russian, running his thumb over Neil’s scarred knuckles as if that would keep him tethered to the earth.
Nicky knew that there were no quick fixes for Bad Brain Days, but maybe he could help.
By the time they made it back to the house, Andrew had retreated back inside the bedroom but the presence of Neil’s soaked running shoes abandoned by the front door meant that he had, at some point, ventured outside. It was enough a clue to Nicky for him to feel confident dicing up a few jalapenos, spicing up his sauce the way that Neil usually liked. (Sometimes, on Very Bad Brain Days, when even Andrew’s knife edged concern couldn’t cut through the fog clouding his eyes, Neil couldn’t stomach anything even remotely spicy.)
It took a few minutes of digging in the cracked plastic tote containing everything Nicky had felt he’d ever want from his parents house to dig out his grandmother’s tortilla press. Made of a pale oak, it was in desperate need of some good wood oil, but when he tested the lever, it moved just a smoothly as he remembered.
“What are you making?” Erik asked, he was using his stilted, rapidly improving Spanish, voice warm even over the laggy Skype connection. Nicky used his elbow to nudge the laptop further onto the counter and basked in his smile.
“Enchiladas.” Nicky said, rolling another into the second pan he had prepared. The first was already in the oven, cheese happily bubbling away into melty, gooey, crispy-on-the-edges goodness, and the smell was already heavy in the air. Already, Nicky had spied Andrew and Neil’s bedroom door peek open, revealing nothing but darkness within. It had been left just slightly ajar, a clear indication of interest that Nicky was refusing to acknowledge in fear of driving them off like a pair of skittish cats.
“Ah,” Erik nodded, “Bad Brain Day?”
“Yeah,” Nicky said, cutting his eyes over to their bedroom door once again as he slipped the second pan in the oven and moved the bowls to the sink. “They don’t eat very well on good days, so I figured this would help. I can freeze whatever they don’t eat.”
“Save me some,” Erik said, and Nicky smiled sadly.
“I’ll be making them for you soon.”
“What are you making?” Aaron asked, shouldering the door to the room open, “The entire freaking tower smells like Mexican food.”
“Hi, Aaron!” Erik said. Aaron gave him a tight lipped grimace in return.
“Enchiladas.” Nicky replied.
Across the room, Neil and Andrew’s door opened a little wider and from the impenetrable darkness a mop of overlong blonde curls condensed themselves into a bleary eyed Andrew, dressed head to toe in slightly oversized sweats. He blinked sleep from his eyes and scanned Aaron and Nicky head to toe, searching for some unidentifiable thing, before he shuffled wordlessly into the kitchen, grabbed four glasses and began to set their tiny Ikea table.
Aaron dropped his backpack at the door, then shifted past Nicky to grab plates.
“Dinner’s almost ready, I’ll talk to you later?” Nicky said. Erik pressed a kiss to his webcam and nodded, “I’ll talk to you later.”
Nicky pulled the second tray of enchiladas out of the oven just as Neil emerged from the bedroom. He looked even more rumpled than Andrew, the circles under his eyes heavy as thunderclouds. But his eyes were clear as they scanned the room, landing on the steaming trays at the center of the table. He opened his mouth and frowned, as if surprised at the squeak like noise that came out, until Andrew clinked his fork against the water glass at the table seating next to him. Neil all but collapsed into the chair, eyes far brighter than they’d been that morning before glancing up at Nicky.
“You made this?” He asked.
Andrew wordlessly grabbed his plate and loaded it high with rice, black beans and enchiladas, he did the same to Nicky’s plate and then to Aaron’s except omitting the beans.
“Yeah,” Nicky nodded his thanks to Andrew, “Grandma’s recipe. I stole her cookbook when I moved out.”
“Shoulda burnt the whole fuckin’ house down.” Aaron grumbled between mouthfuls.
“Arson is harder to get away with than you’d think.” Neil said, he looked up and to the side thoughtfully then added, “Not impossible though.”
Andrew looked up, interested.
“No.” Nicky said, pointing with his fork first at Andrew and then at Neil, “No. No arsoning.”
“It’d be ‘no committing arson,’” Aaron scooped another enchilada on his plate then, after glancing at his brother’s one onto his as well, “‘Arsoning’ isn’t a word.”
“Listen here you little shit-”
“Thanks Nicky.” Neil said, “These are- these are the best I’ve ever had.”
And Nicky knew that had to be a lie, knew that Neil had spent his childhood fleeing around the globe, but he was smiling so softly, his voice so earnest with a voice so warm that Nicky couldn’t do anything but smile back and say, “Thanks.”
And when he saw that the second tray was empty and soaking in the sink the next morning, he rolled up his sleeves, pulled out his grandmother’s cookbook, and got to work.
Maybe Neil would like tamales.