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He is fourteen and she is seventeen
She just comes in his room all the time, like it ain't his, like it ain't private, and asks, “Why don't you clean this shit up?” to which his customary response is, “Why don't you go suck a dick, Liz?”
Mornings when she drags the covers off, he just hates her. She makes him go to school, but she can't make him stay there. Though when he comes home from someplace else, reeking of weed or cigarette smoke, she always knows.
She doesn't put him to bed anymore of course, he's up too late anyway, but sometimes he'll hear her talking to her girlfriend through the wall and fall asleep to the sound of her voice the way he used to. Very rarely now, the door opens again, cutting into his dreams and he feels the lightest pressure of someone sitting beside him, fingers in his hair, lips brushing across his cheek, like a kiss from a ghost.
“Goodnight Stephen,” She sighs, as if she's so grown up, taking care of him, and if he was less comfy he'd accuse her of playing mom, or of being just like her.
“'Night,” He burbles thickly in his throat, turning ever so slightly into her touch before it's gone.
He is twenty two and she is twenty four
“You?” His sister coughs out a cloud of cigarette smoke and winces, holds her chest through the baggy pyjama top. “Law enforcement, really?”
“Why not?” He bristles, taking the cig from her, sucking it into his own mouth. “I'm fit enough for it, unlike some people. I could pass all their tests, easy.”
“It isn't that.” She says. “Don't you remember school? You couldn't wait to get out of there, now you're going back? And no offence, but you don't do rules very well.”
“So I'd try.” He is undisciplined, can't deny, but maybe it'll be good for him. Direction in his life. He'd have thought she could see that, encourage him for once, this time. “If it was for something I wanted, then I would.”
“Yeah.” Her lips quirk. “But you'd hate it, every step of the way.”
“Like you hate serving coffee to bitchy college students?”
She shrugs, looking down at her bare toes curled around the front step. “It's not so bad.” He knows it is. Liz doesn't sponge off her boyfriends or nothin', if anything it's the other way around, but she could really make so much more dough if she put her mind to it, like he is now. She just seems to be happy settling for average. He isn't gonna be in the same position in a couple years, no way. It seems she's kind of thinking the same thing when she sets her chin on his shoulder and looks up at him from there.
“Look, I ain't saying, don't go and do what you want to do. Just that you should be sure it's this.”
“I am.” He tells her, passing the half-smoked cigarette back. Well, he's almost sure. And more confident of being good at it than he is of anything else.
He is twenty eight, and she is thirty one
Liz's smile drops the second she opens the door. It looks like she's about to slam it in his face, but Davy takes care of that, peeking to see who it is and then running to him.
“Mommy.” He wheedles, “Can he come in, pleeeeease?”
He gives her a challenging stare which she returns murderously, then turns her back on him, leaving the door open. He picks Davy up, pretending like he's heavy and follows her inside, sitting down at the table. Liz slams a plate of leftover spaghetti in front of him like she hopes it chokes him. She takes Davy off his lap though, puts him on the stairs and tells him to go play with Kayla, then sits down opposite, watching him eat. She's drinking beer from out of a glass, but he knows better than to ask for one.
“So where've you been creeping?”
Been seeking, he thinks, without voicing it. Looking all over for things proving elusive. “Around.” He says, lowly. “You know, I'm sorry I ain't had time...”
She blinks, raises her faint, fair eyebrows like, yeah. “Well, Davy still adores you despite that.”
Shut up shut up shut up. She does this, uses the kids to get at him. He has to take a moment to free the spasm from his hand, underneath the table. He sniffles a bit, and she mistakes it as contrition. It is, he is contrite, she schooled him. But he can't control it, when there's been no meth coursing through his veins for days.
“All right.” She says, holding up her hand. “I get it. Never mind.”
Shit, Liz. Don't make it this easy. He picks up the fork again, ploughs his way through the rest of the cold, slimy pasta.
“Can you lend me some bank?” He asks, when she's finished her beer, gone to get two more and passed one to him. They've been talking, slowly growing more companionable, till it's almost like it used to be between them. He used to be able to tell her anything, but he can't with this. He's dreading when she finds out, and if he keeps leeching off her, she will.
“What for?” She's drinking out of the bottle now, places it down and wipes her mouth. “You in some kind of trouble, little brother, huh?” Her blue eyes are still shrewd, but she is smiling, and he smiles back, bashfully, hating himself.
“Nah, nah. I just got none left after my rent is all.” That is not exactly untrue. He knows she wouldn't believe anything more specific. He still takes a swill of beer to cover it, though.
She gets up, takes her purse from out her coat pocket. “I could maybe give you fifty dollars. That's all I've got spare, right now.”
“That's fine.” He lies. Well, he could get the rest from somewhere else. He doesn't know where, but he could work something out. “I'll get it back to you.”
She squeezes the back of his neck, and says “Yeah, when you can.”
Kayla screams from upstairs and she looks sharp again, the effect of their shared drinking session shaken off. She isn't just his sister any more, she's a mom of two young children and he'll always take second place to them now.
“Sorry, I gotta check on them.”
He nods, and she runs up, leaving her purse on the table in front of him. He stares at it, practically certain there's more in there, cash for her babysitter. Fifty dollars isn't even close to enough, to pay off what he owes and buy more. He needs another twenty, say, thirty, added to what he has managed to save. She won't come down now, she might forget he's even here, and the crime is getting caught, right? He fights with himself for maybe a minute before he opens it and nearly clears her out. She'll be all right, she's got her card, she'll get paid soon enough.
He glances up at the ceiling, he can hear her feet creaking heavier than normal as she's holding her baby girl. He feels like he's contaminating her home with his presence. Low down, dirty, sneaky tweaker, stealing from his own sister. Still he won't replace the money and wait for her to come back so they can talk about it. He shoves what he's taken deep into his pockets, and sees himself out.
He is thirty five, and she is thirty seven
She sits there scratching her nose in his chair, bored but hawk-like at the same time, watching him with Kalia. He hasn't sat for hours. Earlier he couldn't get her to stop crying, no matter what. Even though she's asleep now, he still can't put her down. Hasn't tried to hand her off. She is his, his tiny little thing, nearly three months old and he has trouble believing but he's good with it. Liz is just around for...moral support, or whatever. To make sure he doesn't do anything too badly wrong.
The huge, jaw-popping yawn creeps up on him, and the look in her eyes is so evilly amused.
“What?” He asks her, “what's so fuckin' funny?”
“Oh, you know, shit comes full circle. I was on my own, here you are on your own after all...”
Yeah. Right. Marry me. That didn't exactly work out. He coulda seen that, given time, but there wasn't any time. Or maybe he had too much Linden on the brain 24/7. Linden making him crazy.
He squeezes his eyes shut on Kali's face. He couldn't keep Linden, either.
“Stephen.” Liz says, rising slightly, suddenly concerned.
“I'm not on my own.” He says, pushing it back into the past. “Caroline hasn't skipped town.” He guesses Mark didn't either, really. “She's just gone on business for a few days. And I mean, you're here.”
She smiles, relaxing at the acknowledgement he doesn't give enough. He thinks sometimes that's what makes her happy, to know she did all right. It ain't all about him but she made it all about him, growing up. There's so much else he could tell her, except that's all she needs to know everything.
“So nice of you to notice. Here, your seat's warm for you, dad.”
She comes up to take his daughter from him, and their arms connect around her.