Chapter Text
The Patterson’s had the same car for over forty years. They had gotten it when Luke was four years old in the early eighties. A lot of Emily’s friends had gotten large cars, but they all had more than one child. Emily and Mitch only had Luke so they didn’t need a big one. They hadn’t been able to drive Luke around with his friends because of the size of cars and the lack of the number of seats that they needed for him and his friends.
But they had not gotten another car. She and Mitch had thought about getting one, but they had decided against it because of financial reasons.
Then Luke had died. They hadn’t gotten rid of their family car, they almost had though.
It had been almost over a month since they had gotten the horrible news and they had decided to sell their car. She and Mitch had been driving into the dealership when one of Luke’s songs had come on the radio. They hadn’t heard any of Sunset Curve songs on the radio before their son's death. But after Luke’s and his bandmates death they had heard around five of his songs. It hadn’t gotten any easier each time it happened.
This time it felt different, and she knew that Mitch felt the same way.
They turned around and drove right out of the dealership. Mitch and Emily never went back.
In the years after Luke’s death the car felt more empty and quiet.
But now, for the first time in years, the car was filled with the whole Patterson family.
Luke had been back in their lives for nearly three weeks when Emily decided that he needed some new clothes. He had been reusing the same outfits every four days or so and Emily was tired of making him wash them. She could only imagine what it was doing to their water bill for this month.
Their son was living in their house again. Despite what their therapist had told them, they hadn’t cleaned out his bedroom. So it was the same as it had been in the nineties. Luke told them that he had been staying at the Molane’s house when he had come back as a ghost, and in that time he and the rest of his bandmates had gotten close to Julie.
Reggie and Alex were still staying with them. Mitch and Emily would have offered to have them live at their house but they didn’t have the room.
They had dinner with the Molane’s, Alex and Reggie every week.
She, Mitch, and Luke had all been watching a disney movie the previous night. This was something that they had done every Friday since Luke was four years old.
When the movie had finished she had announced her plan for them to go shopping for clothes that Luke could wear. Mitch was fine with it and even said that he had been thinking the same thing. Luke was hesitant at first but when Emily told him that he would be able to keep his old clothes he decided that he was ok with it.
They got up around 9:30 to go to the outlets.
“Why can’t we go to the mall?” Luke asked.
“That closed down a few years ago.” Mitch told him.
“Oh, ok.” he said sadly.
Emily remembered that he and his bandmates used to hang out there all of the time, they even had their breakthrough show there. Luke evandently wanting to change the subject asked
“Are we going to get breakfast on the way there or do I need to eat now.?”
“It depends, are you hungry?” Mitch said, putting down the newspaper that he had been reading.
“Kind of, yeah.”
“I think we have some cereal left. We can have that for breakfast then we can go shopping.”
“Ok.” Luke said as he walked over to the pantry and got the cereal out. Then he walked over to the fridge. After he opened the door he frowned and said
“We are out of milk.”
“Really? I just bought some more.”
“Well we're out.” he said, holding out the empty milk carton.
“Ok. Well we can get more on our way back.” Mitch said.
“There are a lot of fast food restaurants on the way to the shopping center.” Emily added.
“That sounds good.”
Mitch stood up from the chair that he was sitting in and grabbed the keys off the table.
“Let's go.”
The rest of the family stood up and went to the car. Then they left for the outlets
Whenever Luke was in the car with them they never really knew what to play on the radio. Mitch said that they should play the 90s station because that was what Luke was familiar with. But Emily said that they should play the more modern stations because Luke needed to get used to modern music.
They eventually decided to let Luke control the radio and decided what songs they would listen to. He tended to listen to a mix of 80s, 90s, and modern alt rock music. This wasn’t really the kind of music that Emily enjoyed, but she didn’t say anything because she was just happy to have Luke back in their lives.
“So what kind of clothes do you need?”
“I only have the clothes that we kept in Julie’s garage, and those are the outfits that you’ve seen me in.”
“So everything?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Do you need any shoes?” Mitch asked Luke.
“I guess.”
“Ok.”
“So clothes and shoes?”
“Yep.”