slept in it.”
Abby dropped her purse at Peter’s feet in the passenger’s seat. She shook her head, impressed. “I don’t know, Peter. Sometimes I think you’re more cut out for this gig than me.”
* * *
Uncle Herb lived in a group home, a twenty-minute ride from the Creek. Peter didn’t know the exact definition of a group home; it’s what his mother had always called the place, but from what he could gather a group home was where several people lived, related only by the fact they all were disabled, and the house had staff acting as caretakers.
Back when they were house hunting, Abby’s conditions were a ranch home for its wheelchair accessibility and no farther than a half hour from her brother. She wanted her brother to feel welcome, though Herb hadn’t spent any significant time there as of yet. They had moved in right after Peter’s summer vacation last year, and during Christmas, Nick was adamant about going skiing over the holidays. He was so stressed out over the new business that Abby didn’t fight him on it, but she wished she had. She spent much of Christmas morning feeling guilty, thinking how her brother had to spend it with only the staff who worked in his home. It was the first Christmas they’d ever spent apart.
In turn, Abby’s conditions annoyed Nick, who didn’t like the location limitations or the nixing of his dream to buy and restore an old Victorian, though Abby’s rebuttal that it was too much of a project for them was valid. Nick would never admit it, but DIY was a letter combination that didn’t agree with him. He was hapless with a hammer, and his only experience and knowledge of construction had been gleaned from watching home improvement shows on television.
“How long is Uncle Herb staying with us?” Peter asked as he fiddled with the air conditioner vents, then the radio station presets—anything to distract him from his mother’s aggressive driving. Cars in the process of being towed had more distance from the bumper in front of them than the poor car Abby was tailgating now.
It didn’t help Peter’s nerves that his mother was applying eyeliner as she drove.
The car in front braked and Peter winced.
“Mom, can you pay attention to the road?”
She pointed to Peter with her eyeliner pencil. “Hey, the driver controls the radio,” she said and pressed the button setting for the “all news, all the time” station. “Uncle Herb has two weeks of vacation. Hopefully, he’ll stay the whole time, but I’ll leave that up to him. Sometimes it’s easier for him to be in his own environment.”
“Uncle Herb, yay!” CJ cheered from the backseat.
Listening to the all news station was a form of torture on Peter’s ears. What a broken record, repeating the same things every twenty minutes, especially now with the drought and all. Today will be super hot and super dry outside. Tomorrow the same. The next day, ditto. And the next day, well, you know where I’m going with this, right? the radio host blabbed.
A citrus scent floated under Peter’s nose. He turned to his mother and noticed the pressed slacks and expensive blouse. It wasn’t unusual for his mother to wear sweatpants the entire day.
“Why are you so dressed up?”
She smiled. “Do I look pretty?”
Peter hated when she asked him that. She was his mother.
“Well, if you need to know, nosy pants, I might be going back to work. Just part-time though. Mrs. Stewart is doing quite well in real estate, and she wants me to come in today and talk to her boss. I can work a flexible schedule, and to tell you the truth, I think I might be good at that type of work. We met a lot of those agents when we were looking for our house. They weren’t anything special. I’ll just need to get my real estate license, but I can cobroker some deals for now.”
Peter turned around to see if CJ was listening. She was off in her own world, rigging her lasso into some sort of pulley system, stringing it through the seat and around the seat belt latches. Peter turned back to his mother.
“Why?” he wanted to know.
“Because you need a license to sell homes, silly.”
“No, why do you need to go back to work? Dad makes a boatload of money now. He says it all the time. Why do you have to work too?”
She seemed taken aback by the question, but Peter didn’t see anything wrong with it. He was confused, so he asked. Whatever happened to “there’s no such thing as a stupid question?”
Abby’s eyes darted back and forth from the road to Peter. “Maybe because I want to, Peter. Is something wrong with that?”
Peter sensed his mother getting angry, so he abandoned his question to hang and slowly die in the air-conditioned car. He stared out the window, and they drove the rest of the way in silence, though at times he could feel his mother’s eyes glancing over at him.
* * *
They pulled into the half-circle driveway of Uncle Herb’s group home, parking next to a large van. The home was in a wooded area—the only house on the block. Abby had once told Peter that a lot of people don’t want to live near group homes even though the homes and properties were immaculately kept. Some residents fought fiercely to keep group homes out of their own neighborhoods. Abby said that people feared different, even in this day and age, and there was still a stigma on people with disabilities. Peter couldn’t understand it, but considering Herb was one of the first names he could speak, his experience was unlike other people’s.
“Uncle Herb will be so excited to see you guys,” Abby said, putting the car in park.
CJ kicked the back of Peter’s chair. “Uncle Herb! Uncle Herb!”
Peter said nothing, and his mother looked over at him as she stepped out of the car.
“Is everything all right, Peter?” she asked.
Peter didn’t look at her as he unbuckled his seat belt. “Yeah. I’m just tired of the sun, I guess.”
Uncle Herb was waiting in the shade of a tree with a suitcase on one side of his wheelchair and an aide from the home on the other. His button up shirt drooped down from his atrophied muscles as if it was wet.
Abby said, “Sorry we’re late, Maria. Traffic.”
The aide acknowledged the apology with pursed lips. Maria was a stump of a woman, barely an inch over five feet, but built solid from three decades of working two, sometimes three jobs at a time—always physical work, because it made the day go faster. She looked imposing compared to the man in the wheelchair next to her, his body swallowed by chrome and padding. In Maria’s four years working for the group home, Hoobie—as she liked to call Herb—had become her favorite resident. He had handsome, gentle features, and she playfully flirted with him as she helped him eat, go to the bathroom, or bathe. Unlike some of the lazy and stupid college kids she had to work with, Maria had found it easy to understand him. Her English was average, but Hoobie had such trouble speaking that he broke down his thoughts into the simplest terms, which was helpful in overcoming the language barrier. Maria’s anger would surge when her coworkers acted surprised and delighted when Hoobie said something smart or funny, those patronizing fools. Maria knew that Herb was a thousand times smarter than they or their children would ever be. Young people are so
