through his swollen skin, I see a grin on my dad’s lips. “Is that your Eurydice?” he asks and my eyes freeze wide open. I hope Camryn didn’t catch that, but I don’t see how she couldn’t. My dad weakly raises one hand and gestures toward Camryn.
She gets up and walks over to stand next to me. She smiles so warmly at him it even impresses me. She’s a natural. I know she’s nervous and probably feels more uncomfortable than she ever has standing in this room with this dying man who she doesn’t even know, yet she doesn’t break.
“Hi, Mr. Parrish,” she says. “I’m Camryn Bennett, a friend of Andrew’s.”
His eyes move to me. I know that look; he’s comparing her answer with the look on my face, trying to decipher her meaning of ‘friend’.
And then suddenly my father does something I have never seen him do: he reaches out his hand … to me.
The gesture stuns me numb.
Only when I notice Camryn covertly glaring at me to acknowledge him, do I break free from the numbness and nervously take his hand. I hold it for a long, awkward moment and my father closes his eyes and drifts back to sleep. I move my hand from his when I feel his weak grip go completely slack.
The door opens and my brothers walk in, along with Aidan’s wife, Michelle.
I step away from my father right on cue, taking Camryn with me and not realizing that I’m holding her hand again until Aidan’s eyes move down to see our interlocked fingers.
“Glad you could make it,” Aidan says, though with a bit of contempt in his voice, no doubt.
He’s still pissed at me for not taking a plane and getting here sooner. He’ll have to fucking get over it; we grieve in our own ways.
Regardless, he pulls me into a hug, gripping one hand between us and patting my back with the other.
“This is Camryn,” I say, looking back at her.
She smiles up at them, having already found her way back to the empty chair against the wall.
“This is my older brother, Aidan, and his wife, Michelle.” I point gently at them. “And that’s the runt, Asher.”
“Dickhead,” Asher says.
“I know,” I say.
Aidan and Michelle take the other two seats next to a table and start distributing the burger and fries they just bought.
“The ol’ man still hasn’t come to,” Aidan says, stuffing a few fries in his mouth. “I hate to say it, but I don’t think he’s going to.”
Camryn looks right at me. We both spoke to my father just moments ago and I know she’s waiting for me to give them the news.
“Probably not,” I say and see Camryn’s eyes wrinkle in confusion.
“How long are you staying?” Aidan asks.
“Not long.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” He takes a bite of his burger.
“Don’t start your shit with me, Aidan, I’m not in the mood for it and this isn’t the fucking time or the place.”
“Whatever,” Aidan says, shaking his head and working his jaws around to chew his food. He dips a few fries in a mound of ketchup Michelle just made on a napkin in between them. “Do what you want, but be here for the funeral.”
There is no emotion in his face. He just continues to eat.
My whole body goes rigid.
“Damn, Aidan,” Asher says from behind me. “Can you please not do this right now? Seriously, bro, Andrew’s right.”
Asher has always been the mediator between Aidan and me. And always the most level-headed. When it comes to me or Aidan, we think better with our fists. He always won the fights between us when we were kids, but little did he know that all that time he was beating the shit out of me, he was training me.
We’re pretty even now. We avoid actual contact fighting with each other at all costs, but I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t hold my shit back as good as he does. And he knows it. It’s why he’s backing off now and using Michelle as a distraction. He reaches up and wipes ketchup from the side of her mouth. She giggles.
Camryn catches my eyes; she’s probably been trying to get my attention for the past couple of minutes, and for a second, I think she’s trying to indicate that she’s ready to go, but then she shakes her head, telling me instead to calm down.
Instantly, I do.
“So,” Asher chimes in to lessen the tension in the room, “how long have you two been going out?” He leans against the wall near the television, crossing his arms over his chest.
We look almost exactly alike with the same brown hair and crazy fucking dimples. Aidan is the oddball of the three of us; his hair is a lot darker and instead of dimples, he has a small birthmark on his left cheek.
“Oh, no we’re just friends,” I say.
I think Camryn just blushed, but I can’t be sure.
“Must be a good friend to come all the way to Wyoming with you,” Aidan says.
Thankfully he’s not being a dick. If he decided to take his anger on me out on her, I’d have to break his face.
“Yeah,” Camryn speaks up and instantly I’m absorbed by the sweetness of her voice, “I live near Galveston; thought someone should ride along with him since he was taking a bus.”
I’m surprised she remembers what city I told her I lived in.
Aidan nods kindly at her; his cheeks moving as he chews.
“She’s hot, bro,” I hear Asher whisper at me from behind.
I turn around at the waist and glare at him to shut up. He smiles, but he does shut up.
The ol’ man stirs almost unnoticeably and Asher moves over to the side of the bed. He taps Dad on the nose playfully. “Wake up. We brought burgers.”
Aidan holds his burger up as if our dad can actually see it. “They’re good, too. Better wake up soon or they’ll be gone.”
Dad doesn’t stir again.
He has all three of us trained. We would never think to stand around his bed and look all depressed and shit. And when he dies, Aidan and Asher will probably order a pizza and buy a case of beer and shoot the shit until the sun comes up the next morning.
I won’t be here for that.
In fact, the longer I stand here the better the chances are that he will die before I can leave.
I talk with my brothers and Michelle for a few more minutes and then walk over to Camryn.
“Are
