ear that decoded, “your problem.”
“Sort of,” I said.
“And broke.”
“Edison has been through thin patches before. Between tours.”
“So because of some mysterious, complicated story—like not paying the rent—your brother has lost his apartment, and now he’s couch surfing.”
“Yes,” I said, squirming. “Although he seems to be running out of couches.”
“Why did this Slack person call, and not your brother himself?”
“Well, I think Slack has been incredibly generous, though his apartment is small. A one-bedroom, where he also has to practice.”
“Honey. Spit it out. Say whatever it is that you don’t want to tell me.”
I intently chased a floret, too undercooked to fork. “He said there isn’t enough room. For the two of them. Most of their other colleagues are already doubled up, or married with kids, and—Edison doesn’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Anywhere else but where?”
“We have a guest room now,” I pleaded. “Nobody ever uses it, besides Solstice every two years. And, you know—he’s my brother.”
A contained man, Fletcher seldom looked visibly irked. “You say that like playing a trump.”
“It means something.”
“Something but not everything. Why couldn’t he stay with Travis? Or Solstice?”
“My father is impossible and over seventy. By the time my sister was born, Edison was nearly out of the house. He and Solstice barely know each other.”
“You have other responsibilities. To Tanner, to Cody, to me. Even”—a loaded pause—“to Baby Moronic. You can’t make a decision like this by fiat.”
“Slack sounded at his wit’s end. I had to say something.”
“What you had to say,” said Fletcher levelly, “was, ‘I’m sorry, but I have to ask my husband.’”
“Maybe I knew what you’d say.”
“And what was that?”
I smiled, a little. “Something like, ‘Over my dead body.’”
He smiled, a little. “Got that right.”
“I realize it didn’t go that well. The last visit.”
“No. It didn’t.”
“You seemed to get on the wrong side of each other.”
“There was no ‘seeming.’ We did.”
“If it were just anybody, I wouldn’t ask. But it isn’t. It would mean so much to me if you tried a little harder.”
“Got nothing to do with trying. You like someone, or you don’t. If you’re ‘trying,’ you don’t.”
“You can give folks a break. You do that with other people.” I took a moment to reflect that in Fletcher’s case this wasn’t always true. He could be harsh.
“Are you telling me that throughout this negotiation you never talked to your brother directly? So his friend is trying to offload the guy behind his back.”
“Maybe Edison’s embarrassed. He wouldn’t like asking favors of his little sister.”
“Little sister! You’re forty years old.”
An only child, Fletcher didn’t understand about siblings—how set that differential is. “Sweetheart, I’ll still be Edison’s little sister when I’m ninety-five.”
Fletcher soaked the rice pan in the sink. “You’ve got some money now, right? Though I’m never too clear on how much.” (No, he wouldn’t have been clear. I was secretive.) “So send him a check. Enough for a deposit on some dump and a couple of months’ rent. Problem solved.”
“Buy him off. Bribe him to stay away from us.”
“Well, he wouldn’t have much of a life here. You can’t say Iowa has a ‘jazz scene.’”
“There are venues in Iowa City.”
“Pass-the-hat gigs for a handful of cheapo students aren’t going to suit Mr. Important International Jazz Pianist.”
“But according to Slack, Edison isn’t—‘in the best form.’ He says Edison needs—‘someone to take care of him.’ He thinks my brother’s confidence has taken a knock.”
“Best news I’ve heard all day.”
“My business is doing well,” I said quietly. “That should be good for something. For being generous.” The way I’ve been generous with you, I almost added, and with kids who are now my children too, but I didn’t want to rub it in.
“But you’re also volunteering the rest of this family’s generosity.”
“I realize that.”
Fletcher leaned on either side of the sink. “I’m sorry if I seem unfeeling. Whether or not the guy gets on my nerves, he’s your brother, and you must find it upsetting, his being down on his luck.”
“Yes, very,” I said gratefully. “He’s always been the hot shot. Being strapped, straining his friends’ hospitality—it feels wrong. Like the universe has turned on its head.” I wasn’t about to tell Fletcher, but Edison and Slack must have fallen out, since the saxophonist’s urgency had been laced with what I could only call, well—disgust.
“But even if we did decide to take him in,” said Fletcher, “and we haven’t—the visit couldn’t be open-ended.”
“It can’t be conditional, either.” If I was going to think that way, and I preferred not to, I had amassed, as of the previous couple of years, most of the power in our household. I disliked having power, and in ordinary circumstances rather hoped that if I never exercised this baffling clout it would go away. For once, however, the novel agency was useful. “Saying, ‘only for three days,’” I said, “or ‘only for a week.’ That doesn’t sound gracious, but as if we can only stand his company for a limited period of time.”
“Isn’t that the truth?” Fletcher said curtly, leaving the dishes to me. “I’m going for a ride.”
Of course he was going for a ride. He rode his bicycle for hours almost every day—or one of his bicycles, since he had four, competing with unsold coffee tables for limited space in a basement that had looked so cavernous when we moved in. Neither of us ever mentioned it, but I’d bought him those bikes. Technically, we pooled our resources. But when one party contributes the contents of an eyedropper and the other Lake Michigan, “pooling” doesn’t seem the right word, quite.
Ever
