great,” his brother said, helping himself to slices of tomato and onion.
But behind the rimless glasses, his eyes held shadows. He hadn’t said much, either, the whole time Matt had been fixing the burgers, just watched everything he did with that quiet focus that seemed to be his natural way. Now, with food on the table, and nobody with any particular reason to say anything, silence fell. It didn’t seem like a comfortable silence.
Matt doctored up his burger the way he liked it, took a bite, chewed and swallowed, then said, super-casually, “Hey, man. I hope you’re not blaming yourself, or anything like that.”
Cory put down his burger, and one corner of his mouth went up as he glanced over at Matt. “For what part?”
“What part? For losing track of us—Wade and me and…the little girls. Waiting so long to try to find us. What the hell did you think I meant? This?” He hit the rim of the wheel and threw him a look. “Why would you be blaming yourself for this?”
Cory shrugged and picked up his burger. Put it down again and stared at it as if it had turned bad on him all of a sudden. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Okay, wait.” Matt couldn’t believe this guy. He huffed out a laugh. “You’re not thinking you could have changed what happened to me. If you’d been here. That’s crap. That’s just…Look here, okay? I probably would have found some other way to screw up my life. It’s just the way I am. You’ve got no way of knowing this, but I’ve always been a daredevil, taking chances I shouldn’t, even when I knew better. You being around wouldn’t have changed that.”
Cory gave him an appraising look, and the light was back in his eyes, as if he’d put the guilt away, for now. “A chance-taker, huh? That why you chose to teach in an inner-city school?”
Matt snorted. “Hadn’t thought about it quite like that, but…yeah, maybe. Probably.”
“Wade told me he was surprised—that’s an understatement, by the way—when you decided to become a teacher. He said you weren’t ever much for school…being indoors. Said you reminded him of Tom Sawyer. You’d always rather be outdoors, mixed up in some sort of adventure. And by the way, he blames you for any and all trouble you two got into when you were kids.”
Matt laughed silently, nodding while he chewed. “He would.”
“You did get through college, though. That’s something.”
“Yeah, well, I guess it’s a good thing I did…as it turns out. Gave me something to fall back on, career wise. Not that I’m any great shakes as an academic, you understand. I started out teaching phys ed, substitute teaching now and then. Now I teach ninth grade social studies in addition to the PE. Seems to be working out okay. It’s a challenge, though, I grant you, going up against the gang influence—drugs, the whole culture of violence. I like it, though—and you’re right, maybe because it’s a challenge. Like…maybe I had something to prove to myself. Maybe.”
Cory said mildly, “Seems like you could have done that just as well by going back to your old job.”
“Hey,” Matt said, letting himself back away from the table. “Forgot the beer. Can I get you one?”
“Sure.”
He could feel those dark blue eyes boring into him as he made his way to the fridge, got out two cold ones and came back to the table. His brother didn’t push, though. Just waited, as Matt was discovering was his natural way.
Matt slid one of the cans across to Cory and popped open the other. Took a drink, then figured there was no use avoiding the subject. He should have known it would come up, and was going to come up again, his brother being who he was.
“The mountains, you mean. The river.” There. That wasn’t so bad, was it?
“I had a talk with your former partner,” his brother said quietly.
Matt took another swallow of beer. Not that it helped wash down the knot in his throat. “Yeah? How’s she doing? The rafting business going well?”
Cory’s half smile and steady gaze told Matt he wasn’t fooled. “Seems to be. Although Alex…maybe not so well.”
The kick under his ribs caught him by surprise, made him check with his beer halfway to his lips. He coughed to cover it, set the beer down and said carefully, “What do you mean?”
“She’s pretty angry with you, you know. And hurt. Doesn’t understand why you broke things off with her.”
Matt leaned back in his chair and steadied his hands on the wheels. Emotions he’d learned to control threatened to break loose, something he didn’t want, not now, not with the brother he was trying so hard to impress watching him like a hawk. He huffed out a laugh he hoped didn’t sound bitter. “That doesn’t surprise me. I wouldn’t expect her to understand.” He added, as an afterthought, “Don’t expect you to, either.”
“I’m pretty good at understanding,” Cory said.
There was a moment when Matt thought he wouldn’t answer, when he swiveled away from the table. Then for some reason he came back.
“Okay,” he said, then paused while he thought about how to start. “Look. All during rehab they tell you the hardest part of getting your life back is facing up to what you were before. Like, as long as you’re in the hospital, in rehab, you’re in this completely different world, and you’re surrounded by others in the same boat you’re in, or worse off than you. You look forward to going home, that’s what you’re working toward, the light at the end of the tunnel. And then when you finally get there, instead of being this great thing, it’s like bam, everything hits you at once. Everywhere you look you see stuff that was part of your old life, stuff you can’t do anymore. That’s hard.” And how’s that for understatement?
Cory nodded. “I can see how it would be. So you tried to avoid that part altogether. By not going back to the life you had before.”
“Yeah, I did,” Matt said, quietly defiant. “Do you blame me?”
“I’m not into blaming anybody—” Cory’s smile flashed “—except maybe myself.”
“And I told you not to do that. I mean it. I’m okay with my life. I mean, hell no, I’m not okay with being in a wheelchair, but I’ve accepted it. What else can I do? Look, I went through all the stages—first, you’re just numb, then you’re in denial. You tell yourself you’re going to get over this, you’re going to get well, you’re going to walk again. When you realize you’re not, you hit bottom. There’s rage, despair, bitterness—some people never make it past that. Some people choose to end it right there. I don’t know why I managed to get through it, but I did, and I’m glad I did. I’ve got a job doing something important. At least, I think it is. I think maybe I can make a difference in some kids’ lives, and that keeps me going, getting up every morning.”
“I think so, too. I hate to sound like a big brother, but I’m proud of you.” Cory coughed and took a swallow of beer—a ploy Matt was familiar with, had used himself a time or two—then frowned at the can in his hand. “But there’s more to life than a career. Trust me—this I know from personal experience.”
It was an opportunity, and Matt jumped on it
