There was no way my mother replaced the gutters herself. Or even thought to do such a thing.
Mantled just below the roof at the corner of the house, something else caught my eye. A…security camera?
“Are you just going to stand outside all afternoon?” My sister's voice crackled to life, but she was nowhere in sight. I stepped back, nearly falling off the top step onto my ass. The doorbell started blinking with a blue light as Adriana’s laughter drifted out of it.
“I had to make sure I was at the right house,” I grumbled, putting my eye as close to the little camera on the console as possible.
“Ugh. Creepy. Get inside, Ma told me I couldn’t eat until you got here.”
“Is that any way to treat your brother?” I pouted. “No loyalty.”
The door sprang open and Addy stood there with her arms crossed over her cream-colored sweater. A scowl looked adorable on her long, thin face, especially as her pink cheeks lifted defiantly.
“Give me a hug.” I grinned, stepping over the foyer and pulling her into my open arms.
I was a full foot taller than my sister, so I rested my chin on the crown of her head as I looked around the living room. All my military headshots were propped up in a line on the old oak bookcase next to the television, a very proud, ominous shrine that made it seem like I was more a figment of my family’s past than a living, breathing piece of it that just happened to live half an hour down the interstate. Mom didn’t drive, she never had, and Addy was as busy as I was. I didn’t blame them for the distance any more than I blamed myself.
“I like this.” I pulled at a few strands of Addy’s hair that were cobalt blue against her naturally dark roots. “Trying something new?”
“Malia did it. She’s experimenting with stuff at the salon, and I’m her guinea pig.”
“How’s Malia?” I asked, making my way down the hallway toward the smell of garlic and lemon. I stopped short, my fingers drawing a line down the wall curiously as I noticed the burnt orange shade of paint I’d always known was now a cool, neutral gray. “Did you paint?”
“She’s good.” Addy pushed me along, skirting over my question. “She’s having dinner with us, actually. She’ll be here soon.”
I pinned my sister with a knowing, enthusiastic expression. “Christmas Eve dinner? That’s pretty serious.”
The heel of her palm dug into the place between my shoulder blades and pushed me forward into the kitchen with more force than necessary. “It’s not even Christmas Eve.”
“One day off,” I argued. “I can’t believe the boss is making you work tomorrow.”
“EMTs are necessary, especially on holidays.”
I knew my sister better than anyone. We spent years attached at the hip, doing our homework across from one another at the kitchen table, sharing a bathroom as teenagers, hanging out with the same groups of friends throughout high school.
After Dad passed it was like pulling the threads of an already tight knot tighter. The bond was so strong you’d never be able to loosen it.
When all the girls in her grade started dating and going to the school dances with the boys in her class while Addy wanted nothing to do with it, I knew something was different. She wasn’t interested in dressing up, or doing her hair every day, and couldn’t care less about the boy band taking over every other girl’s bedroom walls. By the time we were seniors I was sending warning glares down the hallway at any guy that dared to look at her twice, but my sister was more interested in who I was bringing home.
Mom, on the other hand, couldn’t be more oblivious. She’d hounded Mateo for months before he met Tally to take Adriana out to dinner, never realizing Mateo wasn’t the one opposed to it.
In the kitchen my mother had covered every flat surface in some sort of plastic wrap or tinfoil, and pots and pans were piled on top of one another like Jenga. The pungent aroma of fish in the oven assaulted my senses, and I was hit with the nostalgia I’d missed all those years I’d spent deployed.
It happened like this every time I came home. My mind turned into a highlight reel of the childhood I spent in Coral Grove and what I wouldn’t give to have another morning around the dinner table, just the four of us again.
“Francesco!” The delicate, relieved sound of my mother’s voice welcomed me from across the room. She floated toward my sister and I with a soft smile and a streak of flour across her cheek.
“Mama.” I kissed her clammy forehead, squeezing her way too tightly for comfort.
“Look at this face.” She rubbed her thumbs through my thick brush of facial hair and then over the mustache on my upper lip. “You look homeless.”
“I think I look rugged and sexy.”
“You look like a hipster.”
Addy cackled behind us, tugging at the ends of my hair like she did when we were kids. “You go to Colorado for a week and now you’re turning into a mountain man.”
“So you’re saying I’d fit in?” A foreign feeling tightened my chest at the mention of Colorado. Subsequently Ophelia found her way to the forefront of my thoughts, like she’d been doing all day. I’d made it halfway to Miami on the car ride down before I realized I hadn’t even turned on the radio, too busy replaying the several times I’d almost had her and lost out to a technicality.
That was never going to happen again.
“Have you heard any news?” my mom asked excitedly.
“Nothing yet. But if I left Florida, who would make me clam sauce on Christmas Eve?” I walked over to the kitchen table and tried to dig my fingers into the uncovered bowl of calamari my mother was filling and got a swat on the hand instead.
“You worked so hard, Francesco. Your back is better. The doctor said you’re brand new, didn’t he?” She rubbed her dainty fingers down my spine and gave me a good pat right above my tailbone where there was a small, faded pink scar.
“Something like that,” I deflected. “Like I said, I haven’t heard anything yet, and I might not be the right fit for the program anyway. I haven’t flown since…”
“You’re the best fucking pilot,” Addy cut me off.
“Adriana!” My mother swatted her then as well and I stuck my tongue out.
“You two will be the first to know,” I promised them, squeezing each woman into my side and kissing them on the top of the head. “Now, put this down for a minute and come outside.” I helped my mother out of her dusty apron, throwing it haphazardly onto the counter. “I have gifts.”
The tailgate of my truck dropped open with a creak and I was pleased to see my jigsaw puzzle of potted plants and bags of soil weren’t scattered across the bed. Some petals were a little worse for wear but what was nature if not a little wonky?
Addy whistled lowly, the corners of her lips tugging into an impressed smile as my mother followed her down the driveway. Not many things in life stuck so solidly in my memory as my mother’s happiness. Especially in the years since I joined the service. Every time the soft wrinkles around her eyes creased, and the honeyed hazel of her irises brightened, I cataloged it like a scrapbook page.
“I figured we could get the garden planted again.” I gestured to the truck. “I’ll do the dirty work, of course. We still have some shovels in the shed, right?”