Page 35 of The Way the Heart Breaks: Jade’s Story

Dad’s brows nearly jumped off his head.

“Our little Jade has a potty mouth,” our cousin Troy chuckled from somewhere behind him in the house.

Yeah, we weren’t alone.

Troy sat with me, told me about how it felt when his dad left, and said he knew it wasn’t the same, but it still sucked.

I shouldn’t tell you this next part, but when everyone was gone, and Dad was in bed —he sleeps in your room now— I heard someone tapping on my window. Freaked me the hell out because, as you know, we’re on the second floor. But it didn’t stop, so I pulled up my big girl britches and looked out.

It was Ry. I opened the window and whispered, “What are you doing in the tree?”

“Open the window,” he grumbled.

Somehow, he knew.

“Got cards?” he asks.

I don’t tell him, and I shouldn’t tell you two, but I still have the deck that we played with the night he stayed with me after Mom got me high.

I open the drawer and pull it out.

“Perfect.” He turns his hat around and pushes up his sleeves. I notice his arms are even more manlike than they were a few months ago.

“You need to stop chopping so much wood,” I say as I sit on the bed and shuffle the cards.

He sits on the other side. “Huh?”

“Your arms, Ry. Pretty soon you won’t be able to wear long sleeves; your forearms are massive. You’ll rip your shirts.”

He snatches the cards. “You suck at shuffling.”

I won.

I also shouldn’t tell you this, but I think I love him, and I don’t mean in the way I always have; I mean in a way that is far from brotherly…

He doesn’t know this yet, but I hope to tell him one day.

Song: In Your Eyes

8

’91

Jade

It’s mid-January, and a lot has gone on. Like what you ask? A house fire at the Brook’s home. I would say it’s a blessing that the new house they are building is almost finished, but the fact that it isn’t yet, that they lost things precious to them, memories… It's heartbreaking. Also heartbreaking: the horses, too, are not the same.

The last two nights our house has been full. Their newest kids, who just moved in before Christmas, are two boys —and they are—get this—twins. Dad separated your beds that he had pushed together and told them it was their room. That was a big move on his part, and hard- so hard for me- but Steven and Sammy need a place to sleep, a place to feel safe. I know you two would want that for them, and Ryan, too. This was the first time he’s been in there. Between us, I don’t think he’d have ever gone in, but Sammy and Steven needed him to show them he trusted our home, your room, so he did.

Little Jessica, Becca, and… A-freaking-Manda are sharing my room. I put everything that means anything to me in Dad’s room downstairs.

Danny and Jane have our parents’ old room.

We play Gin Rummy most nights, but when Steven and Sammy want to play, it’s Pitch like the four of us used to play.

Uno when A-freaking-Manda comes out of my room. She’s seriously a bitch. She huffs every time I walk in the room, my freaking room.

Anyway, remember I told you I thought I loved Ry and not the way I always have, not brotherly? Two nights ago, I needed space, and apparently, he did, too. I came downstairs when everyone was asleep and saw that the light in Dad’s garage was on. I went out and found him there, listening to the last tape I left in the woodpecker hole in the burnt tree. I thought that meant he knew I had always left them for him. I thought that meant something. He was sanding some handles for the kitchen cabinets. He looked so upset. I hugged him; he hugged me back. He’s getting so much better about that. Well, was, because then I kissed him and he froze.