She couldn’t change her nature.
My father hadn’t been able to change his even though he tried.
It was safe to say, people were incapable of change and I could live with that even if it wasn’t always ideal.
I shuffled up behind my mom as she bent to tuck one end of the fresh sheet under the mattress and wrapped my arms around her.
“I love you,” I murmured against her silk-covered back. “I wish you knew how lovely and capable you were. You don’t need a man to help take care of you, of us.” I paused, chewing my lower lip. “Don’t I do a good enough job of that?”
She straightened, tugging my arms even tighter around her belly so she could hug them. “You are a wonderful daughter. But, well, you can’t keep us safe the way a man can. You can’t make us rich and secure the way a man can, dovey. It’s just that simple.”
“It’s not the 1950s anymore,” I grumbled even though I knew there was no persuading her. “I could make us rich.”
“By studying art conservatism?” she asked, patting my arm. “No, honey. You chase your dreams and I’ll chase men, okay? Everything I do, I do so that you can be happy. Tiernan could get you into the best schools in the country.”
“I could study sustainable business and I don’t need his help getting in.” I bristled at the very idea.
“He could afford the tuition at NYU,” she coaxed, shifting in my hold to face me so that she could take my face in her hands. “You could stop working and focus on your studies…maybe it would even give you time to date. Your face is too beautiful to be hidden behind a textbook all the time.”
“There is financial aid.” There was no way in hell I’d willingly take money from Tiernan. I had a feeling every single dollar came with strings attached.
Aida let out a beleaguered sigh. “Really, Bianca, are you so determined to hate him that you can’t see how he could change our lives? Do you like living like this? Paycheck to paycheck. Wondering if we can afford the next time Brando ends up in the hospital?” She hesitated in her tirade, her eyes narrowing at my inadvertent reaction.
She’d hit on the only thing that mattered to me.
Brando and his well-being.
A slow smile spread slick as smeared butter across her cheeks. “You know, he could pay for the best doctors, the best treatments for Brando. And he has connections. I bet he knows someone who knows someone who could get him cutting-edge treatments.” She paused, her face thoughtful as she struggled to remember some of the research I’d shared with her over the years. “Maybe even laser therapy.”
“Laser interstitial thermal therapy,” I corrected automatically, but the fight had gone out of me.
Brandon had been diagnosed with epilepsy when he was a toddler. He was on a cocktail of drugs and a ketogenic diet to reduce the frequency of his grand mal seizures, but they still happened about twice a month. The teachers at his school knew how to handle the situation, but he was so drowsy and weak after an episode that either Aida or I had to leave work or school to pick him up and take him home. Every single time I got a call about him, I worried that would be the one where he hurt himself irrevocably. Once, he’d hit his brow on a coffee table. Another time, he’d fallen down a flight of stairs on the way to the kitchen. It was the main reason we lived in a single-story home.
With the diet and drugs, we could manage his epilepsy.
With surgery—expensive and dangerous enough we would only feel comfortable going forward with a top doctor—Brando stood a chance at eradicating the illness entirely.
My baby brother could have a life free of fear and worry.
My heart burned in my chest, ablaze with reluctant hope.
If Tiernan could buy Brando’s peace, I’d give him anything he wanted.
As if summoned by our thoughts, my little brother appeared in the doorway, shuffling in from the hall with his eyes so squinted against the low lamplight, you couldn’t see his brilliant blue irises. His blond curls were tangled and overlong, flopping across his forehead, sticking up at odd angles.
Tears smarted the backs of my eyes as I looked at him, love a hard knot in my throat.
Yeah.
I’d do anything for that kid.
“Whasgoingon?” he slurred, rubbing a fist against one eye, the other carrying his beloved Iron Man action figure.
“Sorry, bud.” I moved over to him and lifted him into my arms. He was small for his age, still easy to cart around even though he was old enough now he didn’t allow it unless he was sleepy or post-seizure. I pushed my nose into the curls over his ear and breathed in his sweet scent. “We thought we’d have a sleepover.”
“Really?” he whispered hoarsely, eyes popping wide. “I love sleepovers.”
I laughed. “I know. Mom and I just made the bed so you can crawl right in.”
Without hesitation, he squirmed out of my arms and jumped into the clean sheets with a sleepy, little giggle. Aida watched him with a mix of regret and tenderness. She had never gotten over her embarrassment that she’d given my father a son with a brain condition.
Brando had been diagnosed three months after Dad died, so I didn’t get why she focused on that so much. Dad would have loved the little man he was growing into, curious and smart, eager to learn and explore.
Just like Dad.
Aida visibly shook off her melancholy and crawled into bed with him, snuggled him tight into the curve of her body, blowing a raspberry on one of his plump cheeks. He squealed, writhing in her hold.
My heart ached as I watched them and my shoulders felt so heavy, I couldn’t move.
I wanted to give them both the world. It didn’t matter that Aida was our mother and twenty-eight years older than me. It didn’t matter Brando was my brother and not my son.
They were my family and my responsibility.
So, even though it rankled, I knew I had to give Tiernan a real chance because he could make both of them happy and safe in a way that, right now, I couldn’t.
It was a risk, but one I would always be ready to make because I’d sell my soul if it meant Aida and Brando could know a life free of stress and worry, scarcity and sickness.
“Come join us, dovey,” Aida beckoned with a soft, little smile, this one slightly crooked. It was a smile she only used for her kids. “What a treat I get to sleep with both my babies.”
A tremulous smile claimed my mouth, but I paused for just one second more. Something about this night and this moment, the knowledge of our possible move to New York with Tiernan felt final, like the closing of a chapter.
Our life had changed irrevocably and horribly after Dad died and I had the sense now, as I did then, that it was going to shift again. I could only hope it would be for the best.
I joined my little family in the pink sheets, curling around Aida’s back, wrapping my arms around her so that I could tangle them with Brando’s, both of us bookends against her body. Despite her shortcomings, both of us loved our mother.
We didn’t have much choice.
She was all we had left.
Even though she didn’t know what she would do without me, I felt the very same about her. In the roller coaster of ups and downs that was my life, Aida Belcante was my one constant.
And I vowed right there, holding the two most precious people in my entire universe close as they fell into a swift and deep sleep, that I would be their constant no matter what.