I'll Be Here

cheeks are wet.  My nose is full of sad. 
    Finally, she sighs and her face relaxes.  She says, “You’re right, Willow.  You’re right.” 
    And then she reaches across the table and pulls my hand to her breast.  Her skin is warm and glossy like the outside of a lemon that’s been resting in the sun.  Her fingernails brush the middle of my palms. 
    “You are absolutely right and I’m sorry.  It was unfair for me to say what I said.  I know it hurts and I was trying to make it better by highlighting the negatives but I guess that was a failed strategy, huh?” 
    I bite my lip and nod.  “Definitely.”
    “Okay, so let’s start over.”  She smiles crookedly as she sits back and studies me.  “How do you feel about shock and sympathy?” 
    “Hmmm… I think that shock and sympathy could work for me.”
    “Okay.”  She lifts her thin arms theatrically.  “Dustin broke up with you?!  Say it isn’t so!”
    I sniffle and shake my head trying not to give into her attempt at humor.  “I’m afraid it’s true.”
    She feigns horror and magnifies her southern accent to a slow drawl.  “Oh Willow James, that’s just the most terrible news.  Dustin Rant was such a wonderfully well-bred young man with so much potential and I was counting on him to marry you.  Why, your eighteenth birthday is fast approaching and if we don’t get you married off to an appropriate suitor in the very near future, you’re sure to become an old maid.” 
    “My thoughts exactly.”
    “Truly a promising candidate.  He’s other-worldly intelligent—I would go as far as to say he can count all the way to one hundred—and with his in-depth knowledge of football and beer-guzzling he was sure to make a fabulous husband for you.”
    Just as I start to laugh Aaron walks into the kitchen in his favorite pajamas.  Monkeys dressed like astronauts climb his arms and legs and the words SPACE MONKEY are emblazoned across his chest.  Sleep crawls across his features.  He stumbles. 
    This is my little brother. 
    He’s four and a half and somehow finds a way to be sticky ALL of the time.  Aaron escaped the curse of a loony name because Jake (that’s my step-father), insisted on naming him after a favorite cousin that died as a teenager or something.  I would have settled with being named after great-aunt Vera, who I am told was a royal pain in the ass but made a mean corn casserole.  Instead I got stuck with the moniker Willow Josephina (yes, really) James.  So basically, I was named after a tree.  Mom says it was a spur-of-the-moment decision.  I like to think that she was delirious after a fifteen hour labor and that my dad went along with it because he was high (those were his pre-lawyering days).  I haven’t been able to come up with another decent excuse for them.   
    Occasionally it catches me off-guard how much my little brother looks like our mother—same exact pointy nose, over-large ears, and a mouth and chin combination so similar that if you take pictures of them at the same age and cover up the top half of their faces you can’t tell who is who.  I remember the first time I saw Aaron in the hospital and he was bundled up in a pale blue blanket with only his swollen pink face and one tight-clenched fist sticking out.   I just looked at Jake and we laughed because we couldn’t believe the similarities even then.
    It is way past Aaron’s bedtime but he must have heard us and now he is using the excuse of needing water to join the action.  His soft blonde hair is pushed flat in the back from where his head was on the pillow and it sticks up near his face like a rooster’s crest.  There’s dried toothpaste on the side of his mouth that he missed.  He’s trying to bargain for a midnight snack when he spies the glass of wine in front of me.  His eyes open wide and his eyebrows disappear into his bangs.
    “Is that al-co-hol?”  Aaron emphasizes the syllables slowly and deliberately like he’s speaking to a group of non English speakers. 
    “Ah, yeah.”  I say and raise my glass in an air toast. 
    “Is that legal?”  He asks. 
    Mom and I both giggle and Aaron looks from her to me and back again insanely pleased with himself for making a joke that he doesn’t even understand.
    Mom tips forward, bracketing her arm against the table so that she won’t fall out of her chair.  “We won’t tell if you won’t tell.”  Kids love a good secret and my little brother is no