My grandparents on dad’s side had passed away and Mom’s folks were retired in Florida and had only their pensions and security to live on. Mom’s last chance of saving the house had been her brother Roger and she had driven to Boston to see him today. Alicia and I had wanted to go with her, but Mom hadn’t wanted to look as if she were trying to make our uncle feel guilty and left us home.
The two of us had worked, but when we came home had sat on the couch pretending we were paying attention to the movies Alicia had rented. We kept looking at each other and I knew she wanted to talk about it and so did I, but we avoided it probably figuring it was bad luck. Once when she had come back from the kitchen with some popcorn Alicia had handed me the bowl and simply said, “It’ll be okay little brother, you’ll see.”
She hadn’t sounded convinced and as she always had while we were growing up and there was a problem just seemed to be trying to make me feel better. I had nodded and said, “Absolutely, Uncle Roger’s going to find a way!” but I felt about as confident as she sounded. As it turned out we may have well discussed it openly as when Mom came home and sat on the couch to talk to us she had burst into tears; Uncle Roger couldn’t help us.
Well, not entirely true, he gave mom two thousand dollars saying it was all he could spare. Alicia had asked mom if she was going to go to the bank and ask if they would take that as a down payment on the debt, but she said it was not enough. The money would be for moving and she was going to start looking at apartments this weekend.
I looked up at the sound of something hitting the floor in Alicia’s room. Our soon to be former home was close to a hundred years old and featured a Jack and Jill bathroom that connected our bedrooms. Currently the door on my side of the bathroom was open and after the bang I could hear Alicia swearing. Like me, Alicia normally would be in bed by now, but I’m sure was as upset as I was and couldn’t sleep.
I returned my attention to packing and grabbing the tape gun sealed the box containing the pictures. I picked up the black sharpie next to me and had just finished writing “Andrew’s room” when I heard a soft knock coming from the bathroom.
“Hey Andy, you up for some company?”
“Yeah sure.” I answered while getting up and placing the box against the wall where I planned on stacking my stuff as I packed it.
“What are you doing?” she asked behind me.
“What’s it look like, sis? I’m packing.”
“Well stop, I want to talk to you about something.”
“Okay.” I sighed and turning around almost choked at the sight of my sister.
Alicia was standing there in front of my bed dressed only in a pair of black panties and a lace black tank top thing that barely went down past her tits. My surprise must have shown on my face because she asked, “What’s the matter?”
“Where the hell’s the rest of your clothes?” I said, dropping my gaze to the floor.
“My rooms hot and I’m comfortable.” She told me, “Why, do I look bad?”
“I…you should at least be wearing a t-shirt.” Without looking up, I pointed to my bureau, “Grab one of mine out of the top drawer.”