Wife by Design

“No, I don’t. But from what I’ve seen she seems very nice.”

“I know a lot about her.”

Was this the time to mention the phone calls he knew about?

Or maybe it was time to ask Darin if he wanted to make a run for some ice cream.

“She’s very trusting and sometimes gets hurt.” Darin had both hands on the workbench.

All Grant could think of to say was, “That’s nice.” And managed to stop himself.

“We like talking to each other.” Darin’s tone was growing stronger. And the child in him wasn’t surfacing, Grant noted.

He knew he was going to have to engage.

“I had a call from the phone company yesterday,” he said, equally serious as he met his brother’s gaze head-on. “We were over our minute allowance. They did a usage analysis for me.”

“I’ve been talking to Maddie on the phone.”

“Late at night, apparently.”

Darin wasn’t a child to be disciplined, he reminded himself as he heard the almost accusing tone in his voice. “Which is fine,” he quickly added.

His tension was his problem. Not Darin’s.

“I’ll pay you for the phone bill.”

Grant nodded, knowing full well that Darin had no idea how much the phone bill cost, or how much money it would take to cover it. He had a bank account because Grant paid him, and he got federal assistance, as well. But Grant was the executor of the account. And kept very clear records of every dime of Darin’s money that was spent.

“You already pay your share of the phone bill, bro,” he said, wishing he’d opted for ice cream. Or that Darin had started this conversation while he still had things to do in the shed.

“I’m sorry the phone company had to call you.”

“I’m not. You have a friend, Darin, that’s fine.”

It was just going to have to be. Because his brother deserved a life, for God’s sake. Standing there listening to a forty-four-year-old man apologize for talking on the phone—and knowing that his handling of the situation had prompted his brother’s remorse—made him sick.

Darin watched him for a long time, which wasn’t all that unusual. His brother took a long time to focus sometimes. And then he said, in a perfectly normal tone, “I want to take Maddie on a date.”

Grant needed a beer. A whole case of beer. And a deep breath, too. He’d already screwed up the phone company conversation.

Of course Darin couldn’t take Maddie on a date. That was a given. How to handle the situation in a way that respected his older brother, he didn’t know.

“I need your help, Grant.” Darin could have been in college, and Grant fourteen again. That was how Darin sounded. And how Grant felt.

He waited.

“I can’t drive. And while I could pay with a debit card, I’m afraid I’d screw it up and spend too much of our money.”

Life wasn’t meant to be this way. Logic and knowing mixed with helplessness. It just wasn’t natural.

But Darin was alive. With him. He hadn’t died with Shelley that day. Or in the critical days afterward when they’d had to do the first of many surgeries on his brain.

“Maddie needs me.”

It was a completely adult concept. A completely Darin concept.

“How does she need you?” he challenged, on the defensive again, but managing to keep his feelings out of his tone as he posed the question.

“She needs me to be a man who’s her friend.”

So any man would do? The words, thankfully, didn’t make it out of his mouth.

“And she trusts me not to hurt her.”

“How do you know that?”

“She told me.”

Grant’s eyes narrowed as he and his brother stood facing each other across the workbench—man to man—wishing he knew how much man was really left inside his brother.

Sometimes he was convinced that Darin was all there, just challenged in his delivery.

“And that’s why you want to go on a date with her? So that you won’t hurt her?”

The old Darin would have known that to lead a girl on would hurt worse in the long run. But the act of trying to prevent a woman from hurting was just like the old Darin.

“I want to go on a date with her because I like her and want to go on a date with her, silly,” Darin said. He dropped his head and slurped saliva before scooping the box of lights under his arm. Grant followed, bag in hand, turning off the lights to the shed as they left. He stopped to deposit the morning’s supplies in the back of the truck.