Don't Date Your Brother's Best Friend

He patted my leg, “Now don’t get yourself all upset, Sarah Jo,” he said. “I’ll go to rehab if it’s such a big deal to you. I’ve got to get back behind that counter, see my boys for Wednesday poker night in the office. Return to the usual rounds, and you’ll head back to school. I reckon with the part-time help you hired, I can run the place just fine.”

“I hope that the next two weeks go that well, but I don’t think the doctor was ready to release you for full-time at the lumberyard at that time. You’re gonna have to take it in small steps. Maybe after a week of going to the rehab and eating right and everything, I can bring you up to the lumberyard for a couple of hours,” I suggested.

“Don’t you go trying to offer me a treat like I’m a kid. A man makes his own decisions. I don’t need my daughter telling me what I can and can’t do. It’s not that long ago I had to whup your butt for sneaking out your bedroom window to see some boy.”

I kept my eyes on the road, my face reddening. That boy had been Luke even if he hadn’t known it. I wanted to crawl on the floor and hide at the memory, but I was grown and had to take responsibility.

“Yes. I did a lot of stuff wrong growing up. And you helped me learn to do better. I’m trying to return the favor and help you out,” I said. Not pointing out that my mom was the one who helped me and listened to me all that time, not him.

“You can mind your biscuits, little girl,” he said.

“These are my biscuits!” I said, slapping the steering wheel with my palm. “I’m trying to keep what’s left of my family alive. And Ryan is a mess, and you’re a mess. I can’t do it. I can’t do this on my own. I’m not Mama. I’m just a stand-in. I thought I could keep this together, that me being here would somehow make things work. That I could get you straightened out and get Ryan back on track after Whitney left,” I admitted. “And the only thing I’ve been good at is the lumberyard. Which is what you think I suck at. When really, I suck at everything else.”

“I wanna know who ever put you in charge. It ain’t your job to straighten anybody out. Least of all your grown brother and your daddy. I never could figure out why you came back. All you did was fret and fuss at me and upset Ryan.”

Wow. I pulled over and parked. I didn’t have any words to respond to that. He didn’t know the point of my coming home. He thought I was just interfering, just like Ryan thought I was. My stomach hurt, and I swallowed hard. I couldn’t do it. Not in the face of being told I was completely unnecessary, that everything I’d given up my life for and worked for the last few months was a waste of time. I took another long breath.

“That’s the meanest thing you’ve ever said to me,” I said. “You know damn well I quit everything to come back here and take care of you because your golden boy Ryan couldn’t be bothered to. You didn’t have to stay alone or go to the nursing home for rehab. I cooked your meals, refilled your prescriptions, took you to doctors, and ran your business. Not to mention listening to you complain all the time that I wasn’t Ryan and how he’d be so much better at everything than me. Well, where is he? Is he beating down the door for the job of picking up the mess after you got sick? Did he get the unpaid accounts settled and the delivery day started and turn a good profit? No. That was me. The daughter. I wonder now if it had been up to you if I would’ve been called Not Ryan instead of Sarah Jo. Because that’s how you treat me, like I’m Not Ryan, I’m second best. But regardless, here I am. Me. Not Ryan.”

He was quiet while I calmed myself and started driving back home again. I was glad I’d parked while I got that off my chest. It felt like an ugly cloud hanging over us and between us, but at least it wasn’t clogging my throat and trying to burst out of my chest anymore. That’s what it had felt like when I was putting on a happy face and pretending like none of it bothered me. So it was better to have it out in the open, even if it meant admitting that I was trying to control everything and that I loved my dad and brother, but I sure didn’t like them much.