It’s one day until I turn twenty-one. There’s days before Christmas. Three weeks before I join Isaac in law school, and I know he’s hating that shit. Younger brother tested out of high school, fast-tracked through college, to jump right into law school, years before he can escape my term. Then again, he hates my job at Kingston, my role that grows while he’s off turning pages in a book.
Despite my preference to stay at my own place for Christmas and just eat a damn frozen pizza, my father has demanded my presence, so I’m here. I enter the house and I can hear Isaac and my father speaking in muffled tones, too muffled for me to make out the words. And I don’t want to make them out. The best days of my life are those where Isaac is gone and so the fuck am I. Every time he comes home, we have issues.
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The voices seem to be coming from the den and that’s exactly why I head toward the kitchen where Delia will be making the mac n cheese that I love. I make it a few more steps when I hear, “Eric.”
At the sound of my father’s voice to the left, I halt, and for a moment I fight the wave of darkness inside me. These are the days I hate him all over again. These are the days that I forget our working relationship. I forget our bloodline. I remember the man who told me to “get over” my mother dying.
“Son,” he bites out, and I don’t like that word. Not most days. Never when Isaac is here. Never on a holiday when my mom is gone.
Nevertheless, I rotate to find him standing in the doorway of his den, only slightly underdressed for a day of fucking with our heads. His dark hair sprinkled with gray, his jaw shaved clean, because that is all that’s acceptable. He’s in a dinner jacket, a button-down shirt starched as crisply as his spine is stiff, and of course, dress pants.
My jaw is not shaved clean. It’s sporting a three-day stubble I embrace. And I’m damn sure dressed like my mother had us dress for every holiday: comfortable in jeans and a blue sweater, because comfortable, she’d said, is how a holiday is supposed to feel.
“Join us for a smoke and the whiskey your brother brought me,” my father orders.
I brought him nothing. I figure the games he’ll play today are his gift. I start walking in his direction and he disappears into the room.
In too few steps, I enter the den, which by most standards is a welcoming room with walls of books so high a ladder rolls across one wall. Brown leather couches and chairs rest on top of a heavy oriental rug that decorates a dark wooden floor.
Isaac’s standing by the fireplace, a smoke in one hand, a glass in the other, and holy fuck, he’s dressed like my father. A little clone boy. Clown boy is more like it.
“Celebrating my national chess win,” he greets me like it’s not been months since we last saw each other, “by kicking father’s ass in chess.”
“Smoke, son?” my father asks, and the way he emphasizes “son” isn’t to ensure Isaac knows that’s what I am. It’s to piss him off and it works. His eyes glint hard steel.
“I’ll pass on the smoke,” I say, walking to the couch that faces Isaac and sitting down.
“Well, have a glass of this fine whiskey your brother brought me. I think it’s about ten grand?” He eyes Isaac.
“Fifteen,” Isaac says, his chin firm.
“I’ll take a glass,” I reply and that’s the thing about the holidays. I feel my mother’s loss. I feel the loss of who I once was. I didn’t read my mother’s letter for a reason this morning. I didn’t want to contain myself. And I don’t obviously as I add, “I always like the taste of wasted money, just to make sure I don’t forget how smooth stupidity can go down.”
“Fucker,” Isaac snaps, and motions to the small table by the couches with a chess game set up. “Play. It’s better than our conversation.”
“Sure you want to do that?” our father asks. “He’s a genius.”
“I’m a national champion,” Isaac bites out. “And no idiot.”
Apparently, he is.
Most definitely he is.
My lips quirk and I sit down at the table. My father hands me the expensive whiskey, amusement in his eyes. I down it and set the glass aside. Isaac joins me and sets his smoke in an ashtray, his glass by his side. “You start us off,” he says.
No harm in starting things out. I do it. I make my move. He makes his and so it continues, and with every move, I back him into a corner. With every move, I end the game in my favor. When it’s done, he stands up and so do I, and he’s postured to beat my ass. I arch a brow. He glowers and then turns away, storming from the room.
My father steps in front of me. “You taught him something important today. What lesson, Eric?”
“Not to underestimate your opponent.”
“No. That’s not the lesson.”
He turns and walks away.
***