tell Uncle Hoyt by accident.”
She got a little stiff at the mention of Uncle Hoyt. “Does your uncle know what Brew can do?”
“Yeah, he knows,” I told her. “He’s glad for it, I think,” then I changed the subject, because Uncle Hoyt don’t like to be talked about when he’s not there. “Did Brew take other stuff from you?”
She seemed funny about answering that. “Not that I know of,” she said, and I had to remind her to push me harder on the swing cuz her head was thinking about it.
“Sometimes,” I told her, “he takes stuff away and you don’t even know. You never felt it so you don’t know what you missed. But that only happens if he really cares about you. With me it’s all automatic—I don’t feel nothin’. Not even the time I fell into a beehive.” Then I put down my landing gear in the sand and stopped swinging, getting all quiet, cuz a little kid and his mother just took over the swing next to ours and I didn’t want them to hear. “We’re not supposed to tell people about it,” I told Bronte, “because people wouldn’t understand. They’d take Brew away and stick tubes in him, and turn him into a weapon against terrorists and stuff.”
She laughed at that, but I was serious.
“No one’s taking him away,” she said.
“But they might,” I told her. “If they knew, they might. You didn’t tell anyone did you?”
“No… but my brother knows,” she said. “I promise neither of us will tell.”
When Brew and I got home from the park, it was almost dark. By now Uncle Hoyt would be awake and getting ready for work. He’d be making us dinner, and breakfast for himself. He can cook a buncha things fast and good. Meat loaf, spaghetti— sometimes he even makes his own sauce. Although lots of times we get breakfast for dinner instead, because making two meals at once is just too much work for someone who just woke up.
When we went in, the house was mostly dark, and nothing was going on in the kitchen.
“Uncle Hoyt?” Brew called.
“Right here.” We turned toward his voice, but it took a second until we saw him. He was sitting in a chair in the dark living room. “About time you two got home.”
Another second and I could see him a little bit better. His knee was bouncing up and down like it does sometimes. He says it’s coffee and stress that makes his knee bounce, but secretly I think it’s us. Both Brew and I stood still, wondering if Uncle Hoyt sitting in a dark room was the start of something.
“Should I defrost some chicken for dinner?” Brew asked.
“You do that.”
Brew turned on the kitchen light, and I got a look at Uncle Hoyt’s eyes before he knew I was looking. He hadn’t gone foul. Not today. He just looked worried. He’d just gone odd. Relieved, I got a drink from the sink while Brew took out frozen chicken pieces. Uncle Hoyt came to the doorway. “I got an A on my spelling test,” I told him.
“Good for you, Cody.” But I could tell he wasn’t really listening, so I put the test up on the fridge for him to see when he felt like noticing.
He watched Brew as my brother plugged up the sink and turned on the hot water. “I’m wondering if maybe you don’t need all this tutoring,” he said.
I could see Brew tense up just a little bit, and I sat at the kitchen table to get out of the line of fire.
“Can’t do it by myself; math isn’t my subject.”
“I’ll help you,” Uncle Hoyt said.
“You know algebra?”
Uncle Hoyt’s all insulted. “I’m not an idiot! I still remember it. And what I don’t remember I can study up on.”
I started wondering why Uncle Hoyt would do that when Brew can get free help at school. And then I remembered that Brew wasn’t actually at math tutoring at all; he was with Bronte.
“And why would you need tutoring anyway?” Uncle Hoyt said. “You can near about memorize that math book just by lookin’ at it.”
“Words, not numbers,” Brew said. “Numbers are different.” Then he dropped the frozen chicken parts in the hot water to defrost. He didn’t say anything else for a while. Sometimes it’s best with Uncle Hoyt not to say much until you know exactly what he’s thinking, and why.
“They shouldn’t be making you spend so much time at school,” he finally said. “It’s not right. You should be with your family.”
“Do you want to homeschool us like Mom did?” Brew asked.
“I didn’t say that either.”
Now it was Brew’s leg that got the coffee-stress shake instead of Uncle Hoyt’s.
“I’m worried about you, Brewski. That’s all. You’re never here anymore. How can we be a family if you’re never here?”
Brew turned off the tap but didn’t look at Uncle Hoyt. “Sounds like you need a pet,” he said. “Something that’ll be waiting for you when you get up, and waiting for you to get home.”
I liked the idea a lot. “Could we get a dog?” I asked. “I’ll take care of it better than I took care of Tri-tip. I promise.”
Uncle Hoyt smiled, but it wasn’t a yes-smile. “You and Brew once had a dog back when your mom was alive,” he said. “You were too little to remember, Cody; but I’ll bet Brew does, don’t you? You remember what happened to that dog?”
Brew put all of his thoughts on the chicken parts in the sink and didn’t answer. Then Uncle Hoyt laughed big. He was changed from the time we came in. At first he was all nervous and squirrelly, but now he was proud and strutting and funny, like I like him to be. He even looked taller.
“Feeling better, Uncle Hoyt?” I asked.
“Cody,” he said, “a million bucks ain’t got nothin’ on me.” Which must mean yes. “You leave that chicken in the sink, Brew,” he said. “I’ll fry it up for us. I’ll even save you the biggest piece.”
Brew went to our room, practically knocking me over on his way out, and Uncle Hoyt went onto the porch to have a smoke. I brought my backpack into our room and saw Brew sitting on his bed, leaning against the wall like he’s holding it up.
“You okay, Brew?”
“He’s never gonna let me go, Cody.” He rubbed his arms like he was cold; he rubbed his shoulder like it hurt. “He’s gonna keep me here, taking his bursitis, his ulcers, and every one of his aches and pains.”
“He’s just protecting you,” I reminded him.
“From what? From the world? From Bronte?”
I didn’t have the answer, but the thought of Brewster going anywhere scared me.
“Why would you want to leave anyway?”
“Forget it,” he said. “Go watch TV.”
But I didn’t. Instead I went out to sit with Uncle Hoyt on the porch, because he’s nice to be around when he’s in a good mood.
“This is how it should be,” he said. “Sunset on the porch, and dinner in the oven.”
“It’s not in the oven yet.”
He laughed, then got quiet for a second, taking a long puff on his cigarette. “Your brother doesn’t really go to math tutoring, does he?”
Now I had to think up my own half-truth.
“I’m at the library,” I told him. “I don’t know who he’s with.”
“Ah! So he’s with somebody!”
“No!” I told him, trying to back out of what I said, but sometimes words are like quicksand. “I said I don’t know—I don’t even know her name!” He smiled the same smile as when he was talkin’ about the dog. Since I didn’t know what that smile meant, I slid just a little bit away from him in case my lying was reason to hit me, which it probably was.
“So,” said Uncle Hoyt, “Brewski’s got a girlfriend.”
This time I just kept quiet, since the quicksand was already over my head.
“Bound to happen sooner or later,” he said. “Just as long as she doesn’t know about him and what he can do. Your brother’s not stupid enough to tell her that.”
