That was possibly the most stupid thing I’ve ever achieved in my life. How was I going to cover rent plus tuition and loans without that extra six hundred dollars a month? I’d have to get a job flipping burgers, or at a twenty-four hour store, and they wouldn’t pay me on the same rate, I’d just be the old kid, the twenty-seven year old, who was still trying to get through college. I was hanging on with the tips of my fingers to a ledge that was out above one hell of a big canyon of debt and disappointment.
The heat was overwhelming even in early evening, sweat trickling down my back, the nose cone of my model sliding where the glue was melting. I’d gone in to cover someone today, so excited about the Wonders of the Night Sky show that I’d designed and worked my ass off on.
“You’re a freaking idiot,” I berated myself and continued walking, taking a left onto South Third and feeling lighter that I was only fifteen minutes from home. Self-pity burned in me, then I went through anger, and then acceptance, and by the time I turned into my sister’s street with its cracked sidewalks and dreary houses, I’d worked through every single emotion. There was no point in spending time thinking back on what had happened today. I’d get inside, make a drink, check on Emma, and then sit and work out what I could do.
The front door was wide open, my big sister by two years, Natalie, sitting against an upright, a can of diet soda in her hand and a wide smile on her face. I’d learned over the years that the smile meant she was waiting to ask me something. She didn’t even let me get up the entire path.
“The doctor called with my HBA which was a good level, the paperwork is on the table for you to read. Also Mick’s asked me to go up to LA in a couple of months, can we look at your diary and see what weekends you have free so you can watch Emma for me?”
Mick was Natalie’s latest boyfriend, yet another guy who she thought might be like the man she’d married and lost, and who probably didn’t hold a candle to her one true love, Bobby Owens. God knows she deserved so much. After all she’d been pregnant, married, then widowed in the space of a month. Bobby had never met Emma but his memory was alive in a wall of photos in the front room. So often we would sit with Emma between us and tell her stories of Bobby and what an awesome dad he was. Natalie and Bobby had been childhood sweethearts, and to lose him so cruelly to cancer had rocked our tiny family to the core.
Emma and this house were the only things she had left of the one man she’d loved, and now spent all her time trying to replace. She merited more than this broken-down home, and the specter of diabetes that controlled her life. She should have been in a nice house with a white picket fence with her beloved Bobby and their daughter, and have no need for injections or checkups. Losing Bobby had changed her, and it was her eternal search for something better for her and Emma that made me scared for her.
“Cut to the chase, eh?” I asked, and sat on the stoop then held my hand out for the can.
She passed it to me, but it was warm, and almost empty so I handed it back with a grimace—there was nothing worse that warm soda. Except for maybe losing my well-paid, scientifically-inclined, life-fitting job.
She dimpled another smile, “Only if you can,” she murmured and leaned forward. “He wants to show me Hollywood, and I’ve never been there.”
How neat was it that I’d lost my job and wouldn’t be working any weekend from now on planned? So neat. Not.
“Of course I will, you deserve some alone time.”
She lifted her can as a salute. “You’ve always been my favorite brother.”
“I’m your only brother,” I reminded her as usual, the familiar banter enough to soothe my worries. A future weekend with my niece Emma sounded exactly what I needed, swimming, walks, and we could work some more on our lunar landscape which she enjoyed doing. She had a love for the stars, and I could spend all day explaining everything at her level. That was why I got so angry when teachers who said they knew science got things incorrect and ended up teaching kids the entirely wrong way.
“Uh oh, why are you frowning? What did you do?”
Shit. I wished she didn’t know me as well as she did. “I lost my job at the planetarium.”
Her eyes widened and she placed a hand on my leg. “Oh no, what happened? Are you okay?”
I could’ve explained, but now I was away from the planetarium, and with the benefit of hindsight I could see the entire incident for what it was. An absolute shit show of epic proportions. She glanced at me with such confusion, and I couldn’t help the guilt.
“I’ll still pay rent.”
She frowned and shook her head. “I don’t need rent.”
She did. To afford the insulin, and the health checks, and the retinopathy investigations, but I didn’t point that out. I’d rather have delayed the final year of courses than see my sister ill. When I finally finished my degree I would get a job, and I may not have ended up rolling in cash but I’d have been able to look
