The Gift

Chapter 1
Lily

Chapter Description: Lily prepares for her brother's arrival.

Lucas is late. This isn’t because of his longer drive (90 minutes from Cincinnati compared to my 13 miles from Columbus). It’s because of my brother’s lifelong inability to be punctual. I’ve planned accordingly (my ducks are in a row, as they say) but I’m still disappointed. The whole point of today is to do something special for Dad – something that resonates - and my brother can’t bother to show up on time.

I go upstairs to my old room, fetch the striped beachball, and carry it out onto the covered deck. I throw it two-handed, and it lands near the center of a lawn that is more mud than grass this morning, thanks to overnight rain.  

Perfect.

I go back inside. I position Mom’s photo scrapbook in the middle of the kitchen island, in-between the chopping board they got when the Nordstrom in Columbus opened, and a vase filled with a mix of tulips and dahlias. I don’t open the scrapbook just yet, even though I want to. Some things, you must do together.

I sit on a bar stool and look out the window. There’s a birdfeeder hanging on the big oak tree, but no birds; they’re biding their time, thanks to the ongoing rain. Seeing the feeder reminds me of Dad teaching me the different birds that visit the backyard; Blue Jays, the red Northern Cardinals. I have an impulse to refill the feeder, but I don’t want to go back outside in this weather – my days of enjoying squelching around in the mud are behind me.  

The coffee is on the counter when Lucas walks into the kitchen. His hair is wet and flat, just from the rain between his truck and the house.

He gives me a nod. “Hey.” Nothing more, even though we haven’t seen each other since Labor Day. With me at Ohio State and Lucas at the University of Cincinnati, the last few weeks is the longest time we’ve ever spent apart.

He wipes at his wet face. He looks tired. He looks hangover.

I point at the coffee mugs. “Caramel vanilla cream,” I tell him. I used the Keurig that we got Dad when he turned 49. This year, we’re gifting Dad something much more special. That’s what today is for.

Your father has had a challenging year, Mom had said. As if to remind us that just because Lucas and I were doing well – both accepted into the schools of our choice, both finally leaving the nest – that we weren’t to forget about our parents.

Especially Dad.

“Your father’s only 49,” Mum told us. “Still a young man.”

He hasn’t looked young this year. Not since the routine blood tests came back with a high PSA level. An alarming number, according to his doctor. An older man might have been told to not worry about it – an older man probably would die from something else, well before the cancer spreads. But Dad’s too young to play that game, and so he elected to undergo brachytherapy.

Two weeks ago, a surgeon sealed radiation inside my father. When I spoke to Mom last weekend, she told me about Dad’s side-effects, things that may last a few more weeks, months, years.

I asked her, Is it okay for you take Dad out on Saturday? Is Dad going to be okay away from home?

She gave me a hug. You just worry about the gift.

Lucas leans against the kitchen counter, drinking from his coffee mug, a souvenir from the Early Television museum right here in Hilliard.

“You bring all the stuff?” he asks, drinking his coffee.

I nod. I lugged three plastic totes from my car, the same ones I had used to take my stuff from home to school. They were heavy, and I know what you’re thinking. ‘Why not wait for your big, strong brother to help you?’ Because I want to get this done before our parents get home, that’s why. Because Lucas has been running late ever since we were born, eighteen years and nine months ago.

“Then we’re all set.” He reaches into the pocket of his Buckeyes hoodie and retrieves his phone.

All he does look at the screen and I’m instantly annoyed. I say, “We still have to choose which one to do.” I point at Mom’s scrapbook on the kitchen table.

Lucas gives an infuriating shrug, still staring at his phone. “You choose.”

I glare at him. “Are you serious?”

Finally, he looks at me. “What?”

“We agreed at the Labor Day cookout that this was a great gift for Dad. I’ve been texting you the details for weeks. Least you could do is participate.”

Lucas rubs his hands together. “This is all you, Lily. We didn’t agree anything, you ‘voluntold’ me, and I could hardly say no, you’d already gotten Mom worked up about it.”

I shake my head. “Don’t start fading on me. This is a gift from both of us. It only makes sense if we’re both in it.” I laugh. “I can hardly do it without you!”

There. Just remembering the idea, it helps me soften towards Lucas. I nod and smile. “We’re here, it’s going to be perfect. I got Mom to take Dad out for the morning and so we’ve got plenty time.”

“You take care of everything,” says Lucas blandly.

“Not everything.” I take the coffee mugs to the sink. I’m abruptly aware of the rain thumping against the window and I look through the glass at the backyard. I look at the feeder, I look down at the beachball. Reminders of simpler times. Easier times.

“Pretty much, you do,” Lucas says. I watch him as he stretches his arms above his head, yawns, and I’m pretty sure he just rolled out of bed and drove straight here. “You’re a human dynamo.”

“I wish I didn’t have to be,” I reply stiffly, “but in the absence of anyone else lifting a finger what choice do I have?” I feel riled up; typical of Lucas to deflect responsibility like this. He builds me up so that nothing is down to him.

Lucas watches me at the sink. “You ever wonder,” he says, “what would happen if you just let some things slide?” He smirks. “You think the world would come to a screeching halt?”

I rinse out the mugs with water that’s too hot for my hands, and then rest the mugs upside down on the rack. “You ever wonder what would happen if you gave a damn about someone other than yourself?”

Lucas waves his hands and says the one thing that has never made me feel calmer.

“Calm down.” My dear, darling, brother shakes his head as if I’m the one in the wrong. He stuffs his hands into his hoodie pocket. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

I point a finger, and I hate that it trembles. “Barely. Look at you, you didn’t shave, your hair’s a mess. Did you even take a shower?” I can feel my cheeks warm, and my eyes get hot. We could be six years old again, squabbling over a broken toy or a gallon of spilled milk on the kitchen floor.

Lucas strokes his face as if it’s only just occurred to him that he should be well groomed for today. He gives a maddening shrug. “It doesn’t have to look perfect.”

 “Yes! Yes, it does!”

He grimaces. “Inside voice, please. Had a pretty big night last night, yeah?”

I purse my lips. “I don’t care about your stupid late night. I care about getting this right for Dad, and yes, getting it perfect. He deserves perfect.” I should stop talking. If I carry on, I’m going to spill tears.

My brother’s expression grows fierce. “Don’t talk to me like you’re the only one getting hit with this.” He squares his broad shoulders. “You’re not the main character in this movie, okay?”

My hands bunch at my sides, and even though my brother played tight end in high school, I know I’m strong enough in this moment to push him to the floor.

 “He’s my dad, too. I’m worried, too.” He takes a deep breath. “You care about ‘perfect’, but Dad doesn’t, he never has. We could have taken care of all this in five minutes, but you’ve done what you always do, got carried away and obsessed with the details and now you’re freaking out because what? I didn’t shave?”

I give a little shriek. Inside voice be damned. “That’s the whole damn point!”

I don’t push. I cover my face with my hands, and I shed stupid tears.

“Hey,” Lucas says. Just like that, his arms are around me. “Hey, now. Sis.”

I should stop crying. This is too much. This is beyond cringe. But I’ve been holding it together, holding it deep inside, ever since Mom called about Dad back in August.

I know it’s your first week at Ohio State. I know you’re chomping at the bit, and Daddy and I are thrilled for you. But we got some news. Some…news from the doctor. And I wanted to…we wanted to keep you and you brother in the loop. And…honey, it’s serious, but I don’t want you to think the worst. Because you know your dad. He’s a fighter, and the one thing he doesn’t want you to do is to write him off.

“Hey,” says Lucas. He holds me close; he even strokes my hair. He whispers, “It’s gonna be okay.”

That’s something he can’t possibly know, but I grasp hold of it anyway. And somehow, I cry harder. The snot-nosed, gulping variety. “Dad…Daddy doesn’t…Daddy doesn’t want us to write him o-o-off!”

“I know,” says Lucas. “We’re not gonna do that.” And then he makes his promise again, doubling down. “Gonna be alright, Lily.” He whispers in my ear, “Lily, lolly, loo.” He must see my smile because he laughs softly. He knows the password, he knows the way in. “Silly Lily.”

I push gently against his chest, step back and wipe at my eyes. “Don’t call me that,” I say, but I don’t mean it. I meant it when I was four, when I was ten, even when I was fifteen. But I don’t mean it now. Lucas can call me whatever he wants, he’s the only brother I’ve got, he’s my twin, and one gift Dad’s shitty cancer has given us is to bring the family together.

When I told Mom on Labor Day weekend what I had planned, she was the one crying. When I had asked her if she thought Dad would like it, she cried even more.

He’ll love it. It’s perfect. Oh honey, he’ll love it!

So, I guess Lucas didn’t have much choice but to agree with the plan. Haven’t I always been a little bossy?

“I’m sorry,” I say between sniffs. I can’t blame him for being a little reluctant.

“Don’t be,” Lucas replies. “You had a great idea; we’re going to make it happen.”

“I just…I just want Dad to know how much he means to us. And how…we haven’t forgotten how present he was when we were little. All those games, all that fun.” I produce a shuddering laugh, even as my chest heaves from the crying. “He was always playing with us.”

“Wearing us out,” says Lucas. “Knew we’d sleep that way. Oh God, remember ‘rescue the animals’? He’d hide your stuffies and we had to find them.”

“Rescue the animals! Oh! He’d make up their little voices, each one was different.”

“Remember the scavenger hunts. Something blue, something soft.”

“Something…ticklish.”

“The tickle monster. I’d end up wetting myself.” I smile against my brother’s shoulder. “Remember all the hide and go seek?”

 “Hidey seek,” corrects Lucas.

“Right!”

“Come on,” he says, passing me a sheet of torn-off kitchen towel. “Blow your nose, you get all blotchy when you cry.”

“Thanks,” I say, managing to be sarcastic and heartfelt at the same time.

He sits down at the kitchen table, pats the cover of Mom’s red scrapbook. “Let’s decide.”

I nod, sit beside him, and we could be taking our places at the table for dinner like the old days, except Mom always made us sit across from each other.

I open the scrapbook. “I put them on the same page,” I say, “so we can compare.”

Lucas chuckles. “Course you did.” He groans. “Look at us. Oh man, what a pair.”

All three photos are of us as toddlers. In the first one, we’re standing up, holding hands like BFFs, Lucas in a blue footed onesie and me in pink.

Lucas points. “You were still sucking on that Binky in Kindergarten, weren’t you?”

“Ha-ha.” I look at my toddler self, looking straight at the camera and smiling (no doubt babbling) around the yellow pacifier, my hair arranged in two high pigtails. I look so pleased with myself, although I can’t imagine why. What do toddlers really think about? What do they know? I can see the bulge of our thick diapers, Mom insisted on using the natural, cloth ones. Heck, maybe I was just proud about being able to stand up.

There’s Lucas in his matching blue pajamas, with his mop of brown hair, a lot lighter than it is today, holding a red toy car in his free hand (his fabled Matchbox Corvette) and he’s not looking at whoever’s taking the picture (Mom or Dad? Or Grammy, maybe?). No, my brother is looking at me, smiling sweetly and…oh, we were so close when we were little!

Joined at the hip, Mom said.

Stuck together with Elmer’s, Dad said.

They put us in different classes when we started Kindergarten, but we always found each other at recess. As I think back in this moment, I can’t imagine there’s a single, solitary childhood secret that we didn’t share. It’s enough to bring fresh tears to my eyes.

Lucas just says, “Mom sure liked dressing us in matching outfits.” He taps the pajama photo. “So, you want to do that one. Probably the easiest?”

I point at the next photo. “I think Dad likes this one more.” There’s us again, naked this time, in the tub, both laughing ourselves silly. No wonder; it was Mom who used the bath bubbles to shape Lucas’ hair into a spikey mohawk, and then Dad came into the bathroom, calmly placed a yellow rubber duckie on my head, stepped back and took the picture with his Nokia phone.

Lucas sighs. “He loves this photo.” He looks at me. “We really going to get naked for this?”

I shrug. “There’ll be lots of bubbles, that’s all anyone will see.”

“Right, but- “

“I’m not getting into the bath with my clothes on. And you don’t have anything I haven’t seen before.” Which is true, but in actual fact, it’s been a few years since I saw my brother naked, and of course it’s been the longest time since we took a bath together.

Lucas points at the last photo. “What about that one? That’s probably his favorite for real.”

We’re pictured in the back yard, it looks like summer, maybe early Fall like today. It had been raining as hard as today and we’re sitting together on the ground, laughing our silly heads off, without a stitch of clothing on and covered in mud, a plastic beachball between our splayed legs.

Lucas shakes his head. “Man, what was that about? I feel like we were always digging around in the mud.”

“Mom says she read a magazine article about mud-play when she was pregnant with us. Great for the developing brain, strengthening the immune system, stuff like that.”

Lucas laughs. “I think Dad just liked to see us getting messy.” He sighs. “We were his muddy pups, right?”

I smile. “Dad was always playing around. But yeah, I did some reading myself. There’s bacteria in soil that activates the neurons responsible for producing serotonin.”

“Wow. Not bad for a communications frosh.”

I stick out my tongue. “Just means, next time you’re down about no one liking your Insta pics, you can go outside and make a mud pie instead.”

“I’ll think about it.” He groans. “I get that Mom and Dad believed in their kids playing in the mud, but did we have to be naked all the time?

 I shrug. “Less laundry that way, I guess. Besides, Mom says she couldn’t keep us dressed when we were toddlers. Both of us, pulling off our diapers, rolling in the dirt.”

“There’s the evidence,” says Lucas, tapping the photo with a finger. “Muddy pups, for sure.”

“She said we were like little savages. But cute ones.” I look at my brother. “It was all perfectly innocent. But to pose for something like that now. There’s no way, right?”

He blushes, and I’m reminded how much I love him. The big tough football player, the breaker of teenage girls’ hearts, and he’s imagining how silly he’d look sitting in the backyard, naked with his adult sister, scooping mud in his hands to recreate a childhood photo.

He clears his throat. “Yeah, there’s no way.”

I nod in agreement. Even though I did go to the trouble of buying a replica of the striped beachball. I shake my head, ready to laugh at myself. What was I thinking? There’s no way we can make that photo.

I tap the top picture. “Jammies, it is.”

Lucas nods. “Good enough.”

“It’ll be adorable.”

“Dad will like it.”

“He’ll love it.”

Lucas pats my arm. “This was a good idea, sis.” He chuckles. “Man, Dad’s gonna be blown away when he sees us.”

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