Family: Helpful Or Just Plain Trouble?

I was totally disgusted; I sat there with a look of sheer terror frozen on my face as I tried really hard not to look at my lap or to add to it. My stomach began to turn; I could feel myself start to gag. “Oh god!” I screamed as I jumped off the couch and started to undo my pants, I didn’t care if my brothers were there or not, the pants were coming off. I whipped off my jeans and jumped away from them before realizing that my socks were covered too. Looking the other way, I struggled out of my socks and threw them in the pile with my jeans. “Burn them! Burn them!” I cried.

By this time Mary had come running into the living room, I don’t know exactly what she thought, but by the look on her face and the tell tale shake of her shoulders as she lifted her hands to cover her mouth, she found the situation was funny. “What are you laughing at?” I cried, “He threw up on me!”

Now Zach joined in on the laughter and like older brothers always do, he pointed out the obvious, “I guess you shouldn’t have shaken him!”

“No shit!” I shot daggers at him.

Chad was still sitting in the same place I left him, dragging the back of his hand across his mouth he looked up at me, his eyes bright with amusement as well. “I’m sorry sis,” he barely managed to get it out before he cracked up.

“Sorry?” I shrieked, and they all covered their ears, “Well I’m not sorry,” I said as I stomped towards the basement door, “Have fun cleaning it up!”

I ran down the steps to my room and grabbed an old pair of sweats that were in the closet before running into the bathroom and stripping off all my clothes. I finally stopped gagging when I stepped under the hot water of the shower and begin to scrub at my skin, even though it was the memory of what happened that was making me feel gross.

After scrubbing myself all over, I stood under the hot spray and let the heat help me to relax, not that it was easy because I still didn’t know what happened for Susan to leave Chad last night. Reluctantly, I turned off the water and stepped out of the shower.

Ten minutes later I returned to the living room, someone had cleaned it up and my clothes were in the washer, although I didn’t know if I wanted to wear them after that. The smell of puke was still in the air, only now it was mixed with some kind of lemon scented cleaner, which did nothing to really improve the odor.

I asked my brothers if we could go else where to talk, we ended up down stairs in the family room. Chad was lying on the couch with one arm over his eyes and the other was across his stomach, he didn’t seem to want to do anything but sleep. Zach was sitting in a chair off to the left of the couch, when I approached them he said, “Now don’t shake him.”

Rolling my eyes, I sat down on the coffee table and looked at Chad. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

He peeked out from under his arm and then covered his eyes again. “No,” he mumbled, “If Zach can’t fix it, you can’t.”

“Of course we can’t fix it dumb ass! It’s you that pissed her off so it’s you that’s got to fix it.”

Chad lifted his arm enough to glare at me. “What do you care? You don’t even like Susan anyway!”

What? I stared at him in disbelief. “I do like her! And besides, I’m not the reason you two fought, so don’t get mad at me.”

Zach was watching us, he’s seen this argument many times, Chad and I always seemed to butt heads. “Guys, this isn’t going to help us find Susan and the kids,” he turned to Chad. “You do want to find them, don’t you?”

Chad sat up, “Of course I do! But I don’t see how telling you what we fought about will help.”

Zach sighed, “Well if she’s just upset then there’s a chance she’s still in town but needed to cool off. If you totally screwed up, then…” he shrugged his shoulders.

“You are going to think it’s stupid.” Chad looked at the both of us; like he was hoping that by saying that it would make us decide he didn’t need to tell us. But that didn’t work that way, we sat there and waited for him to continue. “Fine,” he groaned and fell back against the couch.

“We have been talking about moving for the pass couple of months. Susan is tired of her family and all the problems that we get dragged into because we are there, she wants to move but she doesn’t know where she wants to go.” He paused and I raised a brow, please move back here! I found myself thinking. He shook his head, “I, of course, suggested that we move here. I mean, we both know the area and the kids love it here and well you two are here,” he chuckled. “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing but it would be nice to be around you guys more.”

Zach had sat up straight in his chair when Chad had mentioned moving back. I could tell by the look on his face that he was thinking the same thing I was; he wanted Chad back in town. “Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve checked around, found you a job and a place to live.”

Chad shook his head, “We were just talking about it before, we hadn’t really spoken much about it for a while, she seemed to forget. Then we came here and staying those extra couple days, without the stress of her family breathing down our necks and to see the joy on the kids faces everyday. Especially Conner,” he smiled as he looked at me. “You have no idea how excited he was to spend the night at your house. You should see how he lights up when he talks about that night and playing with Jesse; for once he seemed truly happy.”

The image of Jess and Conner’s mutiny over Jordan jumped into my head as Chad spoke, I couldn’t help but smile. “They certainly seemed to have a load of fun.”

“Well after seeing that, Susan and I talked more about moving here and she seemed to be really excited about it. I thought it would be ok to look around and see what jobs would be available for us.” Chad’s smile disappeared. “I talked to René, you guys remember him right? I used to work with him years ago.” Zach nodded, I personally didn’t remember him. “Well, René told me his boss was looking for guys. The other day I met up with them and got to talking. Carl, that’s René’s boss, offered me a job then and there, making more than I’m making now and with far better benefits. Just by what he said, I figured that Susan could even take time off from working and take those classes she has wanted to take for a while.”

“That’s great!” Zach said, leaning forward in his chair, “So why would Susan have a problem with that?”

Chad closed his eyes, “It’s not that she had a problem with. It’s what happened next.” He scooted down to the corner of the couch that was closest to Zach and leaned forward. “I tried not to get too excited about the job because I didn’t talk to Susan yet but I wanted to take it. I told René that I would also have to look for a place to live. I didn’t want to go to Susan and tell her about the job without having plans for a house and everything because you know how she worries about all that stuff.”

I nodded, even though I didn’t need too. Susan always wanted to plan things down to the last tiny detail, where Chad was much more of an impulsive guy. “So René tells me that there is this house over on 34th that just listed,” he glanced at Zach. “You know the Rider’s used to live there. Without talking to Susan, I let René call the real estate agency and set up a time to go check it out.”

“When I got back here, I told Susan all about it. At first she was upset that I didn’t tell her that I spoke to René and was meeting with his boss. But after a while she started to get as excited as I was and by the time we left to view the house, she was telling me that she was proud of me for actually having a plan and not flying by the seat of my pants.” He laughed at that but didn’t say anything else.

Zach picked up a cushion and whacked him one. “Damn it Chad, how did you get from having a proud, excited wife to being here alone, drinking yourself stupid?”

Chad bowed his head and mumbled something neither of us could pick out, something he always did when what he was about to say wasn’t good.

“Speak up Chad!” Zach told him.

Chad looked up at us; he shrugged his shoulders as if to say, ‘I don’t know what happened’.

Zach sat back in his chair, I could tell he was starting to lose his patience, he was looking skywards and his lips were moving as if he was counting.

I reached out and took Chad’s hand. “Come on, it can’t be that bad.”

“That’s what you think,” he took a deep breath. “When we got to the front door of the house, the door swung open and there stood Wanda.” I gasped and dropped his hand. “She threw her arms around me and kissed my cheek, telling me that she’s so glad I came to her to buy a house. She then slipped her hand into mine and pulled me into the house, and then proceeded to do the ‘remember when’ as she pointed out all the reasons the house would be perfect for me.”