Everyone Thinks I'm Thirsting Over My Own Brother novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Terms on the Porch

Her first night on Cal's couch ends with a cut hand and a first touch; in the morning Deborah and Dean offer terms on the porch, and Clarissa refuses in front of the neighbors.

Cal's house was one big room with a loft, and he had built every inch of it himself.

I had been inside it exactly twice, both times with Dean, both times for Cal's birthday dinner.

Both times Dean had asked where Cal found the time to be so handy.

Now it was past midnight, and Cal was tucking my grandmother's quilt over the couch cushions.

"The loft has the real bed," he said. "I'll sleep on the couch."

"You're six foot two. I'm taking the couch."

"Clarissa."

"I'm a guest who just walked out on a wedding. Let me have one thing I get to choose."

He stopped arguing and went to put the kettle on.

Pretzel inspected the room, picked the warmest windowsill and settled in.

My phone would not stop buzzing on the arm of the sofa.

I turned it over and looked anyway.

The video of Haley's toast was on the town group page, and then on three other pages I had never joined.

Under it, strangers had written their opinions.

"Gross."

"Poor Dean."

"They always did look too close for siblings."

I read that last one four times.

Then the glass of water I was holding came apart in my hand.

I had squeezed it without noticing, and it broke across my palm.

I did not scream, because I work with children and I know how.

I looked down at the blood running into my wrist and said, very calmly, "I've cut myself."

Cal was across the room before I finished the sentence.

He took my wrist, turned my hand over under the lamp and swore once, softly.

"Sit."

"I'm fine."

"Sit on the counter, please."

I sat on the kitchen counter.

He ran my hand under the cold tap and picked a piece of glass out of the heel of it with tweezers from the first aid kit on the shelf.

His hands did not shake at all.

His thumb pressed the inside of my wrist to slow the bleeding, and my pulse jumped under it.

I knew that he could feel it.

I looked at the top of his bent head and decided I would not say anything about that.

"You do this for a living," I said, to say something.

"Not for people I like."

"You like me?"

"I tolerate you. You still owe me forty dollars from the Fourth of July."

I laughed, and the laugh turned into a hiccup that hurt.

He wrapped the gauze around my palm with three neat turns and smoothed the tape down with his thumb.

He held on to my hand a moment longer than the tape needed.

Then he let go and put the rest of the tape back on the shelf.

"There," he said.

His voice had gone rough.

I slept on the couch with Pretzel on my feet, and Cal's boots went up the loft stairs one at a time.

I lay awake listening for the sound of him turning over in the loft.

I did not hear it for a long time.

At nine the next morning, someone knocked on the front door.

It was a polite knock, three taps.

Cal was already at the stove with his back to me.

"Stay there," he said, and opened it.

Deborah Aldrich stood on the porch in a camel coat and pearls, with Dean one step behind her.

Across the road, a neighbor in a bathrobe had stopped watering his fern.

Down at the end of the drive, another neighbor was walking her dog very slowly.

"We won't come in," Deborah said. "We only want to help."

She looked past Cal at me on the sofa in yesterday's dress with the bandage on my hand.

"Clarissa, dear. The wedding is at four. The florist is set up and the guests are already driving in from Grand Rapids."

"There isn't going to be a wedding," I said.

"There can be," Dean said. "If we all behave like adults."

Deborah took a folded sheet of paper from her handbag.

"Here are the terms. You post an apology this morning, saying you were confused by grief."

"Cal finds somewhere else to live by Monday, so the talk can settle."

"You and Dean walk down the aisle at four, and nobody mentions Friday again."

I stood up with the quilt around my shoulders.

I wanted the neighbors to hear me, so I walked to the doorway and said it loudly.

"No."

"Think, Clarissa," Deborah said. "Think what this does to your position at the hospital. The club pays for half that wing."

"I know what it does."

"Then you know I'm being generous."

"I'm not apologizing for a thing I said to my friend in private. And Cal's house is not yours to evict him from."

Deborah folded the paper again without any hurry.

"Very well," she said. "Then I'm afraid there is a problem with the florist, the church and a hundred and forty guests."

She smiled kindly at me.

"Haley will walk down the aisle at four. She's the same size as you, and your dress has already been paid for."

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