Page 19 of Missed Sunrise
“Have you been painting?” I asked as I crossed the deserted intersection and the weathered white gazebo in the center of the town square came into view.
“No, actually. I’m planting. Gil built me these beautiful planter boxes for the deck, and it’s already warm enough for me to get my herbs and flowers started. I really should have wiped the soil off my hands before answering the phone, but what can you do?”
I laughed. “Not a thing now, but that does sound nice. Vinh is building some planters for our yard too.”
Uncle Gil may be a quiet, grumpy sort, but he always took the time to answer Vinh’s calls with questions about all things building, gardening, and maintenance, which had come in handy when we needed to make both the restaurant and Mom and Dad’s rental house accessible for Dad’s wheelchair.
“I’m always delighted to hear from you, regardless, my Liem. Is everyone and everything treating you well?”
I stepped up onto the gazebo and set my sketchbook on the bench. “Of course. The people of Bay Springs have been both warm and welcoming. I’m excited for the Mardi Gras parade in a couple of weeks. I tried to convince Mom to let us enter a float for Ari’s, but she said the restaurant would be too busy with all the tourists.”
“Oh dear, you should have told me. I could have come and helped with the restaurant and left you kids to the fun stuff.”
I closed my eyes and inhaled the salty breeze, almost tasting it on my tongue. “I’ve just made and filed a mental note for next year.”
“Perfect. Now, I know from our last phone call that your brother and the redhead are doing okay. I conned my brother into answering the phone on his birthday, and he said his prosthetic was…,” she trailed off, likely wondering if she needed to shield her twenty-one-year-old nephew from his dad’s unfiltered language.
“I can imagine what Dad said,” I supplied.
It was a complicated situation. We’d tried to get Dad into therapy a few times after his above-the-knee amputation, but he was resistant. He was terrified that he would never learn to walk well enough with the prosthetic to not be a burden and that he would feel that way for the rest of his life.
Of course, he hadn’t actually said that, instead swinging between heavy, brooding silences that lasted for days and making whatever the love child of dad jokes and amputee jokes was called to anyone who’d listen.
Vinh and I were the ones who had drawn that conclusion—that Monny Lott was constantly wrestling a number of fears and couldn’t yet voice them—every time we fell into a hushed conversation about it, which was about every five to seven business days.
Such was the nature of living close to—and working with—your family.
We were always riding the line between involving ourselves enough to be supportive while trying to respect the blurry, undefined boundary of our parents’ autonomy.
Which was a nugget I hadlearned from therapy.
Changing the subject to relatively happier topics, I sat on the bench beside my sketchbook and breathed, “Cody is back in town.”
“Oh, that beautiful boy I met at Thanksgiving? He was marvelous—and so broody.”
I smiled. “The same.” He just didn’t realize the former of her observations, the part of him that Ari had seen after only one meeting. Cody had only been by for a moment at Thanksgiving, but he made an impression on people instantly, usually without trying or any desire to do so. But the fact that he didn’t recognize the former of Ari’s observations of him was why his return wasn’t a purely joyous topic.
“Honey, I need to go pour my second cup of coffee, and I’m worried I’ll wake Gil early if he hears me on the phone. If he doesn’t sleep until 7:30 a.m., he considers the day a bust.” She sighed heavily. “Sometimes I wonder if retiring was the right thing for him.”
Worry snaked inside me, the feeling both so familiar and foreign that it almost felt like my secret spirit animal. “Why do you think that?”
She sighed again. “Don’t worry about us, dear. We’ll figure it out.”
I hummed before responding, “If you promise to take Uncle Gil to that community center. The one with the charming flyer I happened to glance at the condo when I visited at New Year’s.”
“The one foroldpeople?” she asked, scandalized. “Liem.”
“Aunt Ari,”I parroted back.
“Only for you, my sweet nephew. I will take Gil—whoisold—to the Locc. Maybe he can volunteer or something. Yes,” she said, pleasure evident in her voice. “That could be a good idea, with his age and all.”
I smiled at her rambling. What Aunt Ari didn’t know was that I’d investigated the Live Oak Community Center—known to the locals in Gulf Shores, Alabama, as “the Locc”—by way of modest trespass during that visit and had snagged the flyer.
And then told a white lie about finding it in their mailbox.
I usually had no use for lying and believed that the truth reigned supreme, but that one was borne of love.
“Well, I look forward to hearing all about it during our next call,” I replied seriously.
