“It was a beautiful service,” I say, tracing my finger across the crystal clear floor-to-ceiling window before me. Everything is so crisp and clean, like I could just reach my hand through and touch the building across the street. The windows seem to be the only remotely untouched thing about this place, and I wonder if he ever took the time to stand here and take in all this beauty. “There were a ton of people there. Hundreds, maybe a thousand? Back of the church was standing room only.”
“Who gave the eulogy?” she asks.
“His coach.”
“It’s so sad that he had no one in those final hours, you know?” she asks, voice fading. “No one by his side at the hospital. Breaks my heart that he died alone.”
“He could’ve had me.”
“I know, sweetheart.” She sighs through the phone, not in the mood to rehash the conversation we’ve had a million times before, but it’s okay, because neither am I. “How are you holding up? I know you have a lot on your plate now with cleaning out his place and handling his estate and everything.”
“I’m fine, Mom. I’ve got it.”
“Well, at least he’s with his family now. They’re all together again, may they finally rest in peace,” Mom says, and I can mentally picture her making the sign of the cross. It’s funny to me that she would speak so casually about the couple whose marriage she all but destroyed some twenty-plus years ago.
I leave the window and take a seat in one of his leather chairs. The leather is supple and smooth, void of cracks and creases, and I wonder if he ever thought about hanging up his skates and resting on his laurels for a bit.
There’s a soft, brisk knock at the door, and I think I’m imagining it until it happens again a few seconds later.
“Someone’s at the door, Mom. I’ll call you later, okay?” I whisper, ending the call before she has a chance to protest.
Brushing my dark bangs into place and straightening my shirt, I rise on my toes and peer through the peephole, my hand steady on the deadbolt and my breath suspended. There’s a man on the other side, dressed in a black suit with a Spartan-green tie, most likely one of Bryce’s teammates.
Clearing my throat, I unlock the door and pull it open. “Hi.”
The guy towers over me, and with watery, red-rimmed eyes he stares so deeply at me I feel like he’s examining the contents of my soul. There’s anguish written all over his face, and he looks like he hasn’t slept in days.
“You’re Bryce’s sister?” he asks.
I nod.
“I’m sorry,” he says, running a goliath palm through his short coffee-brown hair. An overabundance of aftershave clouds the air between us. “I don’t know your name.”
Probably because Bryce didn’t want anyone to know I existed ...
“Ayla,” I say. “Ayla Caldwell.”
I feel that my brother would want me to make it crystal clear that we did not share the same last name even if we did share the same father.
“Didn’t even know he had a sister until Coach mentioned it to me today. Bryce never really talked about his family,” he says, eyes searching mine. “Anyway, just came by because a bunch of us are going to grab some drinks. Not, like, going out or anything, just having a drink for old times’ sake ... celebrating Bryce’s life, that sort of thing.”
“Yeah. I get you.” I bite my lower lip, staring down and trying to decide my fate for the night. A half hour ago, I wanted to lock myself in the guest room, take a hot shower, and call it an early night.
“It’d be on us,” he says, as if money were the main objection here. “You know, ‘cause you’re his family and all, and we take care of our own.”
“I’m going to be honest ...” I offer an apologetic smile and watch his face fall just enough to make me feel like the world’s biggest asshole. Maybe when he looks at me, he sees Bryce, and maybe he feels like I’m the final link to a man he’ll never see again in this lifetime. He didn’t have to come all the way here, to his dead friend-slash-teammate’s apartment, asking his estranged sister to come out for complimentary drinks. He did it out of the kindness of his mourning heart. I can’t say “no.” It’d be uncouth.
I suppose I can make one final toast to the life of the man who hated me so much he almost turned me into the police for cyberstalking when all I’d done was send him a Facebook message out of the blue.
“I’m extremely exhausted, and it’s been a long couple of days,” I say, suddenly more aware of the way the waistband of my pantyhose is digging into my stomach. I want to change out of this depressing dress and these skintight nylons, but I also want to do the right thing. “But I’ll come out with you guys for one drink.”
He smiles through glassy green eyes, and I imagine he’s thinking he’s doing his old pal a solid by including me when it’s likely quite the contrary. But I won’t say anything. I won’t tarnish Bryce’s legacy because despite the fact that he resented the hell out of me and my existence, in a messed up way, I still loved him.
He was a stranger, and I loved him anyway because he was family, and because you’re supposed to love family unconditionally, even when they’re assholes.
Especially when they’re assholes.
My mother always said that the people who’re the hardest to love are the ones who need it most. Bryce most definitely fell into that category. That category was invented for people like him.
“I’ve got an Uber downstairs ...” the guy points down the hall toward the elevator. “You can ride with me if you want. I’m Shane, by the way. I’m the team captain.”
I’m not sure if we’re supposed to be shaking hands or making this into an awkward, formal exchange of some sort, so I motion for him to come in and ask him to give me a minute to freshen up.
When I emerge a moment later, Shane is standing by the fireplace, looking at all of Bryce’s framed photographs. For a guy who didn’t ever talk about family, his place is plastered with photos of himself with his dad, and a few with his mother, who passed away tragically when he was in high school.
“Ready?” I ask.
Shane nods, moving a wooden picture frame back into place and sticking his hands in his pockets. I lock the door as we leave and slide my bag over my shoulder. He checks his phone and fires off a text when we step into the elevator.
“Where are we going?” I press the button for the ground floor.
“This little bar by the arena,” he says. “It’s called Shotsky’s. Little place we all used to go after practice on Fridays.”
“Okay.”
Shane doesn’t have an affinity for small talk and I don’t have the energy, so we ride down in silence and trek side by side across the lobby to the waiting Uber parked beyond the black awning. He gets the door, and I slide across.
It’s the middle of July and it’s humid, and I’m wishing I pulled my hair off my neck because it’s going to double in size by the time we get to this bar, and I’d like to make a halfway decent first impression on the last living connections I’m ever going to have with my brother.
He gives the driver the address, and we merge into traffic.