“Hush, you,” said Mom. “You don’t have to bring anything, honey. If your father wants beer, he can go out and get it.”
“It’s fine. I’ll bring some. See you then.” I disconnected the call.
My dad was one of those beers-around-the-world guys who couldn’t wait to try the latest, greatest microbrew. I enjoyed finding something new for him to geek out over.
The coffee I’d set up the night before was cooling since it normally started brewing at seven and turned itself off. The temperature was perfect though. I took it to the slider and looked out at my severely scorched garden.
We had finally gotten a reprieve from the extreme-heat advisories of the previous week. Of course, that meant instead of temperatures in the one hundred tens, the peak was only in the high nineties. Still pretty unbearable. There was no way to water enough to keep the plants healthy in weather like this. We’d lived in a drought for so long, I still felt guilty using the sprinklers. I had a tiny vegetable patch I hand-watered in the evening.
That would have to do.
I got my exercise by doing my chores to music, lost myself in a good book, and later, shopped for weekly groceries.
I bought Dad some Stone Ruination Double IPA, which touted itself as “A liquid poem to the glory of the hop.” I wouldn’t tell him I bought it because I thought the minotaur on the bottle was hot. He didn’t need to know how I picked beer.
At my parents’ place, I went through the garden gate and sauntered into their kitchen through the back door as always. Like a thousand other evenings, Mom washed dishes while Dad leaned on the counter waiting to dry. With her hands in dishwater, Mom tilted her head for a cheek kiss. Dad gave my shoulder a squeeze.
“How’s my baby?” she asked.
“Doing well.” I put the beer in the fridge. “Did you make a pie? It smells great in here.”
“I made pumpkin dump cake without using the oven.” She pulled the drain from the sink and wiped her hands on a kitchen towel. “Those pressure pots you and Chloe bought me for Christmas have come in so handy. I hardly ever use the stove anymore.”
“Remember how Chloe nearly imploded when Mom opened yours first?” Dad finished drying a pot liner and put it back into the machine. “I was sure you guys would come to blows.”
“It’s great having two. No lie.” Mom went to the refrigerator and took out a pitcher of lemonade. “I use both all the time.”
“Glad to hear I got you something useful for a change.” With four kids, they had cupboards full of “World’s Best” mugs, scented candles, and picture frames.
“Oh, you know what?” Mom blinked like she’d just remembered something. “You got a letter at the shop.”
“Me?” I asked.
“Let me get it.” Mom left the room, and Dad and I made eye contact, which amounted to a mutual decision to crack open the IPAs for tasting purposes.
“Oh my God, that’s good.” Dad winced at the slightly strong, slightly bitter hoppy flavor. “Why’d you pick this one?”
I chose to prevaricate. “Aren’t you the one who likes an IPA?”
“Yeah. They’re so refreshing.” He sighed. “Your mom keeps trying to get me to drink her home-brewed kombucha. Have you ever seen a kombucha mother? Swear to God it’s from the movie The Blob.”
“I heard that.” Mom breezed in with a standard-size business envelope. She gave it to me and picked up her lemonade. “Who uses snail mail anymore?”
“People in prison?” Dad smirked. “Do you have an incarcerated pen pal?”
“Oh, sure.” I winked. “I answered an ad. ‘Lonely guy looking for conjugal visits. Aichmophobics need not reply.’”
Lemonade spewed from my mother’s mouth. “Oh my God! Don’t do that while I’m drinking.”
My dad laughed helplessly. “Remember when Ben made that game about his phobias for school? With the spin dial?”
“How can I forget?” She winced. “He was devastated no one wanted to play it.”
I read the return address on the envelope: Tug. Of course. I’d given him stamps, and apparently, he’d figured out how to use them.
I opened and read the letter, laughed at the postscripts, and made up my mind to tell my parents what it meant. “It’s from Thuong.”
“Thuong?” My mother’s eyes widened. “Our Thuong?”
“Thuong’s in prison?” asked Dad.
“He is not.” Irritation may have crept into my voice. “He’s in rehab.”
“Oh no.” Mom glanced at Dad, and of course, they moved together. Watching them unconsciously reach for each other when they got bad news was hashtag couple goals. My parents might have been part of the reason why I was still single. I had impossibly high standards because they set the goddamn bar so high.
“He’s working to get better.”
Dad said, “Did you know about this before the letter?”
I nodded and shared what had happened at the library and how I’d called Echo for help.
“Oh, honey.” Mom enveloped me in a warm hug. “That must have been so frightening for you.”
“I didn’t know you could do something like that.” Dad picked up his beer. Put it down again. “Are you saying you carry Narcan all the time in case there’s an emergency?”
I nodded. “Since I was an RA.”
“Wow.” My mother sat heavily at the wooden breakfast table. “I had no clue. Was this the first time you had to use it.”
“No.”
“Jesus. What a world.” Dad sat beside Mom with his arm around her chair. “So was Echo able to help Thuong?”
“Thuong goes by Tug now, and yeah. Echo got him into a good program, and he recently made thirty days. I saw him a couple weeks ago. He looks a lot better.”
“Holy cow.” Mom sighed. “I knew Thuong’s family wasn’t awesome, but I never imagined anything like this in his future.”
Dad nodded. “Thank goodness you found him in time.”
“It’s fate.” Mom met Dad’s gaze with flinty new determination. “This means he’s ours now.”
“Mmhmm.” Dad simply lifted one brow and picked up his beer. “Damn right.”
“Uh, what?” Aaaaand they’d emotionally adopted Tug, right there at the table where I’d eaten breakfast for over half my life. I wasn’t surprised they went there. Only that they put it quite so baldly.
“We’re going to need that address, hon.” Mom sipped her lemonade.
“What does he say?” Dad reached for the envelope I still held while I reread the letter.
I pulled it away playfully. “What if it’s personal?”
Mom made a fizzy noise. “You wouldn’t have told us anything about this if it was personal.”
Damn it, she was right. I could be a vault even when people spilled their tea in the hope I’d share so they wouldn’t have to.
I scanned the contents one more time before sliding the letter across the table for them to read.
“What’s that about a steering wheel?” asked Dad.
“He’s giving me a hard time about buying him postage stamps.”