I feel guilty.
Maybe I should get the old lady a martini.
I turned twenty-one last year and am certainly old enough to walk into a bar with her and order her one, although I wouldn’t know a single place that’s open this time of day.
Oh well, it’s the thought that counts.
Guess we’ll just have to go home. Besides, Mom is waiting for us there, and she and Aunt Myrtle have their routine. Plus, I still have to unpack and get my shit ready for school.
My bedroom, right next to my brother’s, is apparently made of paper-thin walls. It didn’t bother me before, but now? Now it bothers me. Why? Well, I’m pretty sure he jerks off when he thinks I’m asleep if the noises coming through the walls are any indication.
I need to move out like yesterday.
“You know what I’ve been thinking?” Aunt Myrtle speaks at last.
“I can’t even begin to imagine what you’ve been thinking,” I say with a laugh. She’s good-humored and laughs too.
Of all the members of my family, I am the least like her—she’s outgoing and gregarious, and I am neither of those things. Even compared to my parents and my brother, I am introverted and quiet, happy to observe rather than participate.
My great aunt certainly isn’t shy about voicing her thoughts, and I’m curious to hear what she’s about to say, my hands gripping the wheel as I make a right-hand turn onto our road, drive the five hundred feet to the driveway, and slowly ascend up it.
“I think it’s time you left the nest.”
Is she implying that I ought to move out of my parents’ house?
“I did leave the nest, remember?” I just got back from living in the United Kingdom for several months.
“Eh.” She makes a sound in her throat. “You know what I mean, Roman. You need your own space. You can’t keep living with that little brother of yours. You’re a man now.”
“Where do you suggest I go? I haven’t lived on campus in three years—I’m not about to go live in the dorms as a senior in college.”
“I’m not suggesting you go live in the dorms. Living in the dorms is like riding the school bus—no good comes of it.”
“What are you even talking about?” I put the car into park and help her unbuckle her seat belt before exiting the vehicle and going around to the passenger side so I can help her out. There’s a little folding step stool beneath her feet, and I remove it from the car and set it on the ground to make this step down easier.
She is a tiny little thing, but she has big opinions.
“All I’m saying is you don’t want to sleep on a mattress that’s as thin as a piece of toast and that hundreds of people have banged on.” She gives her head a shake. “Do you know when the last time they replaced those mattresses was? Probably when I was in college.”
Great Aunt Myrtle is one of the few females of her generation who actually attended university. It wasn’t common for young women to go to school back in the day, but she and my grandma both went for business and eventually helped my grandfather run his corporation.
Grandma and Aunt Myrtle used to love telling stories about their sorority days, cotillions, and all the young bucks that vied for their attention; two smart and beautiful co-eds living in the fifties were a hot commodity.
“The last thing I want to do is live in the dorms. I’m an old man compared to the people who live there.”
I take her frail hand in mine and help her down onto the step stool.
She nods as if to say, That’s true. “Don’t you know anyone who has a place to let?”
“You mean try to find a house to sublease? Aunt Myrtle, it’s the beginning of the school year—there’s no way anyone has a room to rent. I waited too long.”
“You won’t know until you try. Don’t you know anyone? Not a single soul?”
I do, but no one I want to live with. Jeremy and his buddies live in fraternity houses on Greek row, and those are the only guys I know well enough to potentially live with. Considering fraternities are members only, that’s not an option.
Together, Aunt Myrtle and I hobble toward the door, her little shoes squeaking the entire way, and I glance down at them: they’re purple and match the long, drapey gown she’s donning that happens to be plastered with the image of her dead dog’s face—a Bichon Frise named Bitsy that passed away a few years ago from old age.
Aunt Myrtle saw the caftans on a reality TV show and insisted on having one made in two colors. Purple and green, and blush pink.
The stacked bangles on her wrist clink as she grips my arm, watching the sidewalk for cracks.
She is really something else.
“I know people,” I say defensively. “I just don’t know anyone I can move in with.” I’ll have to give it some thought, some serious thought now that she’s voiced my exact mindset out loud. I really should move out.
Besides, studying in this house is virtually impossible with Alex randomly crashing into my room whenever he feels like it—he is such a pain in my ass.
Nor can I sit at the library for hours on end knowing my family has things for me to do at home. I feel like I’m straddling both sides of the line.
Half in, half out—I have to choose.
And if I move out, perhaps that will give me the freedom to have a little less guilt when I’m not here. They’re going to have to manage without me; more to the point, my mother will have to find a way to manage Aunt Myrtle without me.
I’m not her keeper.
The old bag is encouraging me to move out, and for the most part, she’s got the most wisdom out of all of us, even when Grandma was alive.
“I’ll think about it,” I tell her as we make our way into the kitchen, the house quiet for a weekend. I wonder where everyone has gone before finding a note on the kitchen counter.
It’s a letter scrawled in my mother’s handwriting: GONE TO THE GROCERY STORE AND TO HOME DEPOT, WON’T BE GONE PAST 11. TEXT ME IF YOU NEED ANYTHING.
It’s cute that Mom still writes handwritten notes. I crumple it up and toss it in the recycling bin.
Taking advantage of a quiet house, I go to my room and begin reorganizing the things I brought back from my studies abroad, remove items from my suitcase that I want to display on a shelf.
Slow your roll, pal. Maybe you shouldn’t get too comfortable here.
I glance around the bedroom that’s seemingly stuck in a time warp of my childhood with scientific studies, accolades, and inspirational posters neatly pinned to the wall.
It’s weird. I was only gone for one semester, but looking around this bedroom I was in my entire life seems…I don’t know. Confusing? Uncomfortable? I’ve grown out of it, yet I haven’t. I’m still the same science-driven kid but not the same person I was when I left here. I throw my messenger bag on my desk chair and place my hands on my hips.
There’s a bracelet encircling my wrist, and I remove it, placing it on a shelf next to my desk, right next to a tall Academic Decathlon trophy. It’s one of many I won over the years at competitions during my high school career. My mother still has the cleaning ladies dust them weekly so they don’t show a particle of grime.
Did I mention the bracelet I just removed is the same one I got as a freshman from the girl I met in the stairwell of my first college party—think her name was Lilly if I’m remembering correct, though I never once was fortunate enough to bump into her on campus. I know she was a cheerleader for the football team, but I never considered going to a game to see her.