Heatherly Bell - Breaking Emily's Rules

“I told you, this is my bed and over there is yours.” Stone pointed to the cushion that sat in the corner of the bedroom.

Winston barked again. Stone loved dogs as much as the next person, but Winston was less of a dog than an inconsiderate roommate. A hairy one who demanded his meals on time and whose only contribution to household chores was creating more of them. Another treasure he’d inherited from Dad. Everything he’d handed down seemed to come with complications. And commitments.

Dad had loved this dog and swore it could read his thoughts. Right now, Stone wondered if Winston could read his, too, because they were less than charitable.

“You interrupted a great dream, monster.” The first decent dream in months.

Stone pulled on a pair of jeans and headed to the kitchen, Winston following close behind. True to form, he performed his shameless circling dance as Stone scooped out the dry dog food and placed it in his bowl.

“Wish I could be that happy to have breakfast,” Stone mumbled, placing the bowl on the cold terracotta kitchen floor. “Do you realize all you do is eat and sleep?”

He’d not only inherited Winston, the flight school and his father’s ramshackle ranch house, but pretty much James Mcallister’s life. And if he often felt like there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room, it was probably because too many people, dogs and inanimate objects depended on him.

He’d arrived in town with one large duffel bag and everything he owned in it. He was always ready to leave at a moment’s notice.

The doorbell rang, and Winston ran out of the room like a scared schoolgirl. Doorbells. Winston was afraid of them. Then again, Dad’s doorbell played a haunting rendition of “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer.” Stone kept meaning to disconnect the thing.

Stone peered through the peephole. Staff Sergeant Matt Conner, wearing his civilian clothes, held a couple of cups. “Let me in, asshole. These are hot. Coffee.”

Stone swung open the door and accepted a cup from The Drip (Rise and Shine and Have a Drip, the annoying cup said) as Matt walked inside.

“Is he—?” Matt asked, eyebrows raised.

Stone nodded. “Put the cup down now if you know what’s good for you.”

Matt set the cup on the short key table by the door and squatted like a wrestler. Yeah, he knew the drill. Like he’d heard his name called, Winston flew around the corner and tackled Matt.

Fortunately, Matt was a dog person, not to mention the size of a linebacker. “Hey, I love you, too, you big lug.”

“Don’t encourage him.” Stone walked into the kitchen, taking a gulp of the coffee he had become addicted to. He’d never been there himself, but coffee from The Drip was first-rate; although, he’d never get used to saying that name. “Want something to eat?”

“You have food?” Matt followed.

Stone didn’t answer. All right, so he was stalling.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so. Let’s get to it. Where do we begin?” Matt threw him a look.

“Yeah.” Stone knew that look. It was a get your shit together, airman look. If he’d given it once, he’d given it a hundred times to the newbs. And it had been more than a few years since he’d been on this side of it. It didn’t sit well with him.

Sure, he’d helped pack up the barracks bags of airmen who were never going home again, but this was different.

My father’s house. Where to begin? No matter how he sliced it, it didn’t feel right to get rid of Dad’s things. Like maybe he’d be back later, pissed Stone couldn’t see the sense in hanging on to ten old fishing rods. Crazy.

“Yeah’s not an answer, dude.” Matt threw him a pity look, the kind bestowed upon the widows and orphans of the men who weren’t coming back.

“Where do you suggest, moron?”

“The clothes.” Matt met Stone’s gaze.

They were still in the closet. Pretty pathetic. Clothes were always the first thing to go. It wasn’t like he was going to suddenly start wearing plaid shirts and polyester pants.

“Right this way.”

Winston followed them in the bedroom and lay like a rug near Dad’s bed. Stone made himself shove shirts and pants, even an old suit he’d never seen before, into a plastic garbage bag.

Matt worked faster, bagging up two to every one of Stone’s. “I’ll take all these to Goodwill Industries.”

“Sure.” Stone didn’t look at Matt. They were just clothes. It shouldn’t make any damn difference. He didn’t understand why his chest felt tight.

“By the way, she came by to see me again yesterday.” Matt said it like it was nothing, like he might as well be talking about the weather.

“Why?” Stone didn’t even have to ask who “she” was. She’d somehow decided Matt was her new best friend.

“You know why. She wants to talk to you.”

“I have nothing to say to her.”

“She’s your sister,” Matt said with an emphasis on the word sister, as if it was supposed to mean something to Stone. It didn’t.

Not his fault. His parents had made that decision, and he’d had no say in the matter. Only now, he was left to pick up the pieces. All in the past, and best left there. He wasn’t going to start singing “Kumbaya” this late in the game. “Here’s the thing. I don’t know her anymore.”

“You could get to know her. Again.” Matt threw another bag in the pile.

But it had been Sarah’s choice to stop visiting summers after that last one when she’d been thirteen. He’d been fifteen at the time, and sue him if he’d been a little busy. Their parents had each agreed that by fourteen each kid could decide where they wanted to spend their summer. That summer Stone chose to stay in California where he had a job and a learner’s permit. It meant that he’d spent the summer with his sister for the first time since the divorce. Looking back, he probably hadn’t paid her enough attention but what he’d remembered of that summer was a teenage girl with attitude. Not much different from now.

Dad didn’t know what the hell to do with her, either, when she didn’t want to fish or camp anymore. Every morning she’d glare daggers at the both of them as if they were doing something to offend her by simply breathing. Then she’d gone in the bathroom for three hours where she did something to her hair.

It was about all he remembered of that last summer from hell.

The next summer Sarah chose not to visit again, nor any summer after that. There had been cards over the holidays and a few strained phone calls. Stone had unfortunately had a front-row seat to his father’s confusion and pain at feeling shut out of his daughter’s life. It had served to remind Stone to call his mother and not just wait for her calls to him. He might not have thought he needed her much as a stupid teenager, but he’d always loved his mother. Which was why he couldn’t quite understand Sarah’s anger now. She’d made the choice. If their father hadn’t begged, it was because the Mcallister men didn’t beg.

Stone surveyed the closet. They’d made a dent in it, but not much more. He’d leave the boxes on the shelves for another time. Had his father thrown anything away? Ever?

Stone reached for a tie that looked straight out of the seventies. Probably not. “Maybe we should have a family reunion. Picnic, maybe?”

“Don’t be a smartass.”

“She wants to sell to a developer. There’s nothing to talk about.”

“You could talk and explain this is what your Dad wanted.”

“She knows that. All she wants is more money. She doesn’t care that people are about to lose their livelihoods.” It wasn’t just Cassie and Jedd. The airport had a small air museum, the only one of its kind for miles. There was also the Shortstop Snack Shack, owned and operated by a retired firefighter. Dad had owned the hangar building and leased the space to everyone else. The aviation school was the anchor, and if it was sold to a developer all the other businesses would go, too.