Read Online Second Chances by T. A. Webb - Free Book Online Page B

I ever found them, I’d kill them. He didn’t know I saw him go into the bathroom every fucking year on those days and that I heard the sobs from the shower. That grief was his alone; it would have been unwelcome and an invasion for me to betray his dignity by bringing it out into the light. But someday, I thought, someday I hope I run into those fuckers and then they would know.
    And that’s why I let him do anything he wanted with my family. The kids adored him. He’d get down in the floor and play Hot Wheels, or Barbie, or GI Joe, and was always friendly to all of my brothers and sisters. Even the Holy Roller, the Asshole, and Sister Mary Vagina.
    My sister Linda was the Holy Roller. She was the one who was ashamed to let her preacher know she had a gay brother. She and her husband Roy had a boy and a girl. She didn’t know it, but he’d made a pass at my sister Patty while Linda was in the hospital giving birth to their daughter. One of our little family secrets we all knew but never talked about.
    Sam was the Asshole. He was a former Marine and just fucking pleased as punch he had a faggot for a brother. And wasn’t above telling anybody who would listen that he hated how Mom and Dad called Brian their adopted son. He never quite managed to say it loud enough for Dad to hear. He was fifteen years older than me, and when I met one of his future girlfriends for the first time when I was a toddler, I threw my bottle at her and broke her nose. Even then I knew how to make a statement. He and his alcoholic wife Jean had a daughter.
    Brenda was Sister Mary Vagina. She had three marriages under her belt, and the first one of her exes was now gayer than me. He had this little white streak in the front of his hair that everybody said was from when he got really sick as a young man. Bullshit. Peroxide sickness if I knew him. Her present husband Frank, who I actually kind of liked, had gone to high school with my mother.
    Yeah.
    They went to church three times a week and she prayed for me and Brian every time they went, she was sure to tell me. She had three children: a son and daughter by her first husband—the Twink—and a son by the third. Those kids especially loved Brian and would go to him when nobody else could calm them down.
    Patty and her husband Ray had two kids, both boys. Ray was a good guy, and if he wasn’t straight I would have had him on his back with his legs in the air so fast he wouldn’t know what hit him. He was six-two, one hundred eighty pounds of hairy hunk. If he lived in Wyoming he would’ve been a cowboy. Brian and I both always walked behind him so we could watch his ass. And those long legs with the slight bow. Usually Patty was right there with us. Also usually whispering, “Mine, all mine” in my ear. Bitch.
    Robert was my younger brother. He was newly married but had two kids, both girls by two women other than his wife. But he and I were the closest in age and got along well enough. He was a dreamer and wanted to be a writer. He wrote poetry that was beautiful, but it didn’t pay the bills. His wife Jennifer was a social worker and made most of the money in the family. She was a little wisp of a woman but I wouldn’t want to fuck with her. I’d fear for my balls.
    So there were the six of us sibs, plus spouses and kids. And I counted Brian as a spouse, significant other, whatever the fuck. And with Dad, that made twenty-three for dinner. And twenty-one people we bought presents for. More love and fun and fussing and wrapping paper than you could shake a stick at.
    Antonio had repaid the money he borrowed in cash. He didn’t want to work it out in trade, so I let him give me money as he got it. Since it was a pain in the ass to go to the credit union, I’d stuck it in a drawer and forgot about it. When it came time to shop, I just handed the wad of cash to Brian and told him to go forth and spend.
    I sat back and watched as Brian took two of Brenda’s kids and played Santa and