The Little Brother by Victoria Patterson Read Free Book Online

Hyde.”
    After I spoke he regarded me for a moment, and then he said, “Is that right?”
    I gave him a confirming nod.
    He coughed into his fist. “Excuse me,” he said, looking at me, and he lodged himself inside the police cruiser with the door cracked. We heard static and intermittent voices on his police radio, and then his mouthpiece chirped and he spoke into it with his head turned for privacy, his tone serious, making sure we couldn’t hear. He hung the hand piece back on his dashboard.
    For five minutes or more, he didn’t speak or move. He sat and stared off toward the horizon, letting out a few lackluster sighs.
    His police radio lit up and shot out noises and he answered it. I could barely see his profile; his mouth was set in a firm line. This time he let us hear him say “Yes, sir,” nodding, “Yes, sir,” and one final “Yes, sir,” and then he hung up the hand piece again.
    Without a word, he stood before us, the sun silhouetting him, his shadow crossing my legs. He seemed to be contemplating us. He ran a hand through his hair, sighed.
    â€œWell, boys,” he said, “today is your lucky day, because I’ve decided to cut you a break and let this go with a verbal warning.”
    To my embarrassment, Ace and Ice slammed their hands together in a high five, saying “Yes!” as if at a football game.
    But B. Lester didn’t look at them, and he didn’t seem to care, his gaze firmly on me. A direct, pitiless stare, and along with relief, something like shame wrenched deep in my chest.

6.
    T HE FOLLOWING S ATURDAY at Mom’s in Cucamonga, I stayed up late with her watching Caddyshack, one of her favorite movies. She wore a nightgown and a robe. I sat back on the couch and looked at her pink feet propped on the coffee table next to her mug of white wine, the calluses on her heels and toes from her walking group and the faint veins beneath the skin on her ankles. “We used to be a team, your dad and me,” she said, apropos of nothing. “We shared this small apartment in Fullerton for three hundred a month. I worked, he worked. I cooked spaghetti on Tuesdays, his favorite. Forget about portfolios and investments and lawyers: We didn’t even have a credit card!”
    â€œMom,” I said, “I can’t hear the movie.”
    â€œSorry,” she said. But she kept right on talking. “He used to tell me,” she said, reaching for the remote, “that I couldn’t shake my middle-class practicality. What does that mean? If I’d been able to get a personal trainer, some plastic surgery, a bunch of clothes, some fancy car that I didn’t need, that would’ve been better?”
    â€œMom,” I said. “Please.”
    She paused the movie and repositioned herself on the couch so that she faced me. After she took a deep breath, she said, “I wantto apologize,” and then added, “I need to apologize.” Her pastor, she explained, had begun a program to help church members inventory their lives. She hadn’t been the best mother, she said, in ways fundamental to the development of children. “You need to build up your kids,” she said, “not tear them down,” and I could hear her pastor saying those exact words to her.
    The pit of my stomach whirled, remembering how she used to call me Dr. Strangelove. One night she reprimanded me for taking the skin off my chicken at dinner—“That’s the best part!”—alerting me to its existence. I must’ve been around six. After that I couldn’t eat anything that had once had skin. So I became Dr. Strangelove.
    â€œNot a big deal, Mom,” I said. I didn’t really want to think about it, much less talk about it.
    Her quizzical gaze sought atonement.
    â€œOkay,” I said. “It’s okay. I forgive you.”
    â€œGood,” she said. She reached for the remote and unpaused the