All This Life

SARA TURNS HER car onto their block, and everything appears normal. There are no police cars, fire trucks. The SWAT team isn’t perched on rooftops with rifles. Animal control isn’t wrestling with Bernard, fresh from chewing out Felix’s and Larry’s jugular. Sara can’t see any amputated limbs littering the field of battle.

The block is quiet, and she slows the car in front of Rodney’s house, but doesn’t stop. The light is on in the front room, and they can see someone’s silhouette through the window, either jogging around or dancing.

“That Felix or your dad?”

“Un. Cle.”

“What’s he doing?”

“Sing. Ing.”

“He sings?”

“Dan. Ces. Too.”

“Oh, shit, that’s terrible,” she says.

Rodney nods.

“Do you want to come over?” Sara says. “I don’t really want this day to end.”

She says it and means it, but it makes her pause. She should absolutely want this day to end. It’s been the shittiest one since losing her parents. Finding out about the sex tape, getting suspended from work, but the last few hours have been great. She got a double dose of support: First, Hank handled all this so much better than she ever imagined he would, and then she got to reconnect with Rodney, holding hands in the river.

She checked her phone right before they drove home, and she still hasn’t heard back from Nat. Sara’s coming to grips with the fact she might never know why he did it. That piece of information might evade her, but what she did learn today is equally important. She knows Rodney is still in there.

“You. Sure?” he asks.

“Yeah, come over,” she says.

He nods again.

Sara keeps rolling up the block.

Her house looks undisturbed from the outside. Either they had a quick dust-up and hillbilly order has been restored, or they decided to hold a finicky truce.

Sara parks in front of the house and says, “Don’t forget your underwear.”

His boxers, her bra and panties, are laid out on the back seat.

Rodney blushes and Sara wants to say something like Getting shy now? but it’s so endearing she giggles at his red cheeks.

They park and walk up to the house, waving their still-wet undies around, being silly. They lope up the front steps and the door is wide open and she can hear Hank yelling into his phone.

That’s when her hands go off, vibrating cell phones.

She can hear Hank stomping about, threatening whoever’s on the other end of the call, saying, “So you’re saying this is everywhere, and I can’t do nothing to stop it?”

“Hank?” says Sara from the front doorway, still holding her bra and panties, Rodney a step behind her with balled-up boxers in one hand.

“Gotta go, Colby,” Hank says into the phone. “She’s here. I gotta deal with this shit.”

Hank stomps into the front room with Bernard trotting behind him. “Why’s he with you?” Hank asks, pointing at Rodney.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Why you carrying your panties, Sara?”

Sara. He calls her Sara. Not Baby Sis. Not anything with affection. Agitation. Letters, two consonants, two vowels. Sara doesn’t understand what could’ve changed. He was so supportive earlier, drinking beers in the kitchen and swimming in the empty pool and now he has hate in his eyes. He doesn’t look drunk, though, only ornery.

“What’s wrong, Hank?” she says.

“That was Colby.”

“I heard.”

“I guess congratulations are in order,” Hank says.

Poor Rodney is glued in the doorway with his dripping boxers. Sara peeks at him for a second and wishes to flee this house, this block and town, but it’s too late. They’re here. She’s here, and she doesn’t know what’s coming next, but she knows it’s not good.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sara says.

“Skank of the week!”

“What does that mean, Hank?”

“You are skank of the week on some porno site. Colby says it’s already had over 100,000 hits. It’s viral, Sara. And from the looks of it,” Hank says, coming over and grabbing her panties out of her hands, “you were out making another dirty movie. Did you fuck the town retard, Sara?”

“Don’t talk to me like that!” she says.

“No!” Rodney says, stepping into the room.

Hank takes the panties and throws them right in Rodney’s face, tries to step up to him, but before her brother can get to him, before Hank can hurt him again, Sara stands between them, saying to Rodney, “I need you to leave.”

“No,” he says.

“Leave,” she says. “Please.”

“Ten seconds till I make you leave,” Hank says.

“I’ll be fine,” Sara says and ushers him out, shutting and locking the door, feeling fear — actual fear — she’s scared of her brother. He’s never raised a hand to her, but it doesn’t seem impossible tonight.

She turns to him.

“What’s it feel like to be skank of the week?” he asks.

“Why are you talking to me like this? You knew about the video. Who cares what Colby thinks?”

“It ain’t Colby. It’s everyone, Sara. 100,000 hits in a day. A million in a week. Everyone will see it!”

“Why is this making you so mad?”

“And I no longer care what you think about Nat,” Hank says. “I’m going to destroy him.”

“Please stop, Hank,” Sara says.