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My brother Sam was also tall and he was no slouch, he could
probably hold his own with, say, Morrie, Feb’s brother. I doubted
he could last a round with Security to the Stars and he might buy a
round if he talked about Joe’s woman like that.
    “Let’s go inside,” I coaxed.
    Sam wasn’t done with Joe and his friend
though. I knew this because he felt the need to announce to them,
“Havin’ dinner with my family. All fuckin’ right!”
    “Sam!” I snapped, finally forgetting Joe and
his partner. “Hello? The f-bomb is off-limits around teenage
girls.”
    “Mom!” Keira cried. “They say it at school
all the time.”
    “ Maybe so but they don’t say it in my
driveway or,” I looked at Sam, “in my house.”
    “Relax, shit,” Sam smiled, dropping his arms
but turning and throwing one around my shoulders as he used his
other hand to guide both Kate and Keira into the house in front of
us like he herded teenage females for a living.
    “Shit’s off-limits too,” I told Sam and he
looked over his shoulder toward Joe’s house.
    “Violet’s uptight! I’m here five minutes and
she’s lecturing me,” he shouted and I shoved him through the door,
turned toward Joe’s and started shouting myself.
    “Sorry, really sorry, show’s over!”
    “No probs!” the woman shouted back
good-naturedly.
    Joe seemed to be staring at me and he didn’t
say a word.
    I scooted inside and closed the door.
    “He texted me!” Kate told me practically
before the door closed. “At school, said he was coming to town and
wanted to surprise you.”
    “Took a long time gettin’ home, Vi-oh-my,
waited frickin’ forever,” Sam noted. “What, you live at that garden
center?”
    “I was doing overtime,” I answered as I
shrugged off my corduroy coat. I turned to put it on a hook by the
door, an action which served double duty of allowing me to avoid
the look Sam gave me.
    “Uncle Sam made his world famous spaghetti
carbonara,” Keira announced. “I was lookout. We shut off the lights
when I saw your car on the street.”
    I turned again to look at the kitchen and saw
that my brother did make spaghetti carbonara and he also made the
mess that came with it.
    Kate rushed up to me and grabbed my
forearm, pulling down on it, informing me, “He’s staying a couple
of days. He’s gonna meet Dane .”
    Lucky Sam, he was going to meet the
awesome Dane .
    “If that’s cool with you, Vi,” Sam said.
    Like he had to ask.
    It was cool with me. It was cool he stayed a
couple of days or a couple of years. That wasn’t loneliness
speaking. That was how much I loved my little brother.
    “That’s cool.”
    “ Excellent! ” Keira shouted.
    “I’ll get the stuff for the pull out,” Kate
offered then ran from the room.
    “Keira, honey, set the table,” I told my
other daughter.
    “Sure,” she agreed, moving to the cupboard
and Sam got close to me.
    “We’ll talk about overtime after dinner,” he
said quietly.
    My eyes shifted to the side and up, caught
his; I nodded and walked into my house.
    * * * * *
    We ate spaghetti carbonara at the dining
room table and I only felt a twinge of hurt when Sam sat in Tim’s
chair instead of beside Keira where he usually sat one of the
million times he was around for dinner when we lived close to him
in Chicago. I wondered if my girls felt this same twinge but
watching them through dinner, I figured they were too excited by
Sam’s visit to notice.
    Sam made garlic bread and a big Caesar salad
to go with the spaghetti and the whole thing was delicious, not
only because it wasn’t dinner for one or I didn’t have to cook it
but because Sam’s spaghetti carbonara could be world famous if the
world was lucky enough to get a taste.
    I was sipping my wine as the girls were
finishing up eating. Both had been talking about their new school,
their new friends and Kate, of course, shared a great deal about
the fabulous Dane . Therefore
they weren’t paying a lot of attention to their