Son for Hire: Chapter 58

Kitty and I fall in behind Evelyn as she leads us upstairs.  I can see my sister taking in the luxurious decor along the way, just as I had that first time Evelyn had brought me up.  Personally I was far too distracted by Evelyn’s big swaying bum to give a crap about looking around.  In the upstairs hallway we pass by the only room I’d been in, Alan and Evelyn’s room, then past another two doors, right and left, until we are under the hatch that lead up into the attic.

Evelyn looks up at the hatch, the handle far too high for any of us to reach, and mutters.  “Shoot, forgot the step stool.”  She nods to one of the doors we’d just passed.  “There’s a chair in there.  Would you mind grabbing it for me baby?”

“Yes Ma’am.”  I say.  Out of the corner of my eye I catch Kiki smirk at my natural and instantaneous obedience, she doesn’t say a thing though.

I open the door and step in…then freeze in my tracks as I see the room around me.  There were posters of athletes and sports teams.  Lines of shelves laden with medals and trophies, so many trophies, line the walls.  Framed photos of a boy turned teen turned man are hung in the spaces between the posters all showing him smiling and holding some of the very trophies in this room.  And it wasn’t just athletic laurels either.  One photo that particularly stands out shows him in the robes and cap of graduation, his rolled up diploma held just below the valedictorian medal hanging around his neck.  I knew it was a valedictorian medal because it is currently draped around the frame of that photo with the word etched clearly in gold.  In that particular photo his two proud parents stand flanking him smiling at their son’s accomplishment.  The man I saw in those photos was tall, fit, handsome, smart and successful.  With his father’s dark hair and his mother’s hazel eyes left no doubt whose son he was.

It was Eugene’s room.  No.  It wasn’t just a room, it was a fucking shrine!  A treasury of his many triumphs and a museum of his undeserved blessed life.  The room was spotless.  Everything perfectly in its place.  Even the way his baseball bat leaned in the corner looks like it had been positioned just so.  He hadn’t been home for a visit for at least a couple of months but from the impeccable state of this room it looked as if he’d been here just the day before.  His Mom, his true Mom, looked after this space with the care and attention only a mother could.

That caustic burn of envy roils inside of my gut as I stare at that graduation photo.  It brought home the fantasy I was living more vividly than anything before it.  I could be so many things to Evelyn but I could never have her eyes.  He had her blood.  She carried him inside of her.  She built him up into the man he was.  She was a part of him in a way I never could be…and he was the better man for it.

“The chair is at the desk.”  Evelyn says as she appears at the door, my sister at her side.  “Do you see it?”

I snap back to the moment with a little shake of my head.  “Uh, yeah.”  I start toward the desk in the corner.

“Woah!”  Kitty steps into the room and looks around.  “Look at all of this!”

My hands grip the sides of the wooden desk chair hard.  Had I not paused to look around myself I would have been out of here by now, I was already regretting that I hadn’t been quicker.

“This is my son Eugene’s room.”

“Obviously.”  I quip sarcastically.  With a hurt glance I see that she catches the bite to my reply but she says nothing.

“Damn.”  Kitty says as she takes in the pictures and trophies all around us.  “He did all of this?”

“These are just the best ones.”  Evelyn replies as she straightens a trophy that didn’t need to be straightened.  “There are boxes more in the attic.”

“Geez!”  Stopping to focus in on one of the more recent photos that showed him posed the baseball uniform of his university Kitty whistles.  “He’s hot!”

Evelyn chuckles proudly.  “And he knows it.  He’s quite a little heart breaker that one.  Seems like he has a new girl every week.”

“Mmm, I see why.”  Kit purrs.  “What a stud.”

“And smart as a whip.”  She says with natural maternal delight.  “He was in the 90th percentile on his SAT.”

With every word they spoke I felt smaller and smaller and smaller.  “He certainly made the most of his advantages.”  I say, jealousy raging.  “Must have been nice having all the best teachers and equipment and stuff.”

Evelyn gives me a look.  “He earned everything he got, same as the other boys.”

Kit walks about, her eyes flitting among the awards.  “Look at this stuff.  Wrestling, baseball, soccer, tennis.  Wow.”

“Baseball is his real love.”

“Is there anything this guy didn’t win?”

“He’s a driven man.”  Evelyn says.  “Just like his father.  A natural born winner.”  Unlike her other boy, a natural born loser.  She didn’t say that of course, she didn’t need to.  The insinuation came through loud and clear.

Kitty takes things from bad to worse.  Looking at one of the larger trophies she says.  “Woah, state champion!  I never won nothin.  Not even a spelling bee.  Ha!”  

My heart sinks as I realize where this was going.  Oh no!  Don’t say it.  Please Kitty, don’t you dare say it!  I go to interrupt her but I am too late.

“Donny won something though.”  Her brown eyes gleam.  “He’s a winner too.”

“Oh?”  Evelyn says brightly, a big smile growing.  “Did he now?”

“I didn’t win.  It was nothing.”  I mutter.  Sliding the chair out from the desk I try to move things along.  “Let’s go see the stuff.  We’ve got a lot to do.”

Evelyn would not let it go though.  “What did he win?”

“It’s stupid, it’s nothing.”

“It’s not stupid!”  As proud as a sister could be Kitty brags.  “The community center near us has this music competition every year.  Kids from the neighborhood could sing or bring whatever instrument they had and do a number.  And, well, when he was eleven our boy Donny here got the silver ribbon.”

“Silver!  Wow!”  Evelyn says in what could only be a pitying, patronizing excitement.  “He sang?”

“Nuh uh.”  Kitty shakes her head.  “Piano.  He had this old keyboard we picked up at the secondhand store.  Three of the keys didn’t even work.  Taught himself with a book.”

“He plays piano!?”

“No.”  I say.  “I don’t.”

“It got broken not long after.”  Kit says, thankfully she skips past the sad story of how that happened.  “He gave it up after that.”

“Oh.”  Evelyn sighs sadly.  “That’s too bad.”  

My heart is wrenched as Evelyn hears more about the real me.  Not only was I loser, I was a quitter too.  Not like her precious Eugene.  God how I wished Kitty would just shut the fuck up.

“But you should have heard him that day.”  My sister continues, happily reminiscing.  “He looked so small up there on the stage by himself.  He was so scared.”

“Ohhhh!  I wish I had been there.  I bet he was incredible.”

“He was.  He really was.”  Kitty comes up behind me and gives me a hug, I tense up at the touch.  She was always so proud of me for that performance, holding it up like some great achievement.  She couldn’t understand how much she was humiliating me right now.  Here, in this glorious treasury dedicated to Eugene’s greatness, what in the hell was my shabby little second place ribbon from some inner city rec center?  Kit continues.  “He worked so hard on it.  He nearly wore the keys out playing that song again and again.  I must have heard it a thousand times.”

“What song?”

“Canon in D.”  She says.  “It was beautiful.”

“Ohhh, that one is lovely.”  Where once I heard warmth I now hear nothing but condescension.  She didn’t have to pretend to be impressed.  I knew how pathetic it was.  My mother might have laughed at me for missing notes and teased me for trying to act better than my station, but at least her derision was honest.  Evelyn continues.  “Classical music, I never would have guessed.  That is wonderful my boy.”

“He chose it because I liked it.”  Kit’s arms tighten around me.  “He played it for me.  I was right there in the front row.”

“Aww!”  Evelyn croons.  “That is so sweet.  Well…I want to hear this!”

“No.”  I snap.  “I don’t play anymore.”

“I am sure with a bit of practice…”

“No!”  I wriggle from my sister’s arms and shoot her an angry glare then lift the chair and carry it from the room.  “Are we doing this or what?”

“Donny?”  Kit says, confused at what she’d done wrong.  How could she be so blind?  So stupid?  How could they both be?  Did they enjoy seeing me humiliated?

Chapter 59