A Tale of Three Brothers (Completed)

The Ugly Truth

Three Years Ago

"But mom I don't wanna hang out with you guys for the 4th of July. I had plans."

"You should have thought of that before you decided it would be funny to deflate all the school footballs."

Sam laughed. "It was funny."

"Not to Coach Phillips."

Sam was in the room he shared with Dylan, glowering at the walls when Martha came in. "What do you want?" Sam snarled.

"To gaze into the face of defeat," Martha said.

Sam picked up a pillow and threw it at her. She caught it and laughed. "Seriously, Sam. What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking, I hate football."

"Really?" Martha said. "Because I heard that Chance Williams and Sarah Lead broke up today."

"So, what," Sam said.

"Chance is captain of the football team," Martha said. "Apparently, Chance was caught kissing Stacy Calhood in the girl's locker room. Sarah was devastated. And you've had a thing for her since the fifth grade."

Sam did a slow clap. "Well, congratulations detective Martha. You've cracked the case. Now, get out of my room. This is an ugly free zone, remember?"

"Then I guess you should get out," Martha said. She scowled at him and left the room.

                                                                                       *******

The remaining weeks of June dragged on. The days were hot and long and never-ending, and the nights were just as insufferable. They were in the middle of the worst heat wave Kiwi Town had seen since 1997. Plants were dying, cars wouldn't start and the city was asking people to stay inside their houses.

Trisha moved in on one of the hottest days of the summer. 110 degrees. She left all her belongings in storage, as it was too hot to be lifting and moving things. In that sense, her move in was uneventful. She simply showed up one day at the Kiwi house and never left.

The Tavert boys now found themselves in unchartered waters. Their father didn't care if they left the toilet seat up or if their clothes were left all over the bathroom floor, but Trisha did. She made them wash the dishes when they were done eating, put the tv remote back in its holster when they weren't using it, turn off the lights when they weren't in the room. Ordinary things that, even when their mother was still alive, she'd simply never made them do.

Putting together the house had become Trisha's pet project. Every morning, she woke up and found something new to clean or fix. First, it was getting Michael Tavert to nail down the living room floorboards, then it was sealing up the leak under the kitchen sink, then it was scrubbing down the bathrooms. Slowly, the Tavert house began to transform into something that hadn't been seen since over a year. Normalcy.

The heat wave broke just in time for the fourth of July. Trisha talked Michael into hosting a barbeque, though he was sure nobody would come. Sam and his brothers were also skeptical about the barbeque. What if someone showed up wanting to start trouble? What if nobody showed up at all? It was for this reason that they'd stopped celebrating the holidays.

"It's crazy, isn't it?" Sam said to Lara as they laid in her bed, passing a blunt back and forth. "She has to know how people feel about us in this town. She has to know that nobody will come. Right?"

"I'll come," Lara said.

"What?" Sam said. "Lara, no. You aren't coming."

"Why not?" she said. "I'd like to meet this Trisha. You talk so much about her."