The Fake Out by Sharon M. Peterson

THIRTY-TWO

Did you scrape your knees crawling out of Hell? ’Cause, damn, you’re hot.

—KARA R.

The Sterns’ property started long before we saw the house. Flat, endless fields of grass dotted with spindly oak trees. We reached a fork in the road with a sign that pointed left for LAKE and right for HOUSE.

“You have a lake?” I asked when we turned down a winding dirt road toward the house. “How big is this place?”

“About eighty acres,” Chris said.

“Did you grow up here?”

He shook his head. “I grew up just outside Oklahoma City. My dad grew up around here and always wanted to come back, but five kids made that hard.”

“Plus a sick baby,” I murmured.

“When Millie was older and needed the doctors less and I could help them, we all picked this together.” Finally, he turned down a driveway, each side lined with bright white and pink crape myrtles against a wooden fence.

“You bought it for them?”

“It wasn’t charity,” he clarified. “They sacrificed a lot for me. Hours of driving me to football practices and going to games. Visits to specialty doctors when I needed them, uniforms, being the team parent, putting up with other guys on the team, all that. I wanted to do it for them.”

I thought about Mama and how I wanted to give her everything so her life could be easier. “I get it.”

We passed by a banner hung between two fence posts. Someone had painted crudely, but clearly, in giant letters: WELCOME HOME, ELMER.

“Who’s Elmer?” I asked, pointing as we passed.

Chris grunted. “No one.”

I would have grilled him on that more because I could tell he knew exactly who Elmer was, but we turned a bend in the road and there it was. Two stories with a wraparound porch, the red-brick house was surrounded by flowerbeds bursting with color. An enormous oak tree stood in the front with a swing dangling from a branch.

A white picket fence surrounded it all behind which three dogs barked with excitement as we drove right by.

“Wait. Isn’t that the house?” I asked.

“That’s my parents’ house. Mine is back here.” He drove around another bend to reveal a much smaller one-story house.

“Oh.” I frowned. “I guess I assumed you had an apartment or something on your own.”

“This works out pretty well.” He pulled the truck in front of a small, detached garage. “I get my own privacy but I’m still around.”

“Sooo.” I twisted my hands in my lap. “Exactly where am I staying?”

Instead of answering, he hopped out of the truck and rounded it to open my door. “Oh, I have bunk beds. Since you’re the guest, I’ll let you have the top bunk.”

I glared at him. “You are a twelve-year-old boy in a man’s body, you know that?”

With a grin, he took a step back and held out a hand. “Fine. You can have the second bedroom.”

“Chrisss,” a voice yelled. A blurry figure raced across the football field-sized lawn between the houses, a dog following closely. A dark ponytail passed me without slowing as its owner threw herself in Chris’s arms.

“Whoa,” he said, but caught her up in a hug easily enough. When he set her down, he was laughing.

She looked about the same age as Iris, and that was where the similarities ended. This girl with the bouncy ponytail and twinkly eyes (like Chris) gave off big Sunshine Energy (also like her brother).

“Aggie, this is Mae,” Chris said.

Aggie bounced over and threw her arms around me. “I can’t believe you’re here. He’s not shut up about you.” She took a step back and picked up a piece of my hair. “Your hair is gorgeous. The pictures online do not do it justice.”

I smiled because it was hard not to smile around her, that much was obvious. “It’s nice to meet you. Are you the one who likes to keep his Wikipedia page up to date?”

With a grin so much like her brother’s it was almost disconcerting, she linked arms with me. “I see you know my work. I have so many more things I could tell you. I have photos. I have video.”

“You know, I’m your favorite brother, right.” Chris called from behind us.

Ignoring him, Aggie pulled me toward the house, talking slightly slower than the speed of light. “Now, let’s go meet everyone else. Mom wanted to play it cool, so she sent me over.”

“No one ever plays it cool in this family,” Chris muttered. “Prepare yourself, Mae.”

I faltered. “For what?”

“The Sterns.”

Margot Sterns was a pretty woman with dark hair and an infectious smile. A bit shorter than me, she was curvy with twinkly dark eyes. Like Aggie, she didn’t even wait for an introduction before drawing me into a hug.

“When Chris told me about meeting you, I just knew you were special.” She pressed a hand to her heart. “I could tell from his voice my boy was in love. I’m so excited you’re here.”

“Oh, thank you?” My eyes darted to Chris, who seemed to be finding his phone very interesting.

“When you know, you know. The first time I met his daddy, I knew. Of course, it took that man a whole lot longer to clue in. But thirty-three years married this summer.” With a bright smile, she pulled a chair out at the little round kitchen table and gestured for me to sit. “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea? Oh! I have some strawberry lemonade, too.”

“Water sounds good.”

“Of course.” She shooed Chris to the side on her trek to the refrigerator. “I have some leftover cheesecake. Now, I don’t want to ruin your dinner, but a little cheesecake doesn’t count, am I right?”

This was logic I could not argue with.

“Hi, Mom.” Chris spread his arms wide. “Your baby boy is home.”

Margot patted his cheek on the way back to the table. She set a glass of water and an enormous piece of cheesecake in front of me. “Yes, yes. I love you. Why don’t you go find Millie and say hello? Go with him, Aggie.”

“But I wanted some lemonade and cheesecake,” Aggie whined.

Margot looked her dead in the eye and said, “No.”

Chris’s eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to get rid of us?”

“Why would I do that?” She sat across from me and beamed a smile at him. “Now, go away.”

Chris turned slowly, a little bewildered, and headed out of the kitchen. He paused next to me and dropped a kiss on my cheek. I gave him one last desperate look before he was gone.

And I was alone.

With his mother.

HOW WAS THIS MY LIFE?

I rubbed my damp palms on my shirt and searched my brain for something to say. “I love your kitchen.”

That was a low-stakes conversation starter, and I wasn’t even lying. It was lovely, airy and bright with lots of windows and white cabinets that stretched to the ceiling. The walls were a sunny yellow, the curtains red gingham, and the floor slightly scuffed wood. There were a few dishes in the sink and photos dangling from magnets on the fridge. A loaf of bread on the counter. A bag of chips left out. It wasn’t a magazine kitchen; it was a family kitchen, and something about that put me at ease more than anything Margot could say.

“Don’t look too closely at it. I’ve been on Luke to fix some things around here but, you know how it is. He spends all day fixing things for other people; he doesn’t want to do it when he gets home. I keep saying what will the neighbors think when I have to hire a handyman and my husband is a contractor.” She pushed the cheesecake toward me, and I took a bite. “I’m sorry. I’m talking a million miles a minute. I do that when I’m excited. Tell me about your family.” Margot placed her elbow on the table and her chin in her palm, her warm brown eyes giving me all her attention.

I took a sip of water to stall. “It’s just my mom and sister and me.”

Her eyes turned sympathetic. “Chris told me about your mom’s stroke. I can’t imagine how difficult that’s been for your family.”

“We’re doing fine.” Because that’s what I always said.

She reached out and patted my hand. “Oh, honey. I’m sure it hasn’t been at all fine. You know, when I was ten, my mother was hit by a car crossing the street. She passed away that evening and my father was left to raise my brother and me. It was a hard time. We all had to pitch in to help any way we could, and we only had each other. I guess what I’m saying is that I know it can’t have been easy for you. Sometimes we need to not be okay. Do you ever get to do that?”

“Um…” Very smooth, Mae. I stuffed an enormous forkful of cheesecake in my mouth.

Margot smiled sweetly. “I hope this weekend you can have a bit of rest and relaxation. Don’t think you need to impress me by offering to help or being on your best behavior. You’re a part of the family now, and we take everyone just the way they come.”

The backs of my eyes began to prick, my nose stung. In horror, I realized I was half a second from crying. How had I gotten here? All I’d said was she had a lovely kitchen.

The back door opened and a young woman half fell into the kitchen. “Is she here?”

She looked about twenty-two or so and was built like her mother, tall and round, her hair cut into a short bob and dyed bright pink. With her nose ring and mini jean skirt and her Chucks, she had a boldness to her that appeared to come naturally. But it was those dark eyes that stood out the most. They shone with intelligence. I guessed this was the second Sterns’ sister, who I knew was a teacher.

With a foot, she closed the door and held out her hand. “I’m Betsy, Elmie’s favorite sister.”

“Elmie?”

“Yeah, it’s our nickname for him. We all have nicknames, so he had to have one too.”

I must have looked as confused as I felt. Her face lit up as a huge smile transformed her from pretty to gorgeous. “He didn’t tell you, did he?”

“Tell me what?”

Betsy rubbed her hands together and sat herself at the table with us. “Our parents named us all after relatives in the family tree. Way, way back in the family tree.”

“They’re classics,” Margot said.

Betsy rolled her eyes. “Eleanor, Elizabeth, Agnes, and Millicent, but we all go by nicknames because… obviously.”

“And Chris?”

“Chris is short for Christian but that’s his middle name.” Betsy’s eyes danced with delight. “We like to say he got the most special name of all.”

“He did,” Margot protested. “He’s named after a great-great uncle on your father’s side who was an Oklahoma State Representative. An elected official and a patriot.”

“So, what is it?” I asked.

“Elmer.”

“No.”

“Elmer Christian Sterns is a very strong, dignified name,” Margot said.

I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing.

Betsy pulled the plate of cheesecake toward her and loaded up the fork with a big bite. “This is going to be fun. I have so many things to tell you.”