June 11, 2020

With a heaving groan, Aaron hoisted yet another box of books out of the bed of the battered pickup truck. "How many books do these guys have?" he grumbled to himself, slinging the box up onto his broad shoulders. “Do you even know how to read?” he shouted at his brother, seeing Mike emerge from the house.

"Don't blame me, little bro," Mike joked, rubbing at the bushy brown beard that was already starting to drip sweat in the hot Kansas sun. “Most of these are Jenny’s. She’s got a ton of cookbooks, which I certainly don’t regret,” he said, patting his belly.

"You are looking a bit...round.”

Mike ignored his brother’s (somewhat) accurate jibe. He scooped up another box from the truck, still plenty strong, burgeoning pot belly and the gray creeping into his pandemic-induced shaggy brown hair notwithstanding. After taking two steps, however, the bottom dropped out of the hastily sealed box, spilling books everywhere.

Setting his box on the front step, Aaron returned and helped his brother gather up the scattered books. The first several he picked up were clearly torrid romance novels, complete with lurid covers. As his stack grew, however, his approval of Jenny’s taste in books rose. He spotted several classic sci fi and fantasy books, and even some niche modern titles like “The Trouble with Were-Bears.”

“Wow, I can’t believe Mr. Football Star married such a nerd, I mean, someone with such refined taste in literature,” he joked. “If this is the kind of stuff she’s into, I bet she’ll find some stuff on my shelves that she might be interested in.”

Books gathered and box reassembled, the brothers lugged their loads into the chaos engulfing the spacious house. Tumbleweeds of packing materials and mounds of half-empty boxes clearly out of place in the lavishly appointed great room. Amidst the madness, Jenny stood glaring at the men, loose wisps of honey-blonde hair that escaped from her tight bun floating wildly about her face. "How long does it take to bring in a few boxes?" she demanded, gesturing wildly with a spatula.

"A few boxes?" exclaimed Mike. "Tell you what. Let's trade jobs. You can bring in the ‘last few boxes' and we'll lounge around here in the air-conditioning and 'unpack,'" he sarcastically offered.

"Leave you two idiots in charge of unpacking?" She threw her hands up in disbelief, a manic energy radiating from her petite frame. "I've seen your idea of organizing and I'm not going to inflict that on this beautiful house." Rounding on Aaron, she pointed the spatula accusingly at him. "And I'm certainly not letting you make decisions. Not after seeing how your kitchen is laid out. Who puts spoons there? Who?" she demanded, breathing hard.

"Let's all take a deep breath and calm down," Aaron gently responded, placing his box next to the spiral staircase and stepping between the aggravated couple. "I know that isolating yourselves in that little apartment for three months has left you both a little...high strung. And I know that we're all worried about the pandemic. And I know that you're both anxious about our families, our friends, and even our coworkers. And we all know that moving sucks at the best of times..." He trailed off, frowning.

After several moments of silence, Jenny asked, "Were...were you going somewhere with all of that?"

"I...was," answered Aaron, shaking his head ruefully. "I was going to give you guys one of those classic rah-rah pump-up speeches, but it kind of just hit me again how shitty things are right now. For everybody." Shaking his head again, he tried in vain to pick up the thread of his nearly-inspirational speech. "Anyway...um...something-something kiss and make up. And whatnot. Yeah." Deflating somewhat, he trailed off again.

Somehow, his inspirational speech, or rather the comical farce it collapsed into, broke the tense stalemate. The married couple picked their way through the debris and embraced tightly. Aaron barely heard his brother mumble "Damnit JJ, I love you so damn much," before pulling her up for a brief kiss. The couple remained intertwined, reassuring each other of their love.

"Gross," remarked Aaron, a smile overtaking his previous frustrated frown. The significant height disparity between the couple always amused him. "I'm gonna go bring in the 'last few boxes,' since you lovebirds are clearly too busy." Smirking at the now-blushing couple, he dashed out the door.

Eight fully laden boxes of books later, the truck was finally empty. Standing in the empty kitchen, Aaron had no idea where his brother and sister-in-law had disappeared to. Taking advantage of the solitude, he stripped off his sweat-soaked sleeveless shirt. He examined it for a moment before shrugging and using it to dry his face and his close-cropped chestnut-brown hair. Lamenting the recent spike in humidity, he grabbed a bottle of Gatorade and drained it in one long pull. Distracted by the grape-y goodness, he failed to notice Jenny approaching from the guest wing.

“Is your gross shirt on the counter?”

Startled, Aaron spun around, facing his irritated sister-in-law. “It’s no big deal. It’s just a little sweaty.”

“It's disgusting. Is this how you live? What are you, an overgrown teenager?”

“I’ll fix it. I’ll fix it. Jeez, I had no idea you were such a neat freak.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” she snapped. “All you’ve ever done is avoid me. Avoid us. I always hoped that you’d warm up to me, maybe even open up, eventually. But that never really happened, did it?”

Aaron’s face flushed in response to the heat of both her barely restrained anger and her heartfelt warmth. “I had good reasons for acting like that, Jenny.”

“I’m sure you think they were good ones, but there’s no excuse for the way you have treated me, your family, or even most of the people in town.”

“Tell me how you really feel,” he said sarcastically.

“You want to know how I feel? How I really feel about you? Is that right?” Her limited patience was rapidly evaporating. “Fine. You’re an asshole. You up and vanished right after graduation. Nobody but Father Dominic knew where you had gone, and at least he had the decency to tell your parents not to worry. It wasn’t until you finished Basic that anybody else around here learned you’d run off and joined the Navy. And it’s not like you came home on leave if you didn’t have to. If we hadn’t gotten married while you were still in high school, I’m sure you would’ve skipped that too.”

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“I just couldn’t stick around here any longer. Not with everyone in town, especially my parents, constantly comparing me to Mike. Looking down on me. Why should I have to compete with that?” Aaron’s temper rose as he thought back on his childhood.

“So, you vanished because people were hard on you as a kid. Strong work, buddy. And when you moved back to town and took this caretaker job six years ago? Were people still mean to you? Looking down on you? No. They tried to reach out to you, to connect with you. And what did you do? Diddly squat. Took a fucking global pandemic for you to make any kind of effort at all.”

“I…made an effort. I hired Mike to do the custom farming on this place, didn’t I? That has to count for something.”

“You made an effort?” Jenny snorted in disbelief. “You hired a skilled professional to do a job that you needed done. Hardly a showing of brotherly love. Did you ever invite him out for dinner or a beer? Did you ever even have a fucking conversation that wasn’t about the job? That’s some real effort,” she spat. “You should get a fucking medal. Brother of the Year.”

Aaron stood, mouth agape, unable to come up with a response.

Ignorant of the tension filling the kitchen, Mike bounded up the stairs from the basement. “This place is fucking awesome! Are you sure your boss doesn’t mind us moving in with you? Seems a bit fancy to just let a couple of strangers camp out.”

Grateful for the interruption, Aaron said, “I asked Henry before I made the offer, and he was happy to agree. He’s riding out this pandemic at his Newport estate, so there’s plenty of room here for you guys.”

“Be sure to thank him for us anyway,” Mike said. “Hey, that’s a cool tattoo you’ve got there. Is it new?” Mike stepped closer, examining the tattoo on Aaron’s chest. He was impressed by the elegant depiction of a bee firing a Tommy Gun while wielding a hammer and a wrench. He turned his attention to the words surrounding the angry insect in confusion. "Construimus, Batuimus. What’s that mean?”

Jenny interrupted before he could respond. “We build, we fight.”

Aaron’s eyebrows rose in surprise at her swift translation. Before he could ask about it, she said, "You guys thought your parents were hardcore Catholics? Ain’t got nothing on mine. Mom made sure that we all learned Latin as kids, whether we wanted to or not. And I mean learned it. Quizzes us on it every Sunday."

“Is that what you and your sisters do every time we go to church?” Mike asked.

“Huh. I had no idea. I mean, I knew you were always everyone’s favorite student at Sunday School, but I didn’t know it went beyond that.”

Desperate to avoid yet another diatribe from Jenny on the things he missed by being a shitty family member, Aaron quickly shifted topics. "It's the logo for the Seabees. My unit while I was in the Navy. My buddies and I all got it when we finished A School. We got hammered and managed to find the one tattoo parlor in Waynesville that would ink our drunk asses. At least I was sober enough to get it on my chest. Jimmy convinced all the other guys to get them on their right butt cheek.” He chuckled warmly at the memory.

“Anyway, why don’t I give you the full tour of the place so you know where everything is?” asked Aaron.

“Sounds great, bro.”

“Alright, Mike has already discovered the basement. We’ve got a lounge with a big-screen TV and a fully stocked bar. Beyond that is a game room with foosball, pool table, ping-pong, and a large library of board games. At the end of the basement there are two guest rooms with a jack-and-jill bathroom between them. They’re nice rooms, but there are no windows, so I assumed you guys wouldn’t want to stay down there.”

“You’re right about the windows thing. Somebody definitely needs a blast of that sweet Kansas sunshine every morning or she’ll never manage to get out of bed.” Jenny reached out and affectionately punched Mike in the arm, though she nodded thoughtfully as she did so. “That bar is fucking amazing, though,” Mike continued.

“It was actually salvaged from a prohibition-era speakeasy in Chicago. Henry likes to claim that Capone used to drink at that bar, but I have my doubts, personally.”

“Jenny, you’ve obviously already made yourself at home here in the kitchen, and the dining room and lounge are self-explanatory. The table is currently set for 6 people, but it can expand out to hold 14 comfortably, and 16 in a pinch. The extra leaves and chairs are in storage in the basement. Laundry is over there, on the way to the garage. Henry’s master suite takes up most of the west side of the house, though I generally try to stay out of there. We’re friends, but he’s also my boss, ya know?”

“Of course. We will obviously respect his privacy. It’s the least we can do since he is being so kind and letting us stay here,” Jenny said.

“Thanks. Up that spiral staircase is a loft which overlooks the kitchen. It’s set up as a library and an office, but it also has some comfy furniture for reading or watching a little TV. Mike can haul your book collection up there and you can take over some of the shelves. There’s plenty of room.”

Turning towards the east side of the home, Aaron continued. “Everything over here is a part of the guest wing. I assume you guys have already picked out a room. One of the guest rooms at the front of the house, right?”

“Of course we did,” snapped Jenny, her previous ire not fully dissipated by her husband’s sudden appearance. “Did you really think that we wanted to share a bathroom with you when there are two open rooms on the opposite side of the sitting area?”

Mike couldn’t tell if this was residual tension from earlier or something new. “Um…anyway…thanks again for letting us stay with you. We really couldn’t take being in that apartment any longer. We didn’t want to move back in with Mom and Dad, but we were running out of options.”

“With his asthma and her hypertension, we couldn’t really take the risk of exposing either of them,” Jenny added. “They’re both high risk for COVID, not to mention that other virus we’ve just started hearing about. Bill and Thea are much better off staying isolated on the farm and sticking to a two-person bubble. And with the three of us living together, coordinating grocery drops for them should get a little easier.”

“Oh sure, you won’t risk my parents’ health but you’re fine with exposing me to the ravages of Duplo,” Aaron joked. “Diplodocus? Duodenum? Whatever it is.”

“That’s a risk I’m willing to have you take,” Mike replied, dodging a swipe from his brother, and scampering away towards his new bedroom.

* * * * *

As the setting sun painted the warm evening sky with bright pastels, Aaron sat on the porch swing, silently admiring the peaceful view. Elysian Acres truly was a paradise deserving of the name, at least to Aaron. Fields of wheat, sorghum, and soybeans stretched as far as he could see. His small patch of sunflowers was just visible at the corner of the house. His quiet contemplation was broken by the arrival of his brother.

“I talked to Jenny,” he said, a cold beer in each hand. “I’m sorry about that. She shouldn’t have ripped into you like that when you’re doing such a nice thing for us.”

“Nothing she said was untrue, even if I didn’t like hearing it.”

The brothers sat in quiet contemplation, breathing in the still night air. Their reverie was disturbed by the sound of a jet passing overhead, drawing their eyes inexorably upwards.

“Who the hell is flying anywhere in the middle of a global lockdown?” asked Mike.

“Probably just luxury goodies being shuffled around between uptight East Coasters and tech-bro West Coasters,” answered Aaron. “Even in a nationwide crisis, nobody out there’s thinking about all the rest of us in between. We’re just stuck here in Flyover Country, left to fend for ourselves.”

“Gloomy, but probably fair. Well, we’ll still be here taking care of one another when somebody does wake up and realize that there are plenty of folks here too.” He passed one of the beers to Aaron. “Here’s to those of us stuck in the middle.”

“To Flyover Country,” Aaron answered, clinking bottles with his brother and then taking a deep drink.