Secrets, Lies and Dragonflies

Chapter 42

"Spencer!" Aunt Amy scolds. "What are you doing? Will you put that thing down!" She tries, but even her harshest whisper comes across much too kind to be considered a true warning.

Squinting against the dewy light breaking through the hallway, I awaken with my right arm slung over my ear. My head awkwardly drapes half off the side of the bed. No pillow. And then there's this horrible pain shooting up my left arm.

"I'm sorry," Spencer says.  He sounds rattled. "I-I didn't know it was going to do that. It was so...loud." Now he sounds fascinated. "Do you think Andrew heard it?" Andrew is his neighborhood friend, the one who I never made it back to on Saturday night.

"I think the whole town heard it," she says.

"Cool, er, I mean...."

"I think we better leave your sister and her cool horn alone to rest," she softly replies.

"Yeah. Okay. I was just coming to say goodbye, but she was still asleep," he whispers, placing the horn on my nightstand.

"I'm not now, little man," I say, tugging on his shirt. "Off to school, huh?"

"I didn't mean to wake you up. I thought I heard you yelling out my name, but you were talking in your sleep." Spencer says with a shrug. "Then I saw this thing next to your bed. It looked like a can of silly string and— "

"and you naturally pushed the button to see what it would do?" I force my grimace to appear more like a smirk as I try to sit upright.

"Let me help you, sweetheart," Aunt Amy says, scooping pillows from the floor. One gets tucked behind my head and the other is a prop for my casted arm. "The clerk at the mini-mart told me that I would be able to hear it when I was working in the kitchen with the music on. He wasn't kidding. I didn't know it was going to be that loud," she says with a white, chalky residue smeared across her nose and along her cheek. "You're hurting, aren't you?"

"Just a little," I lied, thinking about her buying that horn in the mini-mart where toilet paper won out over milk. I add that to the list of debts.

"How about I grab you some fresh squeezed orange juice and a warm blueberry muffin to take with your medicine." She puts her hands on the back of Spencer's shoulders. "And you're new alarm clock here can let me know if you need anything else." He turns his head into her, the way a toddler hides when he's embarrassed. I can tell something shifted between them. Except with me, he rarely looks anyone in the eye for longer than five seconds, much less tolerate physical contact, all thanks to our dear old stepdad's many contributions as our nurturing fatherly influence. Whenever mom would try to hug him or want him to sit on her lap, Rob would call him sissy or mama's boy or find some other demeaning way to harass him.

Aunt Amy tussles the back of his neatly combed hair. "I'll be right back."

Now wide awake, I inspect his wardrobe. "Wow. You look sharp, Spence." Normally, I'm chasing him around the house with a brush and a different shirt that would match his pants. But this morning, he's dressed unusually well in color-coordinated attire of a freshly laundered white shirt, plaid shorts and matching socks. He even paid particular attention to his hair.

"Thanks," he says scuffing the floor awkwardly. The kid squirms in his own skin anytime someone pays him a compliment.

"Something going on at school?"

"Nope." He has a little glow to him this morning. I wonder what's different.

The bus horn sounds.

"I gotta go."

"I hope you have a great day. And thanks for the wakeup call!" I shout as he flies out the door.