Ten Miles Beyond the Asphalt

Knowing what I was going for he abandoned the toy and chased after me. Loki, of course, wanted to go into the shed. He, of course, wanted to drag out the whole fifty-five-pound bag. And of course, he gave me mournful looks when I didn't let him have the whole bag. Big soulful eyes, drool leakings like rain and his tail dragging the utter picture of dejection. I scruffed his ears and he chuffed at me then began to eat. Like watching a dragline chew into a cliff at a gravel quarry.

Dodging dog poop mountains, some fit to rival Everest, I headed inside.

After so long in the stinking dorm, and the days up at the often damp cabin, the smell of home wrapped me up as I walked inside. That indistinguishable scent that tells you this is your place. Years of familiar cooking mixed with decades of the same air fresheners, laundry detergents, and shampoos. It was the eternal mud smell of Dad's old riding boots and Mom's obsession with Pine Sol. I'm sure there was something of my own scents mixed in with the others, a smell my nose recognized and dismissed.

My sisters, shampoo. Her perfume. Her ....

A gentleman would have looked away I'm sure. Or maybe a man less stunned by beauty could have managed to do that chivalrous act. Standing in the hallway, my breathing a soft pant, I watched the last second of my sister getting dressed in her room. Her door was opened, and she was by her bed pulling on a blouse. Her back smooth, rounded with muscles and her left breast, seen from the side encased in white cotton, hung firm. Before she noticed me watching, I took a step forward, then a second. My hesitant feet betrayed me though and took me to her doorway instead of my own bedroom next to it.

She looked over her shoulder as she settled her shirt. Megan's eyes took in the look on my face and gave me a moment's flash of a sad smile. "The big baby fed?"

"Yeah."

"You ready to go then?" she asked.

"Let me change shirts."

"Okay." She smoothed down the blouse. "Does this look okay? I haven't worn it but once before."

"I remember." I took a deep breath shoving that sad memory down. Not now. "Yeah, it looks fine. You look beautiful."

My sister, of course, shrugged that off. Megan was never one to accept compliments about her looks. She had written them off as plain Jane since giving up the makeup heavy lifestyle of a beauty pageant child. Now if she had more than lipstick on it was a Jesus-be-praised miracle.

"I'll fix us some sandwiches while you get changed." She tossed the tank top she had been wearing in the direction of the laundry basket in the corner. "Who knows how long till we can get another meal."

With a nod, I headed towards my room, my old room anyway. I saw that Mom had been storing some things in it.

"Jake."

"Yeah?"

"Thanks. For saying I look beautiful." She gave an apologetic shrug. "I needed that, I guess. It helped."

With a soft smile, I nodded and headed into my room.

** ** ** ** ** ** **

Loki barked us a mournful goodbye.

The ride to the hospital was short. Part of me wanted it to be longer. So very much longer. As I parked the truck, I felt such a sense of dread. It settled over my shoulders like an old coat. The walk to the glass front doors was awkward feeling, but then I guess walking into any hospital feels that way. The building almost keeps an air of permanently held breath. As if it knows that, within its walls, people were on their last moments of life. Or perhaps that held breath feeling was a collected gasp by the hundreds who never drew another.

Leaving such morbid thought, I followed my sister to the desk. We had to show ID and get a printed out picture badge. I peeled the backing off and stuck it to my shirt as we walked to the elevator. The brushed steel and fake wood box carried us into the cold antiseptic world of the Intensive Care Unit. Pale blue walls, with plastic curtains printed with simple diamond dot patterns, there to give privacy and to give the family something to count in the endless hours of waiting.

Mom looked tired. Not that most people would notice that about her, she was dressed impeccably, not a hair was out of place and her makeup was perfect. Even with her hair frosting silver, she looked ready for a pageant stage, needing only a tiara.

Dad ... well, I've seen him look this bad this once before, but I was only a little kid then. A group of hotshot riders at a track, doing stupid stunts before a race, one of them smarted off to Dad. Challenged him to do a stunt. Dan Danger Reese was of course never one to back down from any challenge. Even one that landed him in the hospital with broken legs and a punctured spleen.

No. He looked worse this time.

Megan was trembling when she went to Dad's side. She had been a pacifier-sucking baby in Mom's arms back then. Standing back, my arms folded, I let her have her personal moment with him. She was the definition of a Daddy's girl and to see him like this was killing her.

"I need a cigarette and I'm starving." Mom got to her feet. "It's only two family members up here at a time, anyway. I'll be back in a few."

"I'll walk you out. Sis?" Stepping up next to her I placed a hand on my sister's shoulder. She looked up at me, red-eyed. "I'll be back in just a minute."

Numbly she nodded.

Mom grabbed her purse and we walked our way back out. We got to the elevator before the Spanish Inquisition began. Sigh. It was not good. It took all my convincing and persuasion to get her to not go right back up to ICU. She was a snarling, high heels tapping the floor like hammer blows ... fiend! ... all the way outside and she promptly ignored the "No Smoking" sign by the door. Then she was pacing a trench into the cement while firing questions at me I had no answers to or worse answers I knew Mom didn't want to hear. She spits the word Motocross back at me, tosses down that cigarette and fired up a second.

"Mom, go get some food. None of this can be fixed at the moment. When Dad's better he can talk her into going back, better than a million words from you or me." OH, how I hated that lie coming out my mouth. From talking to Megan I knew that not even Dad might pull that off. "Just let it sit and cool down till you try and talk to her. If you pounce on her, she will not budge. Certainly not right now; she's torn up about Dad."

Crushing out the second cigarette under her shoe, she nodded and stalked back inside. I had to watch her go off towards the cafeteria before I trusted she was not about to sprint up the stairs in her heels and go confront Megan. Sigh, oh our mom is so pissed.

I was by the elevator waiting for it to open when my Aunty Elena came through the front door trailed by two of her youngest. My cousins, Jen and Anna squawk when they saw me, squealed and ran to give me a hug. Kneeling, I let them hug it out. All bubble gum kisses on my cheeks and pigtails whacking me in the face.

Standing up, I gave my Aunt a hug. She was more spearmint gum and Aqua Net sandpaper hair.

"So how is he?" she asked after kissing me. I'm sure she left lipstick on my cheek. "And how's your Mom holding up?"

Oh, that was a conversation I wanted no part of. Knowing that the little ones were not going to be allowed up in ICU, I steered her towards the cafeteria while trying to answer. Mom was sitting looking into a salad as if trying to find answers in lettuce. She, of course, put on a "glad you're here" display for her brother-in-law's wife and seemed genuinely happy to see the little girls.

I left them there to go check on my sister ... and our dad.

** ** ** ** ** ** **

Five hours. Ten hours. Fifteen hours ... Dad never woke up. But then if I had the meds in me he was on I wouldn't either. The doctors told us the intracranial pressure was dropping to more normal levels. They began to prophecies waking him up tomorrow.

Mom and Aunty Elena had taken rooms in the hotel across the street from the hospital. My uncle was on the way here; his plane was in the air somewhere over Dallas. Somehow I found myself in the job of distraction/entertainment for my cousins. Admittedly, it was asking a lot to expect two girls under ten to sit in a waiting room for that long and not go stir crazy. So coloring books, a trip to the gift shop, a TV that got suspiciously shifted to cartoon network and a game of making waiting room chairs and a borrowed hospital blanket into a "castle" to sleep in, kept them only antsy instead of bored.

Megan never left Dad's side.

When exhaustion took me, at last, I was in a waiting room chair. Guarding the sleeping princesses in their castle of chair and blankets, I had slumped till I was draped like melted plastic. My body conforming to the hard chair in a complete lack of the bruising it was causing to me.

"Jake? Hon, wake up, you're going to get a terrible crick in the neck like that."

My eyes snapping open, at her touch, and I looked up into my Aunt's face. She gave me a gentle smile, glanced at the tasseled twin heads of braided blond hair next to me and chuckled.

"Your Mom is sleeping. I finally talked her into going to the hotel. When your Uncle gets here I'm going to take these two over there and get me some rest as well. Go home. And take your sister, the poor thing; she's worn to a nub."

Rubbing my hands across my face I sat up. I took a deep breath and got to my feet, trying to ignore the many aches. Aunty Elena looked up at me, smiled a tired smile.

"You're so tall. Every time I turn around all my boys seem to gain another inch. Jason is even taller than you are." She gave me a hug. Her body in my arms what I always think of as a Mom's body, all soft curves, and no hard bones. I envied my cousins that; hugging my mom was like embracing a clothed marble statue. Hard edges, sharp angles. "Go get your sister. Megan is asleep with her head on your dad's bed. I'll be here and will call if anything changes. Go, get, shoo already."

Staggering my first few steps, I went through the doors and down the hall to the big double doors. The ICU was as calm and in motion at the same time as it had been the whole time we were here. Nurses moving in slow dances among the many patients, drifting back to the main desk then out again. There was a soft music of beeps, all in varied cardiac rhythms, that lent a strange harmony.

My dad looked the same.

Always a powerful man, one of those that seem eternally young, he never got sick. Not even colds. Awake at dawn every morning and asleep no earlier than midnight; I've almost never seen my father like this. In a bed, asleep. Being careful of the gray plastic box on its stand next to his bed, I stood next to him for a moment. I didn't feel right, looking down on him like this. Plus his head being shaved did what time never had, it made him look old.

Denying that, I looked to my sister.

Megan had laid her head on her hands and was asleep with the top of her head against Dad's leg. Hear hair was draped over her face, a netting of soft brown hiding her closed eyes. She looked so tired, and so innocently beautiful. At rest, her normal facial characteristics faded a bit and the softer features of our mom appeared. Not that she would ever admit to it, but Megan was all but our Mom's younger twin. Only around her eyes was the evidence of Dan Reese's genetics.

I had to shake her shoulder to get her to wake. It took far more than a shake to get Megan to leave the hospital. In the end, I think it was the fact she was as exhausted as I was.

** ** ** ** ** ** **

Using reserves of strength I never normally have to draw on, I lifted my sister from the passenger side of the truck. Tucking her head against my chest, I carried her to the front door and somehow managed the keys to open it. My arms had started to burn by the time I got her to her room but I would have carried her twice as far if I had to. Easing her down into her bed, I brushed her hair back from her eyes, caressing her tear marked face.

Taking a deep breath, I left her to sleep.

It was an hour or more later before I could even think of going to sleep. I had Loki to feed, and then I had to wait on him to make another mountain of poop. After several days outside the big dog terribly needed a bath, but I didn't have that kind of energy. He was happy to come back inside and went right to his big bed in the corner. The hard ground out back not appreciated by his old bones. He gave such a deep huffing sigh when he settled down into the thick cushion I laughed. Loki lifted his great head at the sound, thumped his tail and then lay it back down.

On stumbling feet I went to my room, stopping at the door. The bed was still covered with boxes Mom had stored in there. The effort to move them seemed herculean. Looking through the open doorway behind me I saw that Megan had moved over to the far side of her bed. I thought about joining her. The last few nights with her next to me had been more and more welcome, but this was somehow different. This was her bedroom. Here were the walls that once held boy band poster, dusty pageant ribbons, and newspaper sport's page clippings of Dad's race wins. Now they have shiny magazine clippings of Honda's latest bike, her big poster of the singer Pink and a pinned photo of her and me at the lake two years back. My arm around her shoulder, her poking me in the ribs but grinning.

Did I have the right to lie in bed next to her here? Without her saying I could, it felt like invading her privacy. Not that Megan had ever in the past hesitated to invade mine at the drop of a hat. Still ...

It was only a few short steps; I was already asleep when I lay down next to her.

** ** ** ** ** ** **

A hand on my chest woke me. My eyes opened to a face framed in brown hair looking down into my eyes.

"You look like Daddy when you sleep. Did you know that?" Her hand moved from my chest to my face. "Just not around your eyes, there you look more like Mom."

Not awake enough to have an answer to that I didn't say anything. She didn't seem to be expecting an answer either since she laid her head down on my chest. Snuggling into me closer.

"Do you think he's going to be alright?" She rubbed her face into the hair on my chest. "The doctors aren't giving us false hope, are they? I mean--"

"I know what you mean. And I have no answer. Not a good one anyway." I rested my hand on Megan's neck my fingers in her hairline. "I've seen him look worse, a long time ago. But I've never seen him this bad." My hand moved down her bare skin to touch the thin blouse she was still wearing. As my hand crossed between her shoulder blades I didn't feel the strap of a bra, I guessed that she had woken up in the night and removed it while I slept next to her. Women's magic. "I'm sure he'll be okay. Dad is too stubborn to die I bed, you know that."

"Yeah."

After a moment I realized she was crying into my chest.

"Hey, hey ... none of that now." Caressing the back of my sister's head, I hugged her to me. "He wouldn't want you crying."

"I know. I just can't help it. I feel so helpless." She rose up and looked down into my face. "I hate feeling like this."

Reaching up, I touched her wet cheek rubbing back the tears. "I know."

I suppose kissing a crying woman might be instinctive to the male of the human animal. Along with attraction to certain female body types. And, well according to Freud and tons of porn sites, a desire to have your own mother ... or her younger image. It's a male thing. Right?

But Megan was kissing me back. Humph. Freud you can go fuck yourself, you dead fuck.

At the first touch of my lips on hers Megan had flinched, clearly not expecting it, but then less than a second later there was complete acceptance and she began to kiss me. Her lips parted, her breath mingling with mine in a softly shared moan of desire. Then her hands were pulling me closer to her, our bodies touching with only the thin layer of her blouse between us. My hand went under that, caressing along the curves of her muscular back. Our bodies together had brought tons of heat to us both and her lower back was damp under my fingertips.

She sat up, swinging a leg over my hips. Biting her lips she looked down at my face then grinned. She ground herself down on the hardness she had to be feeling against her panties. When Megan ran a hand down there then lifted her blouse up her belly, slowly, my eyes followed the appearing skin. She stopped above her belly button.

"You've almost had your hand on my tits several times. Want to really get a good feel?"

"Hell yes," I said.

Her grin was lewd, deliciously so. "Give me your hands."

I think I would have cut them off at the wrists if she had asked. Moving my hands from her hip to her stomach I followed her sweet curves. She took them in hers and began to guide my fingers up, under her shirt, into the damp heat under her breasts. I felt her nipples pass my fingertips and come to settle against my palms and I cupped them. She rolled her head back and moaned, grinding herself harder on me.

"I want you," she breathed.

I nodded, confessing to the same lust. Forbidden lust.

Loki, lying at the foot of the bed suddenly jumped up barking (scaring the ever living shit out of us) and took off at full speed through the house towards the front door. His barks turned joyous and mixed with the sound of the front door being unlocked.

Megan was off of me and getting dressed even as we began to hear voices. Two of them young, girlish, and a third more male-ish and older. My sister stopped with one leg in her pants, the other bare. Then her shoulder's slumped. She looked back at me and mouthed the name "Jason."

I listened for a second longer then agreed with her that it was our cousin. I could more clearly make out his two younger sisters, Anne and Jen now as well. The squeal from the two girls as Loki appeared and slobber mauled them both was clear as day. I was on my feet and moving towards the door when Megan caught my arm.

Her lips were sweet the second time as the first. I pulled her into me, holding her, not wanting to turn her loose.

"Jake? Megan?"

My sister held me tighter for a second then rushed out the room. "We're up here. Shush ... Jake's asleep."

Faking a yawn, I walking out into the hallway to see my cousin at the other end, in all his flattop-headed glory. When His eyes cut to me I yawned again. "Well, I was till the family reunion arrived." Scratching at my side, I smiled as Anne rushed past her brother and threw herself into my arms. "Hey, hey easy on the ribs. It's not like we didn't see each other just a few hours ago, right?"

"But I missed you," she said hugging me tight. The memory of my sister's arms was still upon me and this younger girl's embrace made me uncomfortable. I gave her a soft hug back and looked up at her older brother.

"You went by the hospital?" I indicated the flower in my arms. At his nod, I asked. "Any changes?'

"Yeah." He shrugged. " Your mom said they let your dad wake up for a few minutes. He couldn't talk because of that tube in his throat but he seemed to be aware. He blinked when they told him to blink. She said to tell you that the doctors said the worst might be over. Something about swelling ...."

"The swelling went down?"

"Yeah, that was it. Hey, is there anything we could fix for breakfast? The two girls haven't eaten since last night and I'm in worse shape. I've been on the road for ten hours, then two at the hospital." He reached a hand out and scratched Loki behind the ears when the big dog nosed his body past Jason's hip. "I'm about at the point of asking this big fella to share a bone or two with me."

"Sure. I'll throw something together."

"Thanks. Ah, Aunt Dee Dee said we could stay here till our mom's ready to go back. What rooms have places to put these little heads? I'm fine with a couch," He looked at Megan and grinned. "Unless you've got room for me in your bedroom?"