Page 10 of Brother in Law with Benefits

Uneven grass where the ground dips near the shed. Fence leaning west. Porch railing I noticed at lunch, loose where the post connects. Dad would've had all of it done already.

That's not a useful line of thought. I drink my coffee.

I catch my reflection in the dark window over the sink — more gray at my temples than there was the last time I looked at myself somewhere with decent lighting, which tells you something about how much I've been avoiding mirrors. Forty-three. I don't feel it most days, and then I catch a reflection like this one and do the math against a twenty-eight-year-old pediatric nurse and feel every single year of it at once.

And then, underneath the math, less disciplined and considerably less useful: the memory of her scent on that porch, vanilla and soap.

I notice Sophie's instructions specify the exact brand of anti-nausea medication, the dosing interval, the foods most likely to trigger nausea in the two hours after infusion, and the most effective distraction techniques for the waiting room. She knows more about how to keep my mother comfortable than I do, and I've spent the last seventy-two hours reading oncology literature.

I should be annoyed by that. I'm not. I'm just grateful someone knew what to do when I wasn't here.

Seven-fifteen, Mom and I are in the truck. Her instructions — well, Sophie's instructions relayed by Mom — were to leave by seven-fifteen because the hospital parking fills fast on chemo days. I follow Sophie's instructions. I'm noticing I do this without thinking much about it.

The drive is quiet. Mom looks out the window at the town waking up.

"You nervous?" she asks.

"About a medical appointment?"

"About Sophie."

I keep my eyes on the road.

"You keep looking at the door," she says. "Last night at dinner. This morning while you were making toast. The door."

"I was watching for the mail."

"Grant. The mail doesn't come until noon."

I don't say anything.

"It's okay," she says. "I just want you to know — whatever's going on in your head, you can talk to me about it."

"There's nothing going on in my head."

"Mm-hmm." She adjusts her knit cap. "You've got that same look you had when you were eighteen and joined the Army without telling me until you'd already signed the papers."

"I don't have a look."

"You definitely have a look."

We pull into the hospital parking lot.

***

Third floor. Oncology and Infusion Center.

The elevator doors open and Sophie's there, standing near the nurses' station in jeans and a light sweater, hair up in a ponytail, a few loose strands at the back of her neck she hasn't bothered to fix. She's talking to someone in scrubs, hip cocked, coffee in hand like it's just another Tuesday, and something about the ordinariness of her hits me harder than the porch did.

She turns when she hears the elevator, and her eyes find mine across the waiting room.

Something moves through the air between us. Recognition. Weight. The same pull I've been trying to stay ahead of since I saw her on the porch, except twelve hours of sleep hasn't dulled it at all — if anything it's sharper, now that I've had a night to lie in my childhood bedroom doing absolutely nothing but think about her.

I'm not far enough ahead of it. I'm not sure there's a distance that exists where I would be.

"You came," Mom says, pleased.

"Of course I came." Sophie crosses to us, gives Mom a gentle hug. "How are you feeling this morning?"