Kiernan and Montana aren't looking for complicated in their Chicago summer, but somehow complicated has found them.
[co-written with @w1ldflow3r]
[extended summary inside]
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I liked the city, but I always figured I'd like it a whole lot less if I didn't have somewhere quiet to escape to when I needed it. During my first year living on my own in Chicago, I was still bringing home laundry to do and getting sent back to my apartment with groceries and leftovers. I'd like to think I'd grown since then, but it didn't matter. My mother needed me home now, and that was enough.
I rolled the windows to my BMW down as we left the hot, choking confines of the city, but I immediately regretted it as strings of slobber from Rudy's mouth flicked away in the gust and landed smack on my car door. With Jed gone for the weekend, I couldn't just leave him in the apartment alone.
"Oh dude, come on," I groaned, glancing back at him through the side view mirror. "I just had her washed."
Rudy stuck his head further out the window in enthusiasm, and I figured maybe I should follow suit. I cranked the volume up on Ants Marching by Dave Matthews Band and stuck my hand out the window, as if I could catch the early afternoon sunlight with my bare hands.
Before leaving for South Bend and eventually Chicago, I'd never lived anywhere except Oak Park, in the same two-story pale blue stucco house on Augusta Street. My mom made me take every single first day of school, formal event, dance, and graduation picture in front of the stone fireplace in the living room, and she still had all of them lined up in silver picture frames on the long wooden console in the foyer when I walked into the house.
My younger sister Aspen got lucky since the invention of smartphones stopped most people from keeping physical copies of pictures, but her freshly printed 8th grade graduation photo sat at the end of the console table, her smile wide now with the absence of the braces she'd had since she was 12.
As I made my way into the house balancing three bags of Whole Foods groceries in my hands, Rudy trotted past me and found his bed in the corner of the dining room, nearly tripping me in the process. For a dog almost 200 pounds, he had zero spacial awareness.
"Mom!" I called into the house.
Even after I'd dropped the groceries on the kitchen table, the house was too quiet.
"Mom!" I called again, this time up the stairs.
She finally emerged from the backyard deck through the sliding glass doors at the end of the kitchen, balancing her phone between her ear and her shoulder while her knitting needles and what looked like a scarf were clutched in her hands.
Aunt Lucy, she mouthed and pointed to the phone.
I frantically shook my head at her and mouthed I'm not here. Mom nodded with a grin before retreating to the old white leather couch in the living room. My Aunt Lucy was alright, but every conversation lately had been about how I'd been working too much and not dating enough. Who needs a career when your sperm are already dying?
