Way to Go, College Boy

"I promise, I won't do anything to hurt Paul, ever," she said a little too seriously. "I want him around for the long haul, and I won't forget that."

Mom nodded and gave us a loving look. "Good," she said.

As soon as we heard her driving away, I turned to Patricia. "I need to tell you something," I said. Then I thought for a moment. "Actually, I need to tell you everything."

* * *

She had tears in her eyes after I shared the dream with her. "Do you agree?" I asked softly. "Do you want to share the rest of our lives with my mother?"

"Oh, Paul, she's our mother now." Patricia swallowed heavily, fighting back tears. "I can't imagine our life without her in it."

"Okay," I said. "Now I need you to help me out of the bed."

"Oh, you need to go to the bathroom?" she asked as she helped me slide out from beneath the covers. She looked a little alarmed when I sank to the floor.

"No," I said, smiling at her. "I just always wanted to be down on one knee when I did this."

"Oh, Paul!" she sobbed. She covered her mouth with her hands, and her eyes brimmed with tears.

Okay, it was a little corny. I blame the oxycodone. "Patricia, I love you forever no matter what. Will you love me forever, as my wife?"

"Yes!" She hugged me fiercely and peppered my face with kisses.

I can only imagine what the sex would have been like if we'd been able to. When Mom got back to the apartment, Patricia practically tackled her just inside the door. I heard them giggling and then Patricia apologized and helped Mom put away the groceries. Then Patricia dragged "our" mother back to the bedroom. Mom was smiling but she seemed bemused.

"Honestly, I'm never going to get those brownies made—" she started.

"Mom, Paul proposed!" Patricia gushed.

"Really?" she asked, looking over at me. When I nodded, she beamed and put her hands together, pressing them against her lips.

"He got down on one knee and everything," Patricia said, coming over to squeeze my hand again.

"Oh, I am so happy for the two of you!" Mom said. Her eyes welled up with tears.

I cleared my throat. "Mom, we have something else we need to say to you. We need you."

"Oh, of course I'll be here for you," she said.

"No, Mom," Patricia said, getting up and walking over to her. She tugged Mom into the bed. "Not just to take care of Paul while he recovers. Not just as the mother of the bride—and the groom—at our wedding. We need you with us for the rest of our lives together. Will you go with us wherever we go, as our mother, as our lover, and as the grandmother of our children?"

"Are you serious?" she asked. We both nodded. "Yes!" my mother cried.

Then she and Patricia hugged. Then they started kissing. It was a bummer to be left out of it when they started making out and pulled off each others' clothes...but it was still hot to watch. Sadly, with all the medications I was on, I couldn't even tell if my dick got hard.

* * *

When they had calmed down afterward, I shared the dream with Mom. There would never be any secrets that the three of us wouldn't share after that. She got up and left the apartment shortly afterward, and when she returned she had that box from storage that had all of Trevor's military pictures and stuff in it.

"Oh, damn, that's got to be him," she murmured.

As soon as I saw the picture, it was impossible to miss the guy standing next to Trevor in that unit picture. He looked like our brother. His name was Duane. It took more than a week to figure out where he was. He'd gotten out of the Army after his initial enlistment was up. Mom managed to talk a personnel guy in Washington into letting her call Duane's aunt. She was listed as his next-of-kin.

Duane's Aunt Marisol wasn't expecting our call, of course. She confided that she had been concerned about her nephew. "He hasn't been the same since he got back from Afghanistan. I thought it might be PTSD, but he didn't have those symptoms—they tested him for it. I talked to the Army shrink, and the guy told me Duane has 'survivor guilt' or something like that."

"We'd like to invite him to visit us for Christmas," I said. Mom looked surprised for a moment, but then she nodded. "Trevor told us Duane was like a brother to him," I went on. "I hadn't thought about it until just recently. Did you guys have plans for Christmas already?"

"Duane was polite about it, but he hasn't spent any of the holidays with us," she said sadly. "You can certainly ask him, but I would be surprised if he accepts. Still, it might do him some good just to hear from you."

When she gave us Duane's phone number and told us where he was going to college, Mom spoke up.

"Oh, that's where Jeannie is going to school. My daughter is in the same town."

"That's not a huge surprise, Mom," I said. "There are like five colleges there."

"Well, I wish you the best of luck," Marisol said. "Tell my nephew I love him when you talk to him."

After we hung up, I sat up on the bed and stared at my phone for over a minute.

"Well?" Mom asked, "Are you going to make that call?"

I nodded. "Just rehearsing it in my head," I replied. "I want to make sure I don't screw this up."

"Do you want me to call him?" Mom asked.

I shook my head. "It has to be me."

* * *

"Hello?" he said.

"Hey, I'm sorry to bother you. My name is Paul. I believe you served in the Army with my older brother, Trevor?"

"Oh, God," he said softly. "I am so sorry—"

"Please don't," I said, cutting him off. "Duane? Nobody blames you for that. That's not really why I'm calling, though. Listen, I...I nearly died a week ago. It got me thinking about all the things I meant to do with my life, and hadn't done. Trevor had mentioned you, years ago. I knew you were in his unit, and I knew he thought of you as a brother. I always meant to reach out to you, but I never did it. That was why I called your aunt and asked for your number."

"Oh, God, are you okay?" he asked.

"I'm getting better," I replied. "I was hoping you could visit with us—me, my mom and my sister. It always felt like we should have invited you to be with us after my brother died. I get the feeling he would have brought you home with him, from the way he talked. Your Aunt Marisol said you weren't going to visit with them for the Christmas break. Do you have other plans, or could we invite you into our home for our family Christmas? It would really mean a lot to us if you could make it."

He sounded a little haunted. "Um, thanks Paul. I appreciate the offer."

"No," I said flatly.

"Excuse me?' he said.

My voice had a hard edge to it when I said, "This isn't an offer, Duane. It isn't some invitation to be turned down. My brother wanted you to be a part of our family. If you don't show up here this Christmas, you'd better have a damned good reason you can't make it."

"Jesus," he breathed. "You really are Trevor's brother."

"So are you," I replied simply.

There was a long pause before Duane finally spoke.

"Okay. I'll need directions."

* * *

Duane arrived at the airport seven hours before my sister did. I still had the bandages on my head, of course, but I was getting around okay. The only pain medication I was taking was Tylenol at that point, and I was almost to the point I didn't even need that anymore. Duane looked a little apprehensive until I ran over and gave him a big hug, the way my brother would have.

"Man, it's good to finally have you here," I murmured.

"Oh," he uttered. Then he started sobbing as he hugged me back fiercely.

"It's okay, brother," I said softly. "It's okay."

I held Duane and hugged him like I was afraid he would get away. We were both a little embarrassed when we finally released each other.

"Sorry," he murmured.

"Don't," I replied, shaking my head and grinning.

We both chuckled, and then my mother leaned into Duane and hugged him just as ferociously as I had. He looked astonished when she kissed him on the lips afterward. Then Patricia smiled.

"Hi, I'm Patricia," she said. "I'm Paul's fiancée."

"It's nice to meet you—oof!" Duane looked at me wide-eyed for a second, but when I grinned at him, he returned Patricia's hug.

* * *

Back at our apartment, Duane talked quietly about serving with Trevor. It was obvious how badly he still missed my brother. I kept nodding, though, and that drew his attention to the bandaging on my head.

I blew out a long breath, and shared with Duane about my "condition" and the brain surgery. I didn't tell him about the dream I'd had, but I did share how I had heard Trevor's voice over the years.

"I get it," I said. "I mean, intellectually I know what was happening. I would get stressed, the blood pressure in my brain went up, and that pressure on the tumor triggered aural hallucinations. It wasn't my brother actually talking to me...but it really felt like he was there, watching over me and telling me what I needed to do."

Duane nodded sympathetically.

"It was tough for me to accept—still is tough for me to accept—that I won't hear him anymore." I swallowed hard, and looked at Duane. "After that surgery, though, I can't help shake the feeling that life is too short. I could have easily died on that operating table, and I never would have gotten to meet you." I pulled Patricia over to me. "I never would have seen this beautiful woman again. We never would have the chance to have kids..."

I smiled and looked over at Duane again. "Sorry," I said, but he just smiled and shrugged. "I really am glad you're here, Duane."

"Me too."

Duane fit right in with our family. He barely batted an eye when Joanne came over and kissed me and my mother before pulling him to her for a kiss.

"Merry Christmas!" she said afterwards.

"Merry Christmas," he replied, chuckling and wiping his mouth. He glanced above him briefly and then shook his head.

"Yeah, there's no mistletoe," I said. "We don't really need it around here."

"Good to know," he said.

The five of us all chatted easily while we shared lunch. When we sat in the living room and watched television after, Mom walked Duane over to the loveseat. When he sat next to Joanne, Mom smiled down at him.

"You don't mind, do you?" she asked softly.

"Um?" he started. Then she slid into his lap. "Ah," he said. "No, I don't mind at all."

When she started pressing her butt into his crotch, he leaned forward to murmur in her ear.

"I'm going to give you about half an hour to stop doing that."

"And then what?" Mom retorted, turning her head to grin at him.

He looked around at all of our grinning faces. Then he leaned forward and kissed my mother on the lips. "Then I'm going to ask if it's Joanne's turn," he answered with that same wicked grin.

Mom left to pick up Jeannie from the airport after her half hour was up. We all wanted to go, but she insisted.

"That's just silly," she said. "We would barely fit in the minivan. You should stay and relax, and we'll be back in an hour."

While she was gone, Joanne worked her magic on Duane there on the loveseat—and not the sexual sort. Duane had been holding onto guilt for most of his life. It wasn't just my brother's death for which he held himself responsible. He still felt guilty about his parents' fatal car crash, when he was just six years old. Even though I sat there and watched the whole time, I could barely believe the way she convinced him to let go of all that pain.

Duane apologized for breaking down and crying the way he had, but we just shook our heads. We had all been crying along with him. It was Patricia who spoke up then.

"It's okay, Duane," she said, leaning forward in my lap and squeezing his arm. "You're here with family. You have nothing to apologize for."

"Thanks," he whispered.

We all got up to stretch after that. We went out to the kitchen and I started a fresh pot of coffee. Patricia was holding Duane tightly when I turned around. He looked a little relieved when I smiled at them, and then I pulled Joanne to me for a hug.

"You are spectacular, do you know that?" I asked.

"Thanks," she sighed.

"What's wrong?' I asked.

"Well, I really wanted to suck his dick," she said. "That seems really inappropriate now, after everything he just shared. I feel like he's my patient, and I would be taking unfair advantage of him."

When I saw the way Duane's eyes bugged out, I knew he had heard her. He was giving me a questioning look.

"Don't look at me, man," I chuckled, "I'm not going to suck your dick."

Duane snorted, and then we all laughed. We were still laughing about that when Mom pulled into her parking spot in front of the apartment. Jeannie popped out of the passenger seat and she hurried around to beat Mom to the front door. When she stepped in, she had a huge smile on her face.

"Oh my God," Duane breathed.

I turned and looked at him. He was staring at my sister like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. And he wasn't checking out my sister's fabulous body, either. His eyes were glued to hers. I looked back over at Jeannie and she had that same stunned look. Patricia let Duane go, and we all watched wide-eyed as he and my sister closed the distance between them.

I had always been skeptical when I heard people talk about "love at first sight" before that moment, but I actually got to watch it happen right there in our kitchen. It was beautiful and surreal at the same time.

"Hi, I'm Duane," he murmured.

"Hi, Duane. I'm Jeannie."

He nodded, and then they hugged gently. When they started kissing, it was the most natural thing in the world, like they were made to kiss each other. Mom stopped staring and turned sideways to scoot past them. She stopped next to us.

"Have you ever..?" she breathed.

Joanne, Patricia and I all shook our heads. Then I narrowed my eyes. I just knew Trevor had seen this coming. He had set it up, under the guise of asking me for a favor.

"You sneaky bastard," I whispered.

I had to imagine he was laughing his ass off, wherever he was.

* * *

"Life is too short to fuck around" became my mantra after that.

Patricia and I were on the same page, and she quit taking her birth control pills. We were going to get married, but we weren't going to waste one more day before we started making our first baby together. Mom was thrilled, of course. She was as eager as we were to welcome that baby into the world.

In the spring, we got married in a small ceremony. I wanted it to be bigger, to announce to the whole world how much I loved my wife, but we just didn't have that many people to invite. Duane agreed to be my best man, as long as I promised to be his. He married my sister the week after I married sweet Patricia.

The one thing that really bugged me was that my hair was just growing back...and it looked awful. It was still patchy on top, and the only way to fix it would be to basically shave my head. I didn't want to have either crappy, nappy hair or a shaved head for our wedding photos. Duane suggested that I should wear Trevor's beret for both ceremonies, to carry a piece of him with us as we started both of our marriages.

It was perfect.