A Lundstrom Family Affair

Jackson got in the truck, rolled down the window, and his wife Christine leaned on it to give him a goodbye kiss.

“Are you sure one of you doesn’t want to come with me?” asked Jackson, one last time.

“Just go. We will be there next week,” replied Christine and smiled, putting an uncooperative piece of her light-blonde hair behind one of her ears.

Jackson nodded, his heart suddenly feeling tight in his chest. “All right, then,” he said. “Drive safe on your way up there, okay?”

“I will switch with Sophia every four hours, don’t worry,” said his wife.

Jackson’s golden-brown eyes became dark. “It’s not funny, Christine,” he said.

“Relax,” said Christine. “I was just teasing.”

“All right then,” said Jackson, and he sighed heavily. He had over eight hours of drive ahead of him, but that wasn’t what he was dreading. It was what waited for him at the end of those eight hours. He leaned in and gave Christine a kiss. It was Saturday morning, and the kids were still at home and sleeping, enjoying the last few free days of the summer. Their daughter, Sophia, was nineteen-years-old, and was home from college. Their son, Scott, was eighteen and he was about to start his first year at the local community college in a few weeks.

Jackson left their peaceful suburbia right outside of Denver and headed towards Highway 287, headed north towards Wyoming. He was headed to a place that was located outside of a small city by the name of Moran that was next to Jackson Lake, settled in between Grand Teton National Park, Bridger-Teton National Forest and Yellowstone National Park.

His wife, Christine, and their two kids, were going to join him up there in a week, but Jackson’s thick light-brown beard always started itching when he would think about how he was going to survive that entire period alone with his older brother, Jarrod, without killing each other in the process.

Jackson was forty-one years old, and his brother Jarrod was forty-three. They were only a year-and-a-half apart, but the closeness in their age was the only closeness that existed between them. He hasn’t spoken or seen his brother since he was seventeen, and because Jackson never got into the whole social-media craze, he never felt the need to look him up. To say that him and his brother didn’t get along would be an understatement – the practically hated each other, always trying to compete over who did what better. The only thing that gave Jackson any hope that this entire situation might be better was the money.

Their father, Jakub Lundstrom, was an immigrant who came to the States when he was only eighteen-years-old to build a better life for himself. He married an American woman, much older than him, who was the first-generation daughter of two Norwegian immigrants, and he had three children with her. Jackson only knew of his sister Jessica, because she died when she was only three-years-old, just a few weeks before Jackson was born. His mother, heartbroken and exhausted from the seventeen-hours labor she was in while delivering him, simply just gave up on life and died at childbirth for no apparent reason.

Their father, Jakub, who loved his wife Helge more than anyone, became bitter and distant, not spending enough time with his two boys, so Jarrod kept resenting his brother for their mother’s death and their father’s behavior. To say they butted heads as they were growing up would’ve been putting it mildly.

As Jackson stopped to get more gas and use the restroom somewhere in south Wyoming, he remembered how Jarrod always threw him under the bus for everything that would go wrong. One time he broke the glass that covered the big picture of their mother over the fireplace, and blamed it on Jackson. Jackson remembered the beating he took from his dad that night, and how it hurt for weeks to come. Another time Jarrod tried to fill the bathtub so he can take a hot bath after his football practice, but ended up falling asleep in his bedroom and flooding the first floor completely. Jackson tried to explain that it wasn’t him, that he didn’t even like taking baths, but his father believed Jarrod and even though he didn’t beat him this time, he was sorely disappointed and somehow that hurt more.

Jakub realized that he couldn’t deal with two growing boys and that they needed a mother, so he remarried when Jarrod was twelve and Jackson ten years old. Their step-mom was nice enough, but she never really cared for them much, and only did the bare minimum that was required of her.

When Jackson was sixteen, his relationship with his brother was non-existent, but at least now Jarrod was away for college and they didn’t have to see each other that much. For the last two years, Jackson had been crushing on a girl from his class, Veronica Folger, and once his brother was out of their small town in upstate New York, he managed to gather enough courage to ask her out. Veronica said yes, and they started going steady… until Jarrod dropped out of college and came back home to learn a trade – and seduced Veronica just to spite Jackson during Christmas break. Jackson snapped, punched his brother in the face and they got into a physical confrontation so harsh that if their father and step-mom didn’t separate them they probably would’ve killed each other. Jackson was gone to stay with his mother’s parents the next day, and he never went home if he knew that his brother was going to be there. And his life was fine without Jarrod.

Until Jarrod gave him a call about two weeks ago.

Their father, who was still living with their step-mom, had died in their house in Rapid City, South Dakota. It was so sudden, that Jackson couldn’t make plans to go fly out, but his father’s wishes had been to be cremated, so he never got to say goodbye to Jakub. Their step-mom, Janice, inherited the house that they were living in Rapid City, but their father had left them a vacation house right outside of Moran, Wyoming as well as one million dollars inheritance.

“One million dollars?” Jackson couldn’t believe that he was speaking to his brother still, but that sum was just ridiculous.

“I know, right?” said Jarrod. His voice was so deep and different than what Jackson remembered it, but it still had that slight-edge of mischief. “I had no idea that dad was this loaded.”

“Are you sure?” asked Jackson, because even though more than twenty years have passed since he last saw or spoke to his brother, he couldn’t help by wonder at the back of his mind if Jarrod was still playing games with him.

“I’m positive,” said Jarrod, and Jackson could just imagine him, nodding his head as he said that. He always nodded his head when he confirmed something, ever since he was a kid. “I am holding the will in my hand as we speak.”

“I don’t know what to say.” Jackson wasn’t really mourning his father, because his relationship with his dad was strained at the best of times. But he did feel a certain heaviness in his chest when he thought that he was gone. “Will you be able to wire the money?”

His brother didn’t answer right away. “That’s the thing…” he started and Jackson knew that whatever he was going to hear next wasn’t going to be something that he liked. “We can have the money, and split them however we want, but we have to repair the back porch of his vacation house Wyoming.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked Jackson. “And what do you mean ‘split them however we want’? I would hope you’d want to split them fifty-fifty.”

“Of course,” said Jarrod. “Don’t get worked up, Jack.”

“Don’t call me ‘Jack’,” said Jackson. He knew that Jarrod knew it annoyed him, but he was still doing it.

“Sorry, Jackson,” said Jarrod. “I honestly didn’t call you up to argue with you. But I could really use this kind of money, but the old man was very precise on the instructions about how to get them, I’m afraid. His lawyer won’t even consider releasing the account until we fix that porch.”

Jackson and Christine could really use that kind of money as well, but Jackson wasn’t going to admit that to his brother.

So, he talked to Christine and explained the situation to her, and they decided that it’s more prudent for him to take a leave of absence from work, go work on the porch for a week or two with his brother, and then come back home with half a million dollars that could help them so much, especially now that Sophia was in college and Scott was going to go in a year, after taking a few classes in the community college.

And now here he was, swallowing the miles underneath him with his truck as he approached the raw beauty of the least populated state in the Union. If Jackson was being honest with himself, he didn’t really know exactly how he felt about seeing his brother after all those years. When he called him back to let him know what time worked for him, Jarrod was nice and courteous, and he insisted that he bring the family with him. Jackson didn’t want to at first, because he had planned for going to the vacation house for this weekend, but Jarrod said that he wanted to meet his niece and nephew and his sister-in-law, and bury the hatchet. Jackson thought about it, and had a long conversation with his wife about it, and Christine thought that it was right. What if one of their kids somehow ended up meeting one of their cousins, because Jarrod had told him he had four kids of his own, and doing something they weren’t supposed to just because they didn’t know each other?

That settled it, so he called Jarrod and he said that his family will join him for a weekend the week after they were done working on the porch, and then meet his family then. Jarrod agreed.

Jackson stopped in Moran to get something to eat and to ask for directions. Jarrod explained to him how to get there over the phone, but it was still confusing to say the least. A nice lady who served him his lunch also was kind enough to explain to him how to get there.

“Are you brothers with Mr. Lundstrom?” she asked, looking at Jackson curiously.

“Jarrod Lundstrom?” asked Jackson dumbly.

“Yes, that’s the one,” confirmed the waitress, nodding.

“Yes, I am,” said Jackson reluctantly. “How do you know him?”

“He’s been coming here for a week now,” said the waitress. “He always tips good and is such a charmer. You look alike, except for your eyes. You also have a thicker beard. His is trimmed. When you walked in here, I was wondering what you were doing in town so early.”

Jackson nodded and thanked her, and she moved along to serve the other patrons that just walked into the small diner. Jackson and Jarrod always looked alike, but Jarrod was always bigger and stronger than Jackson. But Jackson worked as a manager for a construction company and he always helped out when all hands were needed on deck, so throughout the years he became bigger and more muscular than he ever was as a teenager. Him and Christine always used to joke that while everybody paid for a gym membership, the “gym” he attended paid him.

After he finished the food and paid, Jackson got back in his truck. It was almost four thirty mountain standard time when he finally spotted the vacation house that his father left them. It was hard to spot, surrounded by trees so thick that Jackson almost missed the turn. The house was two floors and it was built entirely out of wood, and it looked big. There was smoke coming out of the chimney, and there was another truck already parked in front of it. Jackson Lake could be seen to the left, and the little clearing that came out on the beach with a little dock was also secluded. Jackson parked his truck, and he walked outside. There was no sign of Jarrod. He stepped out, suddenly very nervous even though that’s not how he wanted to feel. He wanted to be angry, but surprisingly to him, he didn’t, even though Jarrod did steal Veronica from him. Not that they were serious. They had only been dating for a year and a half and she was halfway across the country attending university and long-distance wasn’t that much fun…

Jackson went around the house, where he could hear hammering and movement. When he turned around to where the back porch was, he saw his brother Jarrod for the first time in over twenty years. Jarrod didn’t notice him right away, so Jackson had time to take his brother in and do a mental comparison between them, realizing how much his brother has really changed and how much he didn’t.

Jackson had golden-brown eyes and light-brown hair and beard. He kept his hair short, but his beard thick and full, because Christine liked it that way. He was lean and athletic, with finely shaped muscles and moderate body-hair. His brother Jarrod looked very similar to him. He had short light-brown hair and neatly trimmed and short beard with the same color, but his eyes were dark-gray and intensely focused on the task at hand. He had taken his shirt off, revealing his big and muscular form that was bigger and hairier than Jackson’s, and was working wearing his jeans and boots, hammering nails into the window pane that looked like it was the only new thing on the entire porch.

And that was when Jackson noticed the horrendous state that the porch was in and his stomach sunk when the realization settled in that they weren’t going to finish this in a week like he had originally planned. The wood was rotten to the core, and there were holes all over it. Jarrod was actually standing on a panel so he wouldn’t sink in and hurt himself as he worked on the window. There was building material on the grass behind the house and a large tool box. Beyond that, the thick woods were stretching into the unknown.

That was when Jarrod noticed that Jackson had arrived. He stopped hammering and he looked at his younger brother. Jackson, who was inspecting the tool box with his eyes, noticed that the hammering stopped and he looked up at his brother. Their eyes met, and to his surprise, Jarrod smiled and he put the hammer on the ground.

“Hello,” said Jackson. “I am here.”

Jarrod opened his arms and walked like that towards Jackson, grinning like a fool. “Brother,” he said and then wrapped his arms around Jackson and pulled him into a bear bone-crushing hug.