Two and a half hours after we laid our mother to rest on that bright clear spring day in 1996, my sister Barbara and I pulled into the long gravel drive that led up to what is now our house. Our grandparents once owned the four-bedroom farmhouse, but after their death mom inherited it. Now that she was gone it was bequeathed to us. What we were going to do with it was something Barb and I hadn't had a chance to figure out yet. I parked in front and we stepped out of the car into the noonday sun. We both just stood there staring at the place, reluctant to go inside and face the emotions of being in the place where mom had died.
Looking over at Barbara I felt a tug at my heart. She was the spitting image of our mother, tall, long legged with a slender waist, wide hips and rather large breasts. She had mom's deep blue eyes, but instead of long jet-black hair Barb kept hers dyed blonde and short. I went around the car and put my arm around her shoulder and pulled her against me. I could feel her trembling slightly as I guided us into the house.
We both had been here just a few short months ago during Christmas. The place had been filled with love and warmth as everyone tore into their gifts and celebrated the holiday. No one, not even mom, had been aware of the aneurysm that was developing inside her brain. Now the house was deathly quiet as we made our way to the large open kitchen. I started a pot of coffee brewing while Barb sat at the dinning table and absently pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She stared at the pack for a couple of seconds, then went ahead and lit one. Removing my suit jacket and tie, I took a seat across from her and did the same thing. It has been a while since I smoked, but right now the need to steady my nerves outweighed the risks.
"I still can't believe she's gone," Barb murmured while blowing out a huge plume of smoke.
"Neither can I sis," I replied, a catch in my voice.
"She was only sixty-seven for Christ sake."
Glancing over I saw her red-rimmed eyes fill with tears. Getting up I walked over and stood behind her. Placing my hands on her shaking shoulders I began to knead the tight muscles while trying to say something soothing. Gradually her sobs died out and she tilted her head backwards resting it against my stomach. I stroked her hair and let her relax. Once the coffee finished brewing I fixed us both a cup and sat back down.
As I sipped the coffee I thought back over the years. Shortly after I had graduated from high school I had joined the army. Mom hadn't been too pleased by my decision but didn't try to talk me out of it. I think we both needed a break from each other at that time. I just didn't know that I'd end up making a career out of the military. My first hitch took me to Nam. I survived that somehow and from then on nothing seemed to be too difficult. I flourished and rose up the ranks, and by the time I retired last year I had put in twenty-five years. The sad part of it all was I could count on two hands the number of times I'd been able to come home and visit. Now at the age of forty-six I wondered if it had all been worth it. I dearly wished I'd had more time to tell mom what she had meant to me.
"Wish I had something a little stronger than coffee," I remarked, absently staring into the dark fluid in my cup.
"Me too," Barb added.
As if a switch had been thrown our eyes locked and we both smiled. She jumped up before I had a chance and rushed over to the pantry. I watched eagerly as she dug around inside, moving things this way and that way before she found what she was looking for. With a triumphant smile on her face she spun around and showed me her prize. In her left hand she was holding a full bottle of Johnny Walker Red Label.
"Oh yeah, that'll work," I exclaimed.
Barb came and sat back down. She opened the bottle and poured a splash into each of our cups saying, "Here's to the only vice Mom had."
"Here, here," I chimed in bringing my cup up and taking a healthy swig. The hot coffee burned my lips and the whiskey burned my throat.
"That's more like it," Barb said after taking a drink herself.
Quietly we sat there sipping the spiked coffee, both of us lost in our own thoughts. I noticed that her eyes had a faraway look to them each time I glanced in her direction. My eyes roamed about the kitchen but couldn't really focus on any one thing in particular. I wondered if my sister was having the same thoughts of growing up in this house as I was.
Mom had moved us here when I was five and Barb was three. It was right after her and dad had gotten a divorce. My grandparents, mom's parents, had insisted that she come live here. They told her that there was plenty of room and she wouldn't have to worry about making ends meet. Being proud mom had returned but insisted on finding a job to help out. With the house situated out in the middle of the Kansas plains, twenty miles from town, it was difficult to find work. Grandpa took it upon himself to teach her how to become a farmer. With almost three hundred acres to farm, most of it planted with corn, he told her she'd be doing him a big favor by helping there instead of trying to find outside work. For some reason mom took to farming better than anyone would have imagined. After only six months she had streamlined everything and had the farm poised to make more than it ever had before. The grandparents were ecstatic. They gave her a share of the place and the rest was history. Unfortunately, my grandparents died in a plane crash when I was ten, leaving mom with everything.
Over the next eight years I helped as much as possible. At the age of thirteen I hit a growth spurt that didn't stop until I was just a shade over six-foot two inches tall. I was long and lean, and about as clumsy as a kid could get. To mom's great relief I outgrew my clumsy stage by the time I was sixteen. By the time I was seventeen I had become a young man bristling with muscles. Unfortunately the time needed to tend to the farm had prevented me from having any sort of social life. As soon as school let out I would rush home and begin working. It wasn't until I was eighteen that I saw my first naked woman, sort of. A friend of mine had brought a well-used girlie magazine to school and let me look through it in the restroom. That memory brought a smile to my face.
"What ya thinking so hard about Brian?" Barb's voice snapped me back to the present.
Laughing I said, "You don't want to know."
"That good hmm?" she snickered.
In response I just showed her a smirk while my eyebrows bounced up and down on my face. She laughed and poured more whiskey into our cups.
"God, I need to get out of this dress," she said, running her fingers under the neck high collar.
"You're the same size as mom, why not see what's in her closet?"
"Oh, I don't know if I could wear any of her stuff, that might be weird," she replied.
"Don't be silly. I think mom would want you to," I told her.
"Well okay, but I don't want to go up there by myself," she said softly.
That was perfectly understandable to me. I volunteered to go with her to look through mom's stuff. We both downed our drinks, which had ceased being coffee two shots back, and headed up the stairs to the bedrooms. Climbing the stairs behind her gave me an excellent view up the knee-length black dress she was wearing. Her nylon-covered legs were long and finely toned. I could only see as far as the middle of her thighs, but the effect her swaying round ass was having on me was overwhelming. By the time I reached the top of the stairs I was sporting wood. "What the fuck are you thinking, that's your sister idiot!" I chastised myself. Still, at forty-four I couldn't deny the fact that she was hot. She had mom's genes, and mom had remained hot clear up to her death.
We entered mom's room and Barb went over and opened the closet. Mom wasn't a fashionista; most of the clothes were well-worn housedresses that looked as if they'd been bought back in the early sixties. Barb thumbed through a few before moving on to the dresser. One drawer held panties and bras; it was dismissed immediately. Several others held socks and shorts and whatnots. The last drawer Barb opened revealed mom's stash of knee-length slips. Mom had loved wearing them around the house when she wasn't working in the fields. Barb held a silky black one up by the thin shoulder straps and examined it.
Turning to show me the slip she asked, "Remember when mom used to wear these around the house?"
"Yeah. She really loved those things," I said, flashes of memories of her walking around in them drifted in and out of my head.
"I wonder what her fascination with them was?" Barb pondered aloud.
"Maybe they're comfortable," I offered.
"Could be. Say, we're not going to do anything else today are we?" she asked, still gazing at the slip.
"Naw. Why don't we just relax the rest of the day. We can take care of things tomorrow as far as I'm concerned."
"Would it bother you if I wore this around the house for the rest of the day? I want to see what mom saw in them."
Clearing my throat I said, "Be my guest, but don't blame me if I stare at you. A lot."
"You're funny. Besides, you're my brother, why on earth would you want to stare at me?"
Before I could answer she turned to face the dresser's mirror and held the slip up in front of her. I stepped up behind her and we gazed at our reflections in the glass. I placed my hands on her shoulders and told her I would stare at her because she looked so much like mom. A nervous smile appeared on her lips as she gazed into the mirror. She leaned back against me with the slip in front of her.
"You really think I look like mom?"
