My parents threw a christening party not long after. I’ve studied those photographs, too. More digital proof of my loss. There’s Keith and me squeezed into navy suits and forced to stand together at the front of the church. I was three then, still soft and wretched in the way most babyish things are. At seven, my brother stretched taller, stringier. My elongated twin. In the photos, our matching red-brown hair is parted neatly, like a crisp statement of accounts. I’m smiling at the camera. He is not.
After the service, lots of family gathered back at our house. Years later, Keith liked to tell me how starved for attention I was that day, as if my neediness were something to joke about. According to him, I threw myself at relative after relative, hoping to be scooped up, loved, only to be knocked aside again and again. Eventually I hid inside a linen closet and waited for someone to notice my absence. Nobody did. Keith found me hours later when he went looking for extra hand towels to put in the powder room.
Don’t worry, I came to love my sister. In fact, I may have loved her most of all, though I never said that out loud. But she knew. I thrilled her. I’d hide and she’d look everywhere for me, her hopeful voice echoing throughout the house as she ran and called out, “Drew! Drew!” Then I’d try to scare her. My heart beat very fast and cool prickles of delight ran up my spine every time I leapt from the shadows and made her scream.
Keith was different, kind where I was brazen. Shortly after that incident at the club with Soren Nichols, we walked to school together. Charlottesville fall, the air still hung with humidity, but the light was changing, becoming more distant, more diffuse. The seasonal fade merged with the wave of darkness rippling in the wake of what I’d done. Everywhere I went, I heard the whispers. I saw the looks. I simply steeled my gaze and perfected an outer shell that promised I was more snob than outcast.
The private school my brother and I attended sat about a mile from our large estate home, a winding tree-lined stroll through one of the city’s most prestigious neighborhoods. That morning, Keith’s friend Lee leaned out the window of a black Mercedes as his mom drove past and asked Keith if he needed a ride.
“No, thanks!” shouted Keith as he kept his eyes on me, a small smile pulling on his lips. “I’m walking with Drew today.” I kept my head down, staring at my ugly black loafers and pressed khaki pants. Severe motion sickness meant I wasn’t allowed to ride the bus. Or get in anyone’s car. My father said I had an inner ear defect. My mother said I’d outgrow it.
“I don’t want you following me,” I said loudly. Keith was thirteen. Walking into school with him was sure to bring a crowd of giggling females over toward us. Inevitably I would get teased or babied in some way that offended me. This would lead to throwing punches and an extra trip to the therapist Soren’s parents insisted I see in return for not pressing charges. Such a waste, I thought. I’d easily mastered the art of sand tray play and sullen silence.
“I don’t want to follow you, either,” Keith said. “So you think we could just walk together? Side by side? We don’t even have to talk if you don’t want to.”
“Well…”
“Well, what?”
“What if I say no?”
“No what?”
“No, you can’t walk beside me.”
“Well, then I’d be following you. And, you know, you already asked me not to do that. So unless you’d prefer to follow me…”
I glared.
He tried changing the subject. “You looking forward to Christmas this year?”
“Sure, I guess.”
“What are you going to ask Santa for?”
It was October. I scowled some more. “Santa’s not real, you jerk. Don’t treat me like some little kid.”
“You’re nine, Drew. You are a little kid.”
He was teasing, but I didn’t know he was testing me, too. Losing the belief in Santa Claus was an important developmental milestone. When one can no longer believe in such alluring magic, then rationality has beaten back one’s wide-eyed innocence. For most kids, this milestone means a lot.
For my brother, it meant everything.
chapter
three
matter
I stand before the steaming vats of food with a book beneath one arm and do the math inside my head. It’s complicated and my feet shuffle, trying to get me to leave. Departure is tempting; I’m tired and not hungry and I’m like this close to my goal of 6 percent body fat. But I’m also in season. Coach Daniels is already on my case. I can’t just starve.