I nodded.
He paused before continuing. “We talked about what we would do together when we were old men. You told me how you were good at almost anything, all you had to do was apply yourself, and you could do anything you wanted. I think I was pretty drunk.”
“I was drunk, too,” I whispered between my tears.
“But I remember, most of all, I remember thinking how great you were, thinking how I wasn’t that great, how I had so much trouble with everything and wondering why. But most of all, I remember thinking how much I loved you, and how proud I was just to be your brother. You were the star of the pssi-kid program, even way ahead of Jimmy, I was so proud.…”
“I remember that night,” I managed to choke out between sobs. I was crying full on now.
“I’m still here, Bob.” Martin was looking directly into my eyes, his voice soft and full of love.
I remembered drawing three-dimensional line drawings of cubes and other objects on paper back when we were starting in school—two squares offset from each other with a straight line that joined each corresponding corner to make a three-dimensional-looking cube. I found it fascinating because when I stared at it, it seemed that one of the faces was closer to you, but if you concentrated and willed it, suddenly the cube flipped and the other face switched to being closer.
As I looked hard at Martin right then, my mind performed a similar flip, and with sudden clarity, all I saw was my brother, sitting there in front of me in flesh and blood. A wave of love sprang from my scalp to my fingertips, and I got up to go and sit on the couch with him.
“Dean…Martin…I missed you so much, it’s just this place.” I reached out to hold his hand.
“I’ve missed you, too,” replied Martin. “You’ve been so nasty to me these past years. I always think you hate me for some reason that I don’t understand. It hurt so much.”
Tears streamed down my face, and Martin reached up to wipe them away, and then he rubbed his hand across his own face. His demeanor changed, and he sat bolt upright, taking a deep breath. He grabbed both of my hands tightly with his. “Stop with all the drugs, will you? And all these women, it’s not going to change anything. Calm down. Talk to Nancy.”
“You’re right,” was all I could think to say. “I’ll stop, I’ll try.…”
“Good,” he replied. “And Bobby, if you really believe all that stuff about gameworlds being real, then Dean is still somewhere out there, and I’m your connection to him.”
“This is messed up.”
I was staring at the floor. Nothing made any sense. My whole life, I’d felt like I was running away from something, fleeing before some unseen danger. From now on, it would stop.
Maybe he was right; maybe I could still find Dean out there. I was right in the middle of one of the most amazing places on earth, where the impossible was becoming possible almost daily. I just needed to apply myself and get out of this daze I’d slid into.
“Bobby?” asked Martin.
“Yeah?”
“Why are you crying?”
Oh no. The blind spot had caught up. I wiped away my tears.
I lied. “It’s nothing. I’m just worried about the storms and Nicky dumping me.”
His face brightened. “Don’t worry, big brother, I’ll take care of you. Like I was saying, could you get Dad to add me to the evacuation list? I don’t know what’s going, but I have a lot to do, so I’d appreciate it.”
“Consider it done,” I replied with a sigh.
“Thanks.”
Martin got up off the couch and prepared to leave.
“Hey, Martin.…”
“Yeah?”
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to say lately.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that?”
I smiled, pausing, and the world clicked back into sense for me. “Martin, I love you. I love you a lot.”
He looked away quickly, catching his breath, and brought up a hand to wipe the corner of one eye. “I love you, too, Bobby. That is so good to hear.”
“Okay, good—now get!” I laughed.
He grinned back at me, shaking his head as he disappeared.
This place, all of it, felt abruptly wrong. Like a switch being thrown, I suddenly knew something wasn’t right here anymore, and that this same something had swallowed Dean in its path. Blind spots—we all had them. So what was it that they were hiding from us, what was it we weren’t seeing?