4.
I wanted an ordinary brother. One I could talk to reasonably about my appointment with Suzanne. A brother I could grieve with over our father. I was never going to have that brother, and even though I’d managed to guilt him into coming over to the house that evening, his anxiety was like a third person in my car as we drove away from the RV park. He said his Subaru was low on gas and he didn’t have the money to fill it, so I’d picked him up, trying to hand him the hundred dollars I’d taken from his trust fund. He turned away from the money with an annoyed expression on his face. I couldn’t blame him. It had to do something to his pride to be dependent on his younger sister for funds now.
I stopped at MJ’s to pick up a pound of peel-and-eat shrimp and fries, my heart racing as I waited for the order to be filled, afraid I’d return to the car to find Danny gone. But he was still there, filling the air in my car with cigarette smoke. I said nothing. If he needed to smoke to get through this, fine. If he needed to drink, fine. I’d bought a six-pack of beer that afternoon. Whatever it took.
Before starting the car, I reached into my purse and pulled out the phone I’d bought that afternoon. “Here’s a prepaid phone for you so we can keep in touch,” I said, holding it out to him.
“I really don’t want a phone,” he said.
“Just for while I’m here.” I pressed the phone into his hand. “I put my number in the contacts, and your number is in mine.” After a moment, he closed his fingers around the phone and slid it into his jeans pocket.
Satisfied, I started the car and we drove to the house, the scent of Old Bay Seasoning mixing with the cigarette smoke. I parked in the driveway, and we walked slowly across the lawn and up the steps to the front door. His limp was not as bad as it used to be, I thought, though I had the feeling his slow, stiff gait might be due to pain. Or maybe he simply wanted to put off going into the house as long as he could. It had been years since he’d been inside.
“Daddy has about two hundred thousand in savings,” I said as we walked through the living room toward the kitchen, the sack of shrimp and fries in my arms. Danny turned his head left and right, taking in the room. I doubted anything had changed since the last time he’d been there. “Half of that money will go into your trust.”
“What would I do with that much money?” he asked when we reached the kitchen. I knew it was a rhetorical question.
“Well”—I put the bag on the counter—“it’ll be there if you ever need it.” I’d already told him he could keep the land where he was living.
He immediately walked to the refrigerator and opened the door, pulling a beer from the carton. “How’d he end up with that much in the bank?” he asked, shutting the refrigerator door.
I reached into one of the cupboards for a couple of plates. “He was a good saver, I guess,” I said. “He didn’t have many expenses. And he used to work for the U.S. Marshals Service, which I guess you knew?”
“Hm.” He pulled open a couple of drawers before finding the one with the bottle opener. “He was crazy, wasn’t he? Giving up a government job to come down here and run an RV park?”
I glanced at him as I took two of my mother’s old Franciscan Ware plates from the cupboard. “Maybe he felt like you do,” I said. “You know. Choosing a quieter lifestyle over the rat race of Washington, D.C.”
He took a swallow of beer. “Not sure I could say mine is a choice,” he said.
I nodded toward the back door, and Danny followed me onto the screened porch, where I set the plates on the oilcloth-covered table. The cicadas and crickets were singing their evening songs as I opened the bag from MJ’s. I loved the porch. It reminded me of when I was a kid. All summer long, I’d read in one of the rockers. I could still remember a few of the books I devoured back then, when life seemed a whole lot simpler than it did right now.
“Do you remember hanging out on the porch when we were kids?” I asked as I opened the wrapper around the shrimp.
“Man, these plates!” Danny said as if he hadn’t heard what I said. He looked down at the cream-colored plate with the hand-painted apples around the border. “Do we have to eat on these old plates?”
“What’s wrong with them?”
“Just … it’s like being fifteen again.”
I wanted to prod. To ask him why being fifteen felt so terrible to him, but I’d prodded before and knew it would go nowhere.
“I actually love these plates,” I said. “They remind me of Mom.”
“Exactly,” he said.
I wasn’t about to get him a different plate. I took a handful of shrimp and pushed the cardboard container across the table to him. “Cover it with shrimp and you won’t see the design,” I said, and I was glad when he reached for the container.
“So.” I peeled a shrimp, thinking I’d better get the subject off our family for a while. “I told you about my sorry love life. How about yours? Anyone special these days?”
His shrug was noncommittal. “They come and go,” he said, “and that suits me fine.” He ate a shrimp, then drained his beer and stood up. “I need another of these,” he said. “Get you one?”
“No, thanks.” I ate a few fries as I waited for him to come back. I hated how tense it felt between us. He seemed brittle to me tonight. Easy to break.
His bottle was already half empty by the time he sat down again, and his hands shook as he began peeling a shrimp. I wondered if he was on something. He’d smoked a lot of weed when he got back from Iraq, but as far as I knew, alcohol was his drug of choice these days.
“We have to talk about the house,” I said, and I told him everything I’d learned from Suzanne. “The piano and ten thousand go to Jeannie Lyons, which I think is weird. She used to be a friend of Mom’s, but I—”
“I know who she is,” he said, taking another swallow of beer. “She tries to talk to me when she sees me around town, but I just put on my scary PTSD act and she leaves me alone.”
I had to laugh. His delivery was deadpan and I had no idea if he meant to be funny or not, but either way, I liked his honesty. “And you must know Tom Kyle,” I said. “He lives at the end of the RV park?”
“Total asshole. He always wears camo pants, like he’s trying to pass himself off as something he’s not.”
I nibbled a French fry. “Well,” I said, “I don’t know him very well, but he’s been helping to keep the park going since Daddy died, so I appreciate that. And Daddy must have had some sort of relationship with him because he left him his pipe collection.”
“What would anyone want with a bunch of old pipes?”
“Who knows?” I said. “But they’re one less thing we need to deal with, so I’m happy about that. What I’ll need the most help with is boxing stuff up to donate. You know, clearing everything out of the house so we can sell it.” I fantasized about us working together for a couple of weeks, shoulder to shoulder. Maybe I could get him to really talk to me. To open up.
He stopped peeling the shrimp and looked out at the yard, nearly dark now. “Seriously,” he said, “you better just hire somebody. I can’t do it.”
His voice was soft but sure, as though he’d been trying to reach a decision and had finally made it. “Why not, Danny?” I asked gently.
“Being here, I realize…” He looked at me, but only for a second before dropping his gaze to the remaining shrimp on his plate. “I just don’t want to paw through all their old stuff. Things like these plates.” He tapped his finger on the edge of the plate. “I don’t want to see them.”
“Okay…” I said, wishing I understood the enigma that was my brother.
“I have as many nightmares about our family as I do about Iraq,” he added.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “I mean, it’s not like you were abused or anything.”