“And all these years you knew that I hated you. That I thought you were a coward. Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
Tom raised his head and dragged a forearm across his eyes. “By the time you were old enough to be told, you already believed your version of it. Tell me, Ben, if I had told you the truth, would you have believed me? If we had never come out here, would you have believed me?”
Benny slowly shook his head.
“So I waited.”
“God … that must have been hard.”
Tom shrugged. “I knew that one day we’d come here. But when we got here … you knew, didn’t you? When did you figure it out?”
Benny sniffed and wiped his eyes. “Since … since we got back from Harold Simmons’s house. When I was sitting on the back porch all that time. I figured it out. I just didn’t want it to be the truth. I didn’t ever want to come here.”
Tom nodded. “Neither did I. But you do understand that we had to, right?”
“Yes,” whispered Benny. “Because we needed closure, too.”
Benny still held the knife. He’d cleaned the blade, but he gripped the ribbed handle with a tight fist.
“Can I keep this?” Benny asked, holding out the knife.
“Why?” his brother asked.
Benny’s eyes were puffy from crying, but they were dry. “I guess I’ll need it,” he said.
Tom stopped and studied him for a long time. His smile was sad, but his eyes were filled with love. And with pride. He removed the boot sheath and handed it to Benny, who clipped it inside his own boot.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go back to the way station. Nix will be waiting.”
“I don’t think Mountainside is home anymore. Not for me, and definitely not for Nix.”
“We could go east,” said Tom. “Find out what’s on the other side of the Ruin.”
“The jet,” Benny said.
“The jet,” Tom agreed.
Benny Imura looked back at the wrought-iron gates and at the words painted outside. He nodded to himself.
Together they walked through the gathering twilight back to the way station where Nix would be waiting for them. They walked side by side in the vast silence of the Rot and Ruin.