“Yeah. Why, what is it?”
“It’s a literary magazine,” he said, standing up and taking the box from me. He put it down on the coffee table and used my keys to open it. He removed four thick literary magazines from the box and put them on the couch. The covers said Angeles. There was a picture of a palm-tree-lined road on the front and a girl lying in the middle of it, reading a book.
There was an envelope clipped to the top magazine.
It said Abe—in handwriting I recognized instantly.
“Abe . . . what are those?” I asked.
“No way,” he said. He took the envelope off the magazine but didn’t open it right away; instead he picked up one of the copies and turned to the table of contents. Amy stood up to read over his shoulder and started squealing almost immediately, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet.
“What! What! What! What!” she said, a “what” for every bounce.
“What?” Abe asked, quieter, softer.
“What! What?” I said, grabbing another copy of the magazine from the couch. I opened it and found my brother’s name immediately, in the table of contents, under a section titled “New Voices.”
“I didn’t know you submitted it!” Amy said, still squealing, her voice a high-pitched shriek of pure joy.
“I didn’t,” Abe said. He finally tore his eyes off the page and looked at me. “Did you do this?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t even know what this is!”
“An essay!” Amy explained. “He wrote an essay, and it’s published!”
“Aunt Helen,” Abe said, picking up the envelope with her handwriting on it. “Wow.”
“Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow!” Amy echoed, her bounces calming down and fading into little shakes. She leaned into Abe and closed her eyes, her entire body vibrating. “I’m so happy for you! Abe! Holy crap! Holiest of crap!”
Next to my brother’s name was the title of his essay: “How to Say Good-bye.” Page 53. I turned the pages until I got to his name in big block letters. Abraham Reaves.
“Abe, wow,” I said.
“She must have . . . I don’t know. She must have made them publish it.”
“Made them? Don’t be ridiculous,” Amy said. “I told you how good this essay was. Abe, I told you. Read her letter; I’m sure she didn’t make them do anything.”
Abe sank back into the couch and looked at the magazine, turning it over in his head like he expected it to dissolve or burst into flames or disappear in front of his eyes. Then he opened Aunt Helen’s letter while I read the first few lines of the essay.
First, how not to:
Do not tell them not to go, this will only piss them off. They usually don’t have a choice.
Do not offer to sit with them while they sleep. Just sit with them.
“I had no idea you could write like this,” I said.
“Thanks,” he said, turning almost pink.
“I have to go somewhere quiet and read the rest,” I said. “I’m claiming this copy for myself, and I want you to sign it later.”
“I want you to sign mine too!” Amy exclaimed.
Abe looked so happy; I wanted to take a picture, but I knew it would never capture the moment as perfectly as I wanted it to.
I left him and Amy alone and went upstairs to read the rest of his essay. I was in tears by the end of it.
I realized more than I ever had before that Abe was a secret, that everyone was a secret, and for every single thing you learned about someone, there were a hundred other things you might never know.
I read Aunt Helen’s next letter with tears making everything blurry.
Lottie,
Things are winding down now. I’ve written so many letters over the course of the past couple of weeks, and I guess I should stop writing them soon. There’s only so much I can get down, only so much more I can wish for you. You’ll have to start wishing for yourself. But I have just a few more things to give you, things to tell you. There are just a few more secrets left for you to discover.
I left you these letters and not Abe or your father or your mother because I thought you might be the one who needed the most guidance after I’m gone. I hope that doesn’t insult you; I don’t think there’s anything wrong with needing guidance. We are cut from the same cloth, Lottie, the same emotionally complicated, anxiety-ridden cloth.
But that’s not to say I’m not thinking about everyone else. I worry about your father, about how he’s taking all of this. I always thought of us a little like Margo and Alvin. You can’t really have one without the other. The books are named after Alvin, but Margo is just as much a part of them, just as much a presence (which is why I flipped it around and named the last book after her, because I do what I want and so does she).
If things were reversed, if I knew I would have to live the rest of my life without your father, without my Alvin, I would be devastated. My older brother, the greatest guy I’ve ever met. Nope, that would be too cruel to imagine.
So I worry about him now and after I’m gone.
I wish you would spend a little time with him, just the two of you. I’m sure a few weeks must have passed by now. See if he’s okay, Lottie. Get him talking. Don’t let him wash his car four times a day.
Be there for him when I can’t.
I hope he is happy. I hope Abe is happy. I hope you are happy. I hope all the people I left behind are happy. I know it’s probably too much to ask for, but I hope everybody is happy. I hope all of you are happy, and I hope you stay that way forever.
Love, H.
I didn’t sleep well that night. I had dreams about dying. Over and over again, in a dozen different ways.
When I was younger, my mother’s youngest sibling, my uncle Gabriel, was visiting from Peru. I don’t remember any of this, but it’s on video: my uncle picking me up, me laughing, a tiny fumbling toddler, him throwing me into the air, my scalp coming just inches from the spinning ceiling fan. Everyone in the room went absolutely silent. Uncle Gabriel held me to his chest as I squirmed and tried to get away from him, clueless, unaware that I had almost been decapitated. (In hindsight, probably I wouldn’t have been decapitated. But maybe. I was just a baby, and the fan was going fast.) People laughed about it now. Uncle Gabriel always asks me if I need a haircut, and everyone laughs.
Except my mother. She has never laughed about it.
One of the things about death that has always bothered me is that people can die in the most unexpected, terrible ways. People can die while completely minding their own business, while being safe and wearing seat belts and helmets and not doing mind-boggling things like skydiving or bungee jumping. People go swimming in ponds and get brain-eating amoebas that kill them days later. Or people are standing in line to order a cup of coffee in a little coffee shop and an eighty-six-year-old who can’t even see over his steering wheel crashes through the doors and runs over everybody inside. Or you get Listeria from a bowl of ice cream. Or, or, or.