Tom’s house had been almost too alive in some ways, the rhythm of school and breakfasts and homework, Kerry and Buster eating meals with their jackets on before going off to “practice.” Danny could never remember what sports or plays either of them did. Eventually he had to stop asking. But when he had the place to himself, the house was a maze of closed doors. In that quiet, he half expected to wake up one morning and find every piece of furniture covered with a white sheet, all the drapes drawn. A closed house.
There were only five bedrooms, but Danny kept going into the wrong room. With all the rooms painted subtly different shades of blue, he had to look for his copy of Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! facedown on the nightstand to be absolutely sure it was his room. He had wondered if he died would Tom leave the book there, open to the last page Danny had read, would this become the Dead Brother Room? No. His old room in his mother’s apartment would’ve been his shrine, but it had been packed up while his mother lay in the hospital. Packed up by dudes with duct tape and dirty quilted blankets. Packed up when they realized she wouldn’t be going home. His room was gone. No shrine. No offerings of folded laundry at the foot of the bed, no fresh glass of water on the windowsill.
First he had stayed with Libby. “Stay with Tom a few nights,” she had said, “and then go to Gwen’s; this way Tom won’t feel bad.” At Libby’s he slept on her pullout. At least there he never lost track of his room.
“Good thing they left us with all this cheese,” said Gwen. The round wicker table between them held a glass tray in the shape of a giant lettuce leaf spread with an array of oozing and sweating cheeses. To Danny they looked fleshy, like pieces of meat. A small basket beside the plate contained various crackers and breads. Danny built a triple-decker hors d’oeuvre, alternating different cheeses and their starch vehicles. Then, once settled back is his spot, he dismantled and reassembled them into separate selections.
He didn’t want to think about his lost room, or the fact that he had only read another five pages of Mr. Feynman in the last six months. He hadn’t been able to read anything: textbooks, novels, even cereal boxes. He could pretend. Sit there with a book in his hand. Or worse, actually try to read, but the effect was the same. After a few sentences his mind would drift away. Most of his spring semester he spent walking the campus, following dirt footpaths forged over grassy quads and through copses. Forgetting where and when his classes were, showing up for dinner an hour after the cafeteria had closed. If he managed to make it to a class, to find the right room at the right time, there was invariably a quiz or paper due—a living stress dream. At least his teeth weren’t falling out and he wasn’t being forced to take a shit in front of a waiting and impatient crowd.
The birds were more muted now. The wind had died down. All seemed to quiet with the softened light. Even the distant motors moved slower, purred lower. The smell of honeysuckle was thick in the air, its tendrils wrapped the railing of the steps, snaked up the shingles and spread forth to obscure one of the rug room windows. These pretty vines want to choke the house, Danny thought, to pull it back into the sweet mangling arms of nature. There would be another hour until the light fully disappeared, a long, slow cocktail hour. Usually a languid time, tonight it felt pulled, swollen, stuffy. The slow got slower. Danny felt time thickening, hardening. He grew hotter, a prickling at the hairline, making him roll his shoulders. He rubbed his beer bottle on the back of his neck. He wished that he could take off his shirt, he’d just put it on for dinner, and already it felt heavy, stale, grimy. He envied Tom and Melissa down on the pier, where it was always cooler, a soft wind periodically luffing the flag even on such a still evening.
He watched Gwen take a long sip of her drink. Usually she’d be cradling something low and amber, but tonight, these days, she was experimenting with seltzers and juices, with ginger ale or 7 Up splashed with mixers or bitters or sprigs of mint. Danny wasn’t sure if Gwen was doing that to hide the nonalcoholic content of her drinks from the others, or just to entertain herself. At least she wasn’t drinking, that was a good sign, right? Or was she sneaking vodka into her spritzers, hiding it in an effort not to upset him? The next time she put her drink on the table he would go over, ostensibly for a cheese and cracker, and give it a quick sip to be sure. He sniffed in the direction of her glass. He was a bloodhound. He would find out. He needed to know.
There were too many things he ought to know. Danny was tired of questions. Tired of exam questions, of shrinks’ questions, of friends’ questions. He just wanted the peace of this house, this place of quiet. He hated that Tom was trying to ruin it, trying to cast doubt on every shingle. This place of sameness, of certainty, of every summer for twenty-one years, built on a granite slab, withstanding a dozen hurricanes in its 125 years. Tom made it all quiver with his talk of taxes and interest and equity. Tom made the place sound as if it were built on sand, as if an earthquake was coming, and all those grains would liquefy and wave like the ocean dragging them all down. What if it all went without him? I need to go down with the ship.
Now the tears started to come. He looked out to the water, over the sputtering barbeque and the bickering cooks, over the float, past the spindle and its cormorants, out toward town, keeping his face turned as far from his sisters as he could manage. He pinched his nose, tilted back his head, but it was no use. He could tell he wouldn’t be able to stop the works. Gwen and Libby were discussing the cheese.
“I think it’s more that all Gorgonzolas are blue but not all blues are Gorgonzola,” said Gwen. She handed pieces of each cheese to Libby for a taste test.
Danny shuddered, one violent breath racing through him faster than he could control. Both his sisters leaned toward him.
“Dan, you okay?” Gwen said, a hand already on his shoulder, prepared to perform a quick Heimlich if he wasn’t able to produce words. But if he spoke he would cry, so he just nodded.
Here he was again, the child unable to keep back the motherfucking tears. Gwen pushed his feet off the rail, turning him to face them, and perched right where his feet had been. Libby stood up in front of him and squinted against the sun’s last glow to look into his face. Now the tears came fast. He was glad Tom was busy. Glad he’d kept his hair long.
“Is this about school?” Libby asked. Danny looked at her, his lips shaking now. What does she know about school?