She scrunches up her face when I hand it to her, then she takes it out of the room for a few minutes to rinse it out in one of the bathrooms like she always does.
I never ask her which one.
When she comes back, the bowl is clean again, and there’s a wet rag hung over the side of it. She sits on the side of the bed and folds the rag over on itself before gently laying it across Brody’s forehead.
“I’m sorry,” he tells her. His voice is scratchy and crackly, like mine gets when my throat hurts.
“It’s okay, Bam.” She rubs her hand on his arm, back and forth, back and forth. “You can’t help it.”
It was my big brother’s birthday two weeks ago, and he didn’t even want a birthday party or a slice of the ice cream cake Chef made for him. He said his tummy hurt too much from his medicine.
Edie says that God helped make the medicine, but He made the sickness too, didn’t He? I don’t understand why God would make him so sick.
He’s a good brother.
My eyes hurt. My chest and my throat, too.
I scrub at my eyes with my knuckles to try to keep any tears from falling. My dad always says that crying is only forwomen. That men of God should trust in Him and ask Him for strength. We shouldn't let ourselves cry.
Montgomery men are strong men.
Montgomery men don’t cry.
But I’m really scared.
I’m scared of God. I’m scared that I’ll get in trouble for crying. I’m scared that my big brother is too sick, too skinny, too weak. I’m scared that I’m too little and I don’t know how to help.
Sometimes I get scared that God will make me sick, too.
And I think, sometimes, I’m scared of my dad.
My big sister’s arm reaches out, and I tuck myself into it, letting her hug me nice and tight.
“We’re on our secret mission,” she whispers against my head. “You can cry while we’re on our mission.”
And so I do.
I hold onto my big sister and I cry and I cry and I cry into her nightgown until there’s snot and tears all over the front of it and until my face hurts. Her cheek presses against the top of my head, and Brody’s hand holds onto mine as tight as it can.
“‘Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid,’” Edie recites quietly. “God is with us. He sees our pain. He sees our strength.”
“I don’t want Him to see me cry,” I tell her. “Boys aren’t supposed to cry.”
Holding the bowl in front of Brody while he throws up again, she combs my hair behind my ear and leans in close to whisper, “I know lots of boys who cry. God gave us all tears to get our sadness and our fear out. This is scary. It’s okay that you need to cry, Tripp.”
“I don’t like God.”
She looks at our brother, who is too weak to hold himself up, whose body curls in on itself, and whose eyes are also filled with tears, then up to the ceiling and back to me.
I know she’s thinking about Nash, too. She cries about him a lot, alone in their room. She says she can still feel him and she says that it’s a good thing, but I think it makes her more sad than if she couldn’t.
“Sometimes, I don’t like Him very much, either,” she tells me. “But He still loves us, and we have to trust Him.” With a kiss to Brody’s head, she uses the rag to wipe his mouth before pulling his blankets back up over his body. Tucking the bowl under her arm, she nods toward me. “Get some sleep. I’ll come and get you before Father wakes up.”
I pick my blanket up off of the floor while she leaves, quietly pulling the door closed behind her. I always sleep on Brody’s floor, right next to his bed. Ever since he started going to the doctor all the time and coming home sad and tired. Ever since I saw him lying with his forehead on the tile floor in our bathroom, all by himself.
It’s my job to protect my brother.
I don’t sleep on the floor tonight. Instead, I climb up onto my big brother’s bed behind him and I put my blanket over the both of us while I cuddle up close to him and hold on tight.
