Angie: Also, WTF, another one?
Jonah: Blame Dane! He gave him to me.
Dane: He needed a new home. His last owners left him at the clinic.
Robyn: That poor angel baby!
Dad: Why does he have a cone on his head?
Jonah: He had a b9 mass removed from his chest
Rafael: B9?
Isaiah: B9?
Dane: He meant benign (non-cancerous)
Dell: You almost got yourself a proper farm, bro. All youneed now is a barn cat.
Isaiah: Don’t encourage him.
Robyn: GET A CAT
I pocket my phone while the group chat blows up and search for King. When I find him upstairs in my room, he’s sniffing around a couple of unpacked moving boxes. I scratch his neck. “That smell good, buddy? Here, lemme see.”
I plop on the floor of my walk-in closet, and he does the same—curious to see what’s inside. The first thing I pull out is the diary my mom kept for me. The one she wrote in from the time she was pregnant with me until I turned one. Angie didn’t let me have this physical copy until I moved in here. She scanned each page and sent me an electronic copy that I... never opened. I don’t really know why. I was so young when she died, and I’ve always felt bad that I never had a strong connection to her like my older siblings did.
Now that I look through this box a little more, it’s all stuff Ang packed for me. Old trophies and pictures, sheet music to the first song I wrote with my brothers (long live Agony Nectar). All kinds of sentimental stuff I haven’t seen in years, if at all.
When I open the diary, there’s a pink sticky note on the first page written in my sister’s handwriting.
Congratulations on your new home, little brother. Please take good care of this. You may not find it meaningful now, but someday you will. —Angie
King sniffs around the closet some more while I settle against a pile of clothes and begin on the first page.
December 4th
Hello Loin Fruit #4! Welcome to your new home inside mywomb. If you’re anything like your siblings, you’ll find it quite comfortable and won’t want to leave. But I’m going to need to kiss that squishy little face of yours and sniff your head when you get out, so don’t take too long, okay? But right now, you’re the size of a grain of rice, so we have lots of time.
My, do you have a hored of people who will be excited to meet you! Angela, Isaiah, and Dane will be thrilled when they find out about you. I’ll tell them when I start showing. Angela has been begging for a sister because the boys “don’t play nail salon right.” So I’m afraid whether you are a boy or girl, she will make you learn.
Your father and I can’t wait to meet you, baby.
Love,
Mama
I have to laugh because Angie made me do all kinds of things that Isaiah and Dane wouldn’t. Like nail salons and tea parties. Whatever, their loss. I had a great time doing those things.
My brothers mostly used me as their test dummy growing up.
“Hey Jonah, try out the new bike ramp to make sure it doesn’t collapse.”
“Hey Jonah, we’re pretty sure you’re Peter Pan, so jump out of our bedroom window and fly.”
“Hey Jonah, attach these frisbees to your feet and skate on the icy driveway.”
Good times.
