One of those tears snakes its way out anyway, and I swipe at it, frustrated. There’s no one else like Alex in my life, who can make me cry this way—I want so bad to be tough in front of him, to make him proud of me, to stand up to him when the moment warrants it. But with Alex, I’ve always been the weak link, the kid, the one he has to take care of, and I have a trigger-tear response to him. I want to tell him that heshouldbe sorry, that what he’d said had really hurt, and that while I may have messed up, offering that money, all I’d really wanted was a chance to tell him how important he is to me. But I know if I try to say all that, my voice will be weak and tear-soaked, so I settle for a simple,“Thanks.”
He takes the bag of trash from me, stands to take it over to the can along the sidewalk. I guess we’re done here, so I gather my purse, but Alex comes back, sits beside me, slinging an arm along the back of the bench. He looks out toward the parking lot, and he’s quiet for so long I think he’s not going to say anything, that he maybe wants to enjoy the quiet for a while—or he’s giving me a minute to collect myself.“You know I take a lot of risks in my job,” he says.“That job I was doing, in South Africa, it was for a series on prison overcrowding. About the violence there, the TB outbreaks they’ve had.”
There’s a hard knot forming in my stomach while he talks. I know the kind of work Alex does, but he rarely tells me himself about it. I usually find out later, when I see pictures he’s got a credit on, and by then I know he’s safe, out of danger.
“Are you okay?” I manage.
“I’m okay. But when I was there, I thought—I’ve always thought of myself as a pretty tough guy, doing these jobs. That’s what I’ve gone after, since I left home. Nothing familiar.”
“I know,” I say quickly, not wanting to hear a retread of this, not wanting to have him try to explain what he meant in a nicer way.“I heard you. And I understand why you’d want that, after everything.”
“I don’t think you do. I think it’s actually you who’s done the harder thing, the braver thing. Chaos is what I was used to. And chaos is what I’ve stuck with, just a more intense version of it. And this way, I can watch it happen from behind my camera, but I don’t have to try and clean it up for anyone. What you’ve done, Kit—you’re the bravest person I know. The way you put yourself out there with people, the way you’ve made a home there. You’ve done exactly the thing neither one of us had any training to do.”
“But you made…”
“I didn’t,” he says, cutting me off.“I know what I said last month, but I didn’t really make homes for you. I kept us afloat. And I’m not saying that wasn’t good, especially for a kid, but I didn’t do what you’ve done, ever. So I’m sorry. And I’m so fuckingproudof you.” This part, he punctuates it, thumping the edge of his fist against his thigh.
Well,shit. He’s going to have to wait a good long while longer for me to talk again, because my one rogue tear has turned into a flood, and I have to sit forward, rest my elbows on my knees so I can cradle my face in my hands. Alex moves his arm from the back of the bench, rests a warm hand on my shoulder and squeezes. In that small gesture, I feel everything Alex has ever done and wanted for me. I feel all the unconditional comfort and support, the selflessness it took for him to wait for me, to wait until I grew up enough for him to go out and live his life. Alex has always been everything our dad couldn’t be.
But maybe I haven’t been. Maybe, despite what I’d said to Alex when we’d fought, Ihadexpected something. I had been thinking of myself and what would feel good to me. I wanted to give that money to my brother on my terms. I’d wanted to make his decisions for him.
“I’m sorry too,” I tell him, when I’ve caught my breath again. “I’m so sorry about the money.”
“Kit,” he says, before I can go on. “I told you, you can’t feel bad about the money.”
“No, I’m sorry for trying to force the money on you. The truth is, Alex, I’m always going to keep some of that money for you.” I shoot him a quelling look when it seems he might protest. “Because you’re my brother, and nothing would make me happier than being able to help you out sometime, if you wanted me to. But if you never want me to, that’s okay too. It’s okay so long as you’re happy. So long as you’re living a life you feel good about.”
“I am,” he says. “For now, I am.”
“I’m glad.” And Iamglad. I miss him, but I’m glad. And maybe for the first time, I realize that it’s possible to feel both at the same time.
“We’re okay, Tool Kit?” he asks, using the hand at my shoulder to shake me, gentle and coaxing.
I lean in to it, reaching up to pat his hand. “We’re okay.”
It feels good, this conversation—like having something lost returned to you, unexpectedly. But I still feel as if something huge is missing, some big sucking hole that’s actually inside me. Despite how Alex sees me, I don’t feel very brave right now. I still feel like I’d walk all the way home just to get away from this hospital and this situation with Dad and with Candace. I wish I was in my own house, or on the microscope. I wish more than anything I hadn’t sent Ben away—that he hadn’t given me a reason to.
“Is it that guy?” Alex asks, because this is how well he still knows me. He knows I’m not all right.“Because it’s not a problem with you, that you don’t want that job. It was a shitty thing he did.” Alex knows the bare minimum about what happened with Ben—at some point, on that first morning, before Ben himself had shown up, Alex had asked, in one of our bland attempts at conversation while we waited for Dad to wake up, what had happened to the recruiter Zoe had mentioned.“I started dating him,” I’d said,“And he went around my back and tried to have me traded to his company.” Almost immediately, I’d felt a wave of guilt, and tried to take it back.“Well, I mean, I think that’s what happened,” I’d added, but the damage was done. I’d ensured that full freeze-out Ben got from Alex when he showed up.
I close my eyes against the thought of Ben’s face, the way he’d looked at me.I’ll do anything, he’d said.“You know, this thing with Dad and Candace,” I say, changing the subject, or at least I think I’m changing the subject.
“Yeah.” He says this on a resigned sigh, and from that sound I know he shares every single one of my doubts.
“She knows he’s a bad bet. She knows he’s got a drinking problem, a gambling problem. She knows he’s not even all that great at recovery.”
“It’s early, though. He might get better at it.” It’s surprising, this generosity, maybe another sign of how we relate differently to our father. Maybe Alex had held out hope for longer with Dad, while pretty early on I’d learned to keep all my hope focused on my brother, the guy who actually got things done for our family, the guy who never messed up.
“I mean, I don’t get it,” I say.“She’s got a drinking problem too. Why would she go in for someone who could screw up her own sobriety?”
“Different kind of bravery, I guess,” says Alex.
“Or stupidity.”
“Or that.”
“Ben made me think about moving to Texas,” I blurt.“For a second, I thought,hey, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, if we were together.” It isn’t remotely the same, what Candace is risking for my dad, and what I thought fleetingly about risking for Ben. But damn if that conversation with her didn’t make me think of howweakI was with Ben, about how the first time he got me into bed I’d thought,this is home. I knew better than that—I knew that despite what people say, no one person can be your home. Home was complicated, layered. Home was people you loved but also places you knew well and liked to go to, things you had around you that made you feel safe and comforted. Home was too much for one person to be to anyone. Look at what it had done to Alex, for all those years he had to be a home for me.
Alex starts to say something, but I don’t even let him get a word out before I rush on.“That’s stupidity. Everything I’ve worked for? My friends, my work. Everything I built on my own there?Stupid.”
