The Summer That Melted Everything(58)

I regret it—Lord, I regret it—but I said the only thing I thought would make him stay.

“Faggot.”

I try to see his face at this moment, but in memory, his eyes, his nose, his mouth, are blurred until they’re smears of blue. Like watercolors in the rain. Somehow this makes it worse. To see his hurt as something he’s vanishing by, and to know I am responsible for that very vanishing.

“What did you say to me, Fielding?”

What did I say in that one word of six letters, sometimes only three? I suppose I said, I don’t want you to be gay. I don’t want you to be happy, and no, it isn’t fine that you want to be with a man. Faggot. Isn’t that what that one word is supposed to mean? Faggot? One word that said I was scared. That I didn’t understand. That no one ever sat us down and patted our heads and said sometimes a man loves another man and they make something nice together.

Above all else, I said with that one word, I hate you. How can it ever be believed I loved him above all others?

“Say it again, Fielding.” He grabbed me by the collar. As he shook me under him, one of his tears fell onto my cheek. To have my brother’s tear slide down my face cut worse than the world’s sharpest knife. He screamed over and over for me to call him a faggot just one more time.

So I did.

Before I knew it, I was down with Grand’s fists pummeling into my face and stomach. I did my best to shield against them, but he was Grand and I was Fielding and there was no way I wasn’t going to get the shit kicked out of me.

“I hate you, you little bastard.” His voice trembled. “I hate you.”

I could feel my tears mixing with blood from my nose. This mixture felt old, like something pulled from the past. I suppose I was feeling the tears and blood of every boy before me who had a brother who would never have a wife and to whom no one had ever said that was all right.

It was Sal who pulled Grand off of me, leaving me to curl up into my beaten self and whine like a baby.

“C’mon, kid.” The man grabbed Grand’s arm and led him away. Led him away from me as I reached and cried for Grand to come back.

“I was comin’ up from the basement when I heard the most terrible racket.” Mom stood in the doorway. “What was goin’ on?”

Once she saw my nose, she went for a wet rag and a bag of ice. Too sore to move myself, I watched the man and Grand get farther and farther away. All the while, my voice echoed for miles. I was calling for my brother. Please, just come back to me. He didn’t so much as turn his head. He just kept walking until I could no longer see his bare back, nor the yellow shirt of the man beside him.

“What on earth were the two of ya fightin’ about?” Mom bent down to wipe the blood from my nose. “Good Lord, I hope it’s not broken. Noses never look quite right after they’re broken.”

“It isn’t broken.”

When Mom asked Sal how he knew, he shrugged and said, “I guess I’ve been hit a lot myself. I know when it’s broken and when it’s just hurt. And that is just hurt.”

“It’s no good havin’ sons fightin’.” Mom sat down beside me, leaving me to hold the bag of ice. “Just look at what happened to Cain and Abel.”

“My nose is broken.” I threw the ice down. “And none of you even care. Let alone that Grand is gone … with that man.”

“What man?” Mom looked out across the yard like they were still there. “You mean that New Yorker? He was all right. Said he’d give us a free subscription to The New York Times. I’m gonna hold ’im to that.”

“Your nose isn’t broken.” Sal picked up the bag of ice and handed it to me. “It isn’t even bleeding anymore.”

“It still hurts.”

“My poor baby.” Mom pulled me into her side and sang,

Down in the hills of Ohio,

there’s a babe at sleep tonight.

He’ll wake in the morn of Ohio,

in the peaceful, golden light.

“Come on, you too.” She waited for Sal to sit at her other side. And there the three of us swayed with her soft voice,

The Father will smile in Ohio,

and the Mother will hold you tight.

You will be my love in Ohio,

and fooorrrr allllll time.

My mother always smelled like Breathed River, of wet rocks and gritty sand. Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe I just gave that smell to her because her flowing fluid form should’ve smelled more like a river than a house.

“I remember when we first moved into this house,” she sighed. “Me and your dad. I was pregnant with Grand. He wasn’t due for another week or so. Your father was off at the courthouse while I stayed home here, takin’ wallpaper swatches ’round to the different rooms. As I was considerin’ makin’ the entry hall blue, my water broke.

“I couldn’t call your father, ’cause we had yet to hook up the phone. I tried to make it to the neighbors, but the pain became everything. I delivered right there beside the grandfather clock.

“I thought the worst part was over, but as I held Grand in my arms, I heard growlin’. We had yet to put the screens up, and a dog was comin’ through the livin’ room winda. A big beast of a mutt. I knew at once it was First, Mr. Elohim’s dog. Then I saw the white foam at First’s mouth. Bein’ a country girl, I knew he was rabid.