The Silent Sister(5)

“Are you taking your meds?” I asked.

“Get off my back, little sister,” he said, and I knew he wasn’t. He hated the cocktail of medications the VA psychiatrist had put him on.

“Never mind.” I folded my hands on the table as though I were about to start a meeting. “So,” I said, “I’m Daddy’s executrix, as you probably know, and I’m in New Bern for a couple of weeks to take care of his … estate.” The word sounded silly attached to my father, and Danny made a derisive sound in the back of his throat. “You can have his car,” I said. “It’s only a few years old and—”

“I don’t want his f*cking car.”

“All right.” I backed off again. I’d deal with that later. “What about the house?” I asked. “I think we should sell it, but maybe you could live there if you—”

“No, thanks.” He took a long slow drag on his cigarette, his eyes narrowed at me as though I’d insulted him by even suggesting he move into our childhood home. “You can decide whatever you want about the house and everything in it,” he said. “All I care about is that this piece of land right here”—he pointed to the floor of the trailer—“right where we’re sitting, is mine forever.”

“We have to sell the park,” I said, “but I don’t think this area is technically part of it.”

“It’s not,” he said. “It’s totally separate.”

“Okay. So I’ll talk to the lawyer about making sure this land goes to you. Can you come with me to see her tomorrow?” I asked. “The lawyer? I’d like you to know what—”

“No,” he said.

I nodded, unsurprised and knowing it was probably for the best. He would complicate things. Either he’d be so anxious he’d be unable to sit still, or he’d get angry and slam out of the room. Danny was anything but predictable.

“Okay.” The smoke was really getting to me, but I planned to tough it out. “I have to clean out the house to be able to put it on the market. Can you help me with that? Not the physical-labor part, but we need to go through everything and—”

“Why don’t you just hire someone to cart everything away?” He tapped the cigarette on the edge of the lid.

“Because … that’s not the way it’s done.” I fanned away the smoke and leaned toward him. “Look, Danny, I need your help. Do it for me, okay? It wouldn’t be for Daddy. It’s for me. It’ll be a massive job for me to handle on my own.”

He stood up and squashed out the cigarette in the sink, running the water for a moment. I knew I’d gotten inside him by making the request more about me than about our father.

“This is so messed up,” he said.

“What is?”

“Everything.”

I tried to imagine what it was like inside my brother’s head. In one of his more vulnerable moments, he’d told me that he always felt afraid. He reacted to every loud sound as though he was under attack. Nightmares put him back in Iraq, where he’d done things he refused to tell me about. You’d never look at me the same way if I told you. Daddy had tried to be there for him, but there was an animosity Danny felt toward my father that I’d never understood. Daddy finally gave up on him and I couldn’t really blame him. But I wouldn’t give up. It was that vulnerable Danny I tried to remember when he was being belligerent.

“Do you love me?” I asked now.

He raised his head sharply. “Of course,” he said, and his shoulders suddenly slumped as though that admission had defeated him. He sighed as he turned to face me. “What would I need to do?” He suddenly sounded like a little boy, wanting to please me, yet afraid of my answer.

“Let me talk to the lawyer tomorrow and then figure out exactly what we need to do.” We. I’d make this about both of us. “How about I get you a prepaid phone so we can communicate while I’m here?”

He shook his head. “Don’t,” he said, and I wasn’t sure if he meant “don’t get me a phone” or “don’t make one more suggestion or I’ll lose it.” Either way, I thought we’d both had enough of a visit for one day and I stood up.

“You look good, Danny,” I said, getting to my feet. “I love you so much.” I did. He was all the family I had left.

* * *

I made up the double bed in my old bedroom that night. I could have slept in my parents’ much larger room with its queen-sized bed, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that. It still felt like their private space to me. I wasn’t ready to invade it.

In the two weeks since I’d split from Bryan, bedtime had become the hardest part of the day for me. That was when we used to talk on the phone to say “good night” and “I love you.” I missed those calls so much. For the first week after the split, I talked to Sherise every night instead of Bryan, and how she’d tolerated my whining and moaning, I didn’t know. Now she was unreachable in Haiti, and I was an orphan.

I was still awake at midnight, staring at the ceiling. I would never sleep. I got up, walked downstairs, and made myself a cup of Sleepytime tea in the microwave. I was carrying it back to the stairs when I spotted my purse on my father’s desk and remembered the purple envelope from the post office box. I took the envelope upstairs with me and climbed back into bed, sipping my tea as I examined the looping handwriting on the purple paper. Fred Marcus. No return address. I hesitated a moment before slitting the envelope open with my finger. The only thing inside was a postcard. On the front was a color photograph of a band. Bluegrass or country, maybe. Two women and two men, all of them carrying stringed instruments. At the bottom of the picture were the words Jasha Trace. The band’s name, I supposed. On the back of the card was a tour schedule, and written where the recipient’s address should go, in that same looping handwriting, Can’t wait to see you! Where should we meet up? xoxo