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“Make sure you shake it for centipedes,” Caleb says, and Eli cuffs him on the head.
“Quit it,” I tell them, yet again.After dinner we sit around and Eli and I pass the whiskey flask back and forth. Caleb declines. He doesn’t drink much. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him drink hard alcohol.
“Long-distance relationships exist,” Eli says suddenly, unscrewing the cap.
“She didn’t care enough to tell me,” I point out again while he takes a bolt, hands it to me. I do the same. “I always knew she was going to leave, you know? But she didn’t even tell me. I thought we told each other things.”
“I’m not sure people are always straightforward,” Caleb says from where he’s half-lying against a fallen pine tree, his hands behind his head. “You can’t always say that because X, Y must be true. Humans are irrational actors. They don’t make sense.”
I hand the flask back to Eli.
“Listen to him, he’s a woman expert,” Eli says, taking another drink.
Caleb flips him off from where he’s lying.
“Did you know that Mandy Hargrove and Danica Nelson got into a fight over him once?” I ask Eli.
“Oh, God,” mutters Caleb.
Eli uses his flask hand to point at our youngest brother.
“Him?” he asks.
“I heard about it from someone who was there,” I say, because June’s name has been in my mouth all day today and I don’t want to say it again right now. “Danica interrupted a tutoring session, so Mandy slapped her.”
Caleb just sighs.
“What kind of tutoring was this?” Eli asks. “And how am I just hearing about it?”
“We’d graduated already,” I say.
“I’m a very good teacher,” Caleb deadpans.
“Sure,” says Eli. “Your cosine brings all the girls to the yard.”
Caleb just looks at him.
“I don’t remember high school math very well,” Eli admits.
“I don’t think June didn’t tell you about the interview because she has no regard for you,” Caleb says, getting back to the matter at hand.
“I agree that she regards you well,” Eli says.
I say nothing, just let the whiskey whir through my brain, pleasant and warm.
“It’s hard to tell people things that you know won’t make them happy,” he goes on. “And should she have pulled up her britches and been an adult about it? Yeah. But I don’t think the fact that she didn’t is because she thinks nothing of you.”
“She definitely doesn’t think nothing of you,” Caleb offers.
“You’ve never even seen us together,” I point out. “You didn’t know about us until a few days ago. The two of you have no basis for any of these statements.”
“She’s been at Mom’s every Sunday afternoon for like three months,” Caleb says. “I see you guys together all the time, Levi, why do you think everyone instantly guessed who you were sleeping with?”
“Yeah, you get all bubbly around her,” Eli says, taking another drink of the whiskey, handing it back to me.
“I do not bubble,” I tell them, drinking.
“You kinda bubble,” says Caleb. “And she finds a lot of ways to hang out near you.”
“It’s totally cute,” says Eli. “And like I was saying, long distance relationships exist.”
“They don’t work,” I say. “Not indefinitely.”
There’s a long, long silence. I look up at the stars, mostly blocked by the pines above us, the moonlight dimly filtering through the forest.
For the first time since Saturday, I explore the possibility that they’re presenting: that June’s not unkind, she just did an unkind thing.
It’s much easier to live with.
Finally, Caleb breaks the silence again.
“You could move to South Dakota,” he says.
“Everything is here,” I say. “My life is here, my job is here, my house is here. My family’s here.”
“True,” Caleb allows.
“Not June,” says Eli, as if I didn’t know.
“Everything else,” I say.
“It seems pretty simple,” Caleb says. “Just imagine a scale, and on one side, put everything that’s here. And on the other side, put June, and see which one weighs more.”
I try very hard to imagine this scale, and I try very hard to stack the things on it that Caleb’s suggesting.
It doesn’t really work.
“Is weighing more good?” I ask.
“Okay, fuck the scale,” Eli says. “Don’t listen to his imagination exercises. It’s just this: if you’d rather be with June than be here, move to South Dakota. I mean, is she great enough to sell your sweet house and get a new job?”
“I doubt she’s great enough to make up for your brothers,” Caleb says. “You’ve got great brothers.”
“I don’t know,” I say, and close my eyes so it feels like I’m up above, floating in the stars, weightless in the sky.
“You definitely have great brothers,” Eli says.
“Not about that part.”
I lie there, head back on a log, thinking. I think in circles until my brain feels like it’s swirling, the stars rotating above, and then Caleb’s in front of me, shaking my shoulder.
“C’mon,” he says. “You two old men can’t sleep like this, you’ll complain the whole way back.”
