“I still have them.” Decker’s voice is unsure, as if he’s not sure what his brother may think of that.
Foster’s hand pauses on his sleeve. He doesn’t turn toward Decker. But every therapist knows the difference between someone who didn’t hear something and someone who heard it and is trying to process the revelation.
“What about Logan Pruitt’s signature?” he asks.
Decker nods. “They’re all saved in a box. Not sure how the signature held up on the napkin stained with pizza grease.”
Foster huffs. “You’re welcome. I had to run back and ask him for a second signature and Dad was already halfway out the door.”
Decker’s lips tip. “I didn’t mean to be—I mean… I was just saying.”
“Yeah.” Foster quickly shuts down any emotion, the way he always does.
“By the time we were in high school,” Decker continues, “there was MySpace. Then Facebook. I’d see his games posted sometimes. Stats.” He pauses. “It was amazing to see the player he was becoming.”
“And how did you feel about that?” I ask gently.
Something moves across Decker’s face. He takes his time with his answer, as though he’s picking through a box and deciding what to give me.
“Happy for him.” A beat. “And jealous.” Foster’s head stays down. “And then angry at myself for being jealous because it wasn’t his fault.” A shorter beat. “And then just angry.”
“At Foster?”
“At—” He stops and quickly recalibrates himself. “At the situation.”
I let that land without any follow-up questions. We all know what the situation is.
Foster hasn’t moved. His hand is completely still on the thread now, which reads louder than any fidgeting he could do.
“Foster,” I say, “do you want to respond to that?”
A long moment passes, and I’m about to ask another question when he finally speaks.
“I knew.” His voice is quiet, but there’s something underneath it. “I didn’t know the specifics, but I knew. I used to downplay things on the phone. On Sundays.”
Decker’s jaw tightens. “I didn’t need you to do that.”
“I know.” Foster raises his gaze then, and there’s an edge to his expression I haven’t seen before. Something that’s been simmering. “But I didn’t have a lot of room to figure out what you needed. I was eleven, and I didn’t choose where I went. Plus, you had Mom.”
The room gets very quiet.
Decker drops his gaze.
“She wanted to be there,” Decker says carefully, pinpointing that this is a bigger issue—their mom.
“She was a weekly phone call for me.” Foster’s voice doesn’t rise, which might be worse. “She was down the hall from you. I got to share her on Sundays with you.” He turns his attention back to his sleeve. “Dad didn’t exactly leave a lot of space or understanding for me to be sad about it. There was always work to do.”
There it is. The thing Foster has been carrying that doesn’t have Decker’s name on it.
I stay very still.
Decker speaks first, and to his credit, he doesn’t deflect. “I knew that too, and I felt guilty, but I was a kid and thought you had everything. I didn’t think about what you lost too.”
“I know it looked good from afar, but you had the better parent,” Foster says quieter, as though it costs him.
They’re not facing each other. But the couch geometry has shifted again. Their bodies are opening up to one another.
This is why I keep the notebook closed in early sessions. Once you open it, people start narrating for the record. Right now, they’re just talking. To me, a little. To each other, without really meaning to.
