“Sure,” he says. It feels a little bit sad to think of being in this house alone with Mom. Dad gone. Both my brothers gone.
When I say this, Caleb snorts. “Maybe the Asshole can move in, if you feel like you need a strong male figure.”
I pretend to gag.
“You’ll be out of here soon enough, anyway. You’re going to go off to New York, become so big with your music that the Asshole will be name-dropping you to get tables everywhere—though, God, I hope Mom’s not still dating him then.”
“Nice, Caleb,” I say.
We both laugh and I like this. I’ve missed this. The sound of us getting along, sharing a conversation we both understand.
“Caleb,” I say. “Tell me about Rory. One thing you remember about him.”
Caleb has to think about it for a while, and then he leans back and says, “Well, little-known fact, but Rory was kind of a klepto.”
I guffaw. “What?”
“It’s true. One time—Rory was about six months—we were driving with Mom and she’d stopped at Gas Fill. While she filled up, we three went into the convenience store to get some grub. I was pushing him in his little carriage, and we were walking around, arguing over which type of beef jerky to get. And then we paid and were leaving when the old man behind the counter started yelling at us to come back. Rory had a pack of gum in his carriage.”
“You think he grabbed it?” I ask.
“You swore you didn’t and I swore I didn’t. I mean, maybe it got knocked off the shelf and into the carriage.”
“Or Rory was a klepto,” I say, laughing.
“Exactly.” Caleb grins, remembering. I feel a pinch, wishing I remembered, too, but I’m happy to have this. To have a picture in my mind. “The guy didn’t believe us and kept us in there, yelling at us, till Mom came and paid for it and explained that it must just have been a misunderstanding.”
I don’t know whether the cloudiness in my eyes is from laughing or crying now.
“Another thing was that Rory hated your music, your practicing, a little less than the rest of us.” Caleb says this softly, like he knows that it will mean a lot to me. “He had this bouncing, body-wriggling dance.” I giggle at Caleb’s attempt to demonstrate by bopping on his computer chair. “We could play all kinds of music and he’d wiggle his toes. Country, rap, electro—he was no snob. He’d nod or clap or flap his wrists.”
Caleb is smiling, and I wonder if he’s been waiting for this, waiting for the time when we could talk about our little brother together. Miss him, remember him.
Rfor remember.
“But when you played, that kid got down. He loved it. He loved you.”
I am doing both now—laughing and crying.
The difference is not clear.
It’s not important.
AFTER
January
When I head back into my room after talking to Caleb, I feel lighter and heavier. I feel sad, but certain that I made the right choice yesterday in the clinic.
How could I have ever thought forgetting was the way to move forward?
How could I have done it without hesitating?
I am packing all the Zach things back into the box—all the memories I have, will ever have, of him. I’m folding up the clothes I wore to erase him when I see a four-petaled flower drawn in blue pen on the jeans. I frown because I never draw on my jeans.
When did I do that?
Then, for a reason I can’t explain—I guess just to double-check that they really are mine—I turn the waist part inside out to check the tag. Yep, my jeans.
