Good, let him be annoyed.Now we’re evenly matched.
“I don’t know anything about Overton, okay?”
“Yes, you do,” I say. “And I need you to tell me everything. Right now.”
He’s shaking his head.
“Addie, I—”
“Please,”I beg.Please.
It’s the same tone he used when he pleaded with me not to tell Mom about his tattoo, when I pleaded with him to forgive me. Somehow, though I don’t know how, I suddenly understand that we’ve been talking about the same thing for years, a continuation of the same conversation. Except it’s one I don’t understand.
Why aren’t we ever on the same side?It’s an unspoken question, but my brother seems to hear it and then he’s standing. Walking toward his closet. Digging around. Opening some kind of box and pulling something out.
A photo.
Small, like a Polaroid.
When he gives it to me, his hands are shaking.
It’s of me and Caleb. I’m leaning over Caleb behind a couch I don’t recognize, and Caleb is sitting on the couch, gingerly holding a chubby-cheeked baby with tight black curls and skin the same warm shade of light brown as ours.
My heart instantly beats a little faster.
I look about eleven, Caleb twelve or thirteen. It’sdefinitelyus. But I don’t remember anything about it. I don’t recognize where we are, what we’re doing.
“What is this?” I ask him.
“What do you think it is?” he asks, a genuine question.
“That’s us,” I say, my thumb hovering over our faces. My mother always says not to touch people’s faces in printed pictures or they’ll smudge, leaving headless bodies.
“Who’s the baby?”
“Turn it over.”
I do, my hands clammy with sweat. On the back, in black ink, it saysRory.
R.
Who is R?
The world starts to spin even faster. “He looks just like you,” I tell Caleb, remembering all the baby pictures I’ve seen of my brother.
“Yeah,” he says at last.
“He’s…I don’t remember this picture.” My voice is starting to falter, on the verge of breaking.
“I know,” Caleb says.
What is this? Who is the baby?
“What the hell is this, Caleb?” I ask. Now everything is shaking. I don’t know if it’s me or just the whole world. I don’t know if I’m on ice, if I’m still on the bus, plunging headfirst into something horrible.
I need to sit down.I don’t understand.
“You have to ask Mom, Addie, okay? I…I can’t tell you any more.”
