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Dean sat down beside Eric. Stretching out his legs, he leaned back against one of the wooden pilings. “I still have some more work to do on her. Jeff Brein, down at the Crows Nest, is repairing the sail, and it should be done tomorrow. Wendy Johnson is cleaning the cushions. I thought . . . maybe if we could take her out . . . ” Dean let the sentence trail off. He didnt know quite how to sculpt his amorphous hope into something as ordinary as words.
“We could remember how it used to be,” Eric said.
“How we used to be. ”
Of course Eric had understood. “Yeah. ” Eric drew the blanket tighter against his chin.
“So, whats it like, being the favored son?”
“Lonely. ”
Eric sighed and leaned back into the pillows. “Remember when she loved me? When I was a star athlete with awesome grades and a promising future. I was her trophy boy. ”
Dean remembered. Their mother had adored Eric, her dark-haired angel, she called him. The only time Mom and Dad came to the island was football season. Every homecoming game, Mom had dressed in her best “casual” clothes and gone to the game, where she cheered on her quarterback son. When the season ended, they were gone again.
Eric had lived in the warm glow of his parents affection for so long, hed mistaken pride for love, but when hed told them about Charles, hed learned the depth of his naivete. Mother hadnt spoken to him since.
So it had been Dean, the younger; less perfect son, whod taken over the family business. It had never been something he wanted to do, but family expectations especially in a wealthy family-were a sticky web. “I remember,” he said quietly.
“I heard the phone ring last night about eleven oclock,” Eric said.
Dean looked away; eye contact was impossible. “Yeah. Some phone company rep who-”
“Dont bother; bro. It was her; wasnt it?”
“Yeah. ”
“Still in Athens?”
“Florence. Mother had the nerve to tell me that the shopping was great. ” Shed also said, Come on over Dean-weve got plenty of room at the villa. As if it didnt matter at all that her elder son lay dying.
Erics gaze was pathetically hopeful as he turned to Dean. “Are they coming to see me?”
There was no point in lying. “No. ”
“Did you tell them this is it? Im not going to be around much longer?”
Dean reached out, touched his brothers hand. It surprised both of them, that sudden bit of intimacy. “Im sorry. ”
Eric released a thready sigh. “What good is an agonizing death by cancer if your own family wont weep by your bedside?”
“Im here,” Dean said softly. “Youre not alone. ”
Tears came to Erics eyes. “I know, baby brother. I Know . . . ”
Dean swallowed hard. "You cant let her get to you.
Eric closed his eyes. “Someday shell be sorry. Itll be too late, though. ” By the end of the sentence, his words were garbled and he was asleep.
Dean leaned closer. Carefully, he tugged up blanket, tucked it beneath his brothers chin.
Eric blinked awake and smiled sleepily. “Tell me about your life. ”
“Theres not much to tell. I work. ”
“Very funny. I get the San Francisco newspapers, you know-just to read about you and the folks. You seem to be quite the bachelor-about-town. If I didnt know better; Id say you were a man who had everything. ”
Dean wanted to laugh and say, I do; I do have everything a man could want, but it was a lie, and hed never been able to lie to his brother. And more than that, Dean wanted to talk to Eric the way he once had. Brother to brother; from the heart. “Theres something. . . missing in my life. I dont know what it is. ”
