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Gage couldn’t find a way to put it into words. And even if he could, he wasn’t sure he would say it anyway. It had been too many years since he and his brothers had been close, since they’d shared any real confidences.
While Conor was confused, Matt was the picture of understanding.
“We don’t talk about her,” his older brother said after a moment or two. “We’ve never talked about her.”
Gage swallowed hard to dislodge the tennis ball currently clogging his throat.
“Who?” Conor asked.
Matt glanced at their kid brother. Just one look, and Conor got it. Gage knew the second he did, because his little brother’s expression closed down.
He recognized the look because it was as if he was staring at his own reflection in a mirror.
“Shit,” Conor muttered, looking away from them, out the window.
The three of them sat there in silence, and Gage doubted they’d manage to break through these invisible walls they each threw up whenever they were together. Too many years had passed.
After Mom’s death, something that had already been cracked, thanks to their father, shattered completely between them. Matt, who’d been Dad’s shadow until then, pulled away from the family, walking around like a man with a score to settle. His anger grew more muted with time, fading to coldness after Dad’s death. Gage never understood why it was their father’s death that vanquished the fury that never seemed to leave Matt after Mom’s suicide. But vanquish it, it did.
Gage had assuaged his pain with booze and women, using both to keep him so numb, he never felt anything.
As for Conor, who’d only been nineteen when Mom died, he just…disappeared. Into his books. Into his work. Into himself.
“You loved Mom,” Matt said. “You were the closest to her. I knew her death was hard on you, but…”
“I can’t understand why she did it,” Gage confessed. “I’veneverunderstood it.”
Conor lifted one shoulder, though he still refused to look their direction, avoiding eye contact. “I think we have to accept we’ll never know. She didn’t leave a note, didn’t talk to anyone. All we can do is make assumptions. And what good would that do any of us?”
“Knowing the reason why won’t bring her back,” Matt said with that same finality he used when he didn’t want to discuss something.
Gage’s temper spiked. “It won’t bring her back, but it would helpme. I want—Ineedto know.”
“No, you don’t,” Matt asserted.
“Fuck you, Matt!” Gage yelled, tired of his condescending prick of a brother. “You don’t get to dictate how I feel about this! What if…what if it was my fault?”
Matt reared back in his seat, his face pale. “Why in the hell would you think that?”
“You said it yourself. Mom and I were close. Tight. Right up until I left for college. After that, I didn’t come home very often, didn’t call her as much as I should have. I got too wrapped up in girls, and drinking with my frat brothers, and being an immature jerk. She was estranged from her family after she married Dad. She never felt comfortable around the other women in our social circle. She suffered from depression. We all knew that!”
“She took medication,” Matt said quietly.
“The doctor said she’d stopped taking it before…” Conor’s words fell away.
Matt gave their younger brother a sharp look. “You talked to her doctor?”
Conor nodded. “Yeah, I did.” It was a simple answer, but Gage would guarantee there was a hell of a lot more hiding beneath the surface, and his curiosity was piqued.
So Conor had been seeking an answer too.
“She went off her meds?” Gage asked.
“A few weeks before. Against the doctor’s advice. Told him she didn’t like feeling fuzzy all the time.”
Matt crossed his arms, and Gage could see him shutting it all down. Going rigid with the attempt.
Gage was sick of his stoic, emotionless brother always pretending nothing touched him. “She was isolated, Matt, alone, with just Dad, who was an unfeeling dick on a good day.”
