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'I promise I do, Jar.'
He pinches the bridge of his nose.'I wish you would let me help.'
I shake my index at him.'Not happening. You got a little daughter to think about.'
He looks down at his sleeping baby girl and strokes her dark, curly bangs away from her flushed forehead with a gentle caress, eyes brimming with love.'I know. I just wish I could do more…'
I turn his face my way when I see he's starting to look sad.'You've done plenty. You're a wonderful brother and a wonderful dad. Both Anna and I are lucky to have you.'
And I mean it.
After our parentswere taken from us, my brother stepped up. He could have gone in a million different directions with his life. He was only twenty-two at the time, and I couldn't have blamed him if he had decided to not let their deaths turn him into the full-time guardian of a 14-year-old deaf little sister that —according to the social worker that was put on our case, wasn't even hisreal sister, after all. But he didn't listen to her. He didn't walk out on me. Even if we were all alone in the world, he made sure we stayed a family and kept me from going back into the system. When it became clear I was no longer doing okay in Bangor, in the house where we had both grown up, he sold it.
He moved to California with me so I could go to one of the best schools for deaf kids he could find. He put his life and his dreams on hold for me until the grief we both felt at the loss of our parents slackened the painful grip it had on us a little bit, and we went back to living life.
Then, when things got better, and I actually ended up graduating high school one year early, he didn't bat an eye when it was time to move again so I could go to the best university for the deaf in the country here in D.C. even if living here had never been on the radar for us before. All the while, he worked himself to the bone to take care of us both and didn't spend a single dime of the settlement money we each got for the wrongful deaths of our parents, saving it for rainy days and to buy property when we settled here. His dream had always been to open his own body shop, a place where he could create custom-made muscle cars and restore antiques. Still, in the meantime, he worked as a police officer both in California and then here and put himself through college, and insisted he had to use his own inheritance to pay whatever my scholarships couldn't cover.
And then, four years ago, he met a woman and fell hard for her.
I could see she wasn't good for him. It took me less than fifteen minutes in her company. Her face couldn't lie to me. With every little twist of her lips and stiff body language, she told me what she really thought about me and that whatever she wanted from my brother, it wasn't his love.
I'm a pretty frank person, so I told Jared I didn't like her even if I knew he would be pissed at me for a while.
As it turns out, she was covering a story about a case my brother was working on, and all she wanted was a little bit of alone time with his computer.
She didn't care that she hurt my brother or put his career at risk in the process of getting what she wanted, and she continued not to care when she found out she was pregnant with Anna.
She cared even less when she was told the pregnancy was a high-risk one and that she needed to take it easy.
To this day, I don't know how much money my brother had to fork out to make sure she stayed put until the sixth month.
All I know is that by the time she was twenty-seven weeks pregnant with a little girl, she didn't love nor want, she was offered a job as a correspondent in Japan, and she wasn't going to miss out on it. No matter the cost.
I don't know what she did, how she made it happen, but Anna was born a preemie scarcely twenty-eight weeks into her mother's pregnancy. There were so many complications with her health that I remember we could barely make out her tiny body hidden behind the intricate vines made of little tubes and cables running up and down her skin as she lied in the incubator fighting for her life day and night for months.
Her mother was gone three days after her birth. She would have left even earlier if she could, but the doctors advised her to take it easy, so that's the only reason she stayed that long. She signed her parental rights away and relinquished her baby daughter to my brother's sole custody so fast that I remember her signature was all smeared where the side of her hand had touched the paper.
It took a four-month-long stay in NICU and seven micro-surgeries to save Anna. The insurance wouldn't cover the millionaire bill that Jared was stuck with. They used every possible excuse in the book, including claiming that the company that was supposed to cover the costs was that of the child's mother, who had fled, not his.
So, Jared's money ran out pretty quickly. He sold his car and his bike, and he was about to sell his home, too, when I offered to help. By the time all the bills were paid, we were both broke, but at least he still owned a house, and I had my cute flat left and enough money to fund myself as I finished studying for my bachelor's. Everything else was gone, though.
Which, to be honest, was fine by me. I always hated that money, knowing where it came from.
And I know Jared felt the same. Still does.
We got a healthy Anna out of the deal. There was no sum of money we wouldn't have traded to take her home safe and sound.
And then my brother did that big case, became a rising star, and was noticed by someone in the Bureau, and our financial situation started to get better and better. So, now we're good.
But, sometimes —like right now— Jared still gets a bit morose when he thinks I have to work and study at the same time rather than, say, go do an internship that could further my career in the future.
I've told him I don't mind, but he's my big brother, so I guess he will never be okay with how things turned out.
He squeezes my hand, bringing me back to our conversation.
I pick up the teddy bear that rolled on the floor and put it back under my niece's arm, tucking her favorite‘Finding Nemo’blanket around her, and then I snap my fingers to get Jared’s attention again.
'Can you let me finish my story?' I promise it's worth it…'
