Halfway Home by Paul Monette Read Free Book Online Page A

My brother can't help me. There's too much blood under the bridge. And yet I can feel an uneasy flutter in my gut that somehow I've missed the key, or blinked when the answer flashed onscreen. Something about that un-perfect life and the business that got too big too fast. I don't really mean, even now with all the walls up, that he can't unburden himself. Of course I'd listen. Yet I know that's not going to happen now. We've tried this reunion twice, and it's crashed and burned. Only a fool or a pain junkie would try it again.
    Brian stands but doesn't clear the table. That's my chore, today as it was a lifetime ago. He strides through the kitchen and out the back door, not waiting this time for me to walk in tandem. I have to bolt to catch up with him in the yard, where he's striding in the sunlight to his car. It's only at the last moment, before he gets in, that he relents and turns to face me. The anger still darkens his Irish cheeks, or is it a kind of torment? Then a rueful smile plays at the corners of his mouth as he speaks.
    "You're still my brother, even if you hate me."
    It startles me, the sentiment is so twisted. The perfect Irish bottom line. I'm standing with my hands dug in my pockets, and Brian reaches up and swipes at the hair on my forehead, as if he's trying to tame a cowlick. I realize it is a gesture from his life with Daniel, and I understand in that moment that he's a good father, better than ours.
    Then he is climbing once again into his car to leave. But this time I am torn, feeling I ought to give him something back. The engine bursts into life, stoked by the morning's charge. He rolls it into a slow reverse, pulling it back from the cypresses. The front wheels crunch on the gravel as he points them out to the coast road. He looks at me one last time.
    And I say, "I'll be sticking around for a while." Taking back all I have said about death, its imminence and its stranglehold. I shrug, terribly aware of my spotted torso, but shrugging that part off. "I'm here."
    Brian nods. The big Chevy boat goes lumbering down the drive between two rows of oleander. He stops at the road's edge, and I see him crane forward to check for cars. It's clear. A last vague wave in the rearview mirror, and I fling my own hand at the sky. Then he turns and is gone.
    Is it relief? Immediately I feel so weirdly light-headed, gliding back over the grass to the house. I know that I've held my own, and for once have given as good as I've gotten. That's the first feeling: a kind of swagger, like I've just walked away from a TKO. I come into the kitchen, and the first thing I see is the pad on the counter, the scribbled address. Pequod Lane in Southport. I'm watching myself for any pangs of loss, but I just seem glad that it's over.
    Then into the dining room, and my eyes go right to the Speedo hooked over the window latch, no longer dripping. Here there's a tug in my chest, as if the pouch of the suit still holds the shape of Brian's basket. Again it isn't the thing itself, but the memory of all those jocks and sweat pants tumbled on the floor of the closet in Chester. Still I manage to sail right through, letting it all roll off me. I mount the stairs, delirious with the need to nap, knowing only that I have survived intact. With every hour that goes by, I can feel it, more and more of me will come back. No matter how quick I die, I will live long enough to be an only child again. It's a matter of will, and I am willful if nothing else.
    I reach the door to Foo's room, and I'm gazing across the stairwell. I think as I cross over that I'm being a good housekeeper, checking the guest room. The bed is aswirl with the slept-in sheet, the pillow dented and askew. My lips purse, as if I mean to punish that boy for not making his bed. Then I float—there's no other word—drawn and yet strangely dispassionate. I tumble onto the bed, rolling into the sheet, muzzy with sleep already. My face in the pillow can smell Brian, but it's the