S. Bodeen - The Compound

It didn’t work. Because no matter how I tried, I couldn’t erase how fresh and soft those little hands had been on my face. I refused to let myself dwell on how exquisite that warm, innocent touch had felt.

A touch like that was meant for someone good.

For someone who deserved it.

A touch like that was not meant for someone like me.

THAT MORNING WAS ONE WE HAD MUSIC. MOM HAD BEEN giving us lessons since we were little. Lexie played piano, so with Terese’s oboe, my trumpet, and Mom’s cello, we played a lot of group pieces. We weren’t a string quartet, but Mom created her own arrangements for us, based on many classic ones.

We had been working on her variation of Beethoven’s String Quartet no. 15 in A Minor. Mom led us off, the deep tone of the cello setting an eerie aura. Each of us was to join one by one, almost in a fugal pattern, as we gradually repeated the melody in succession. There were leading tones on the strong beat, and then there were quiet, slower half notes that felt mysterious, almost sinister.

Not a picker upper, by any means.

My trumpet took the violin’s part, which had a difficult entrance of running sixteenth notes. I took a breath, pressed my lips to the silver mouthpiece, and began.

Lexie slammed her hands on the keys, the sound loud and discordant. “God, Eli. You were frickin’ late!”

I took my lips away from the mouthpiece. “Was not.”

Mom kept playing. “Watch your language, Lexie. You’re both doing fine; let’s pick it up where we are. Come on.”

Lexie groaned. She started playing again.

Terese and I joined in. Terese’s oboe played the part of the bass, and the rest of us played in opposition to her. The intensity, and volume, grew as we moved through the piece. We were good.

The piece was long, but we had no more interruptions or mistakes. As it came to a close, the harmony strengthened and progressed to the simple ending, which was a solo for me with accompanying chords from Lexie. At least our instruments cooperated, no small feat considering Lexie’s clenched jaw and drilling stare.

For a few moments, I felt like we belonged together, like we had bonded through the music if not through circumstance. At the end of the session, we put our instruments away in silence. Lexie stormed away quickly, while Mom fiddled with the latch on the cello case, distracted. Terese just smiled to herself and didn’t make eye contact with me.

My palms were sweaty and my stomach felt queasy. Music was supposed to be soothing. Like most of our music days, I found myself grasping my trumpet, taking my time as I shined it before putting it back into its case. Despite the discordance, I was reluctant to end the session. But with a click, the case closed and I was back to feeling alone.

In the middle of the afternoon, Dad came into the library where I was reading. “I’m working on inventory and I need you to help,” he announced flatly. Inventory sucked.

I tossed Stephen King onto one of the leather chairs.

Dad sent me to one of the larger storage rooms and left me on my own with a yellow legal pad and a pen. Everything had to be accounted for. Every jar of pickles. Every bottle of laundry detergent. Every box of feminine hygiene products. Lovely.

The task took me about three hours, filled several pages, and yielded few surprises. For five years I’d done this chore, dutifully following my father’s orders. I’d watched the piles of jars, bottles, and boxes slowly shrink. Not to emergency levels, but still.

When I came to the boxes of cleaning supplies, our least necessary inventory in my opinion, I noticed an opening at the back, between stacks of paper towels and cartons of toilet paper. No clue why I bothered moving them aside. Before I’d always just estimated by the height of the stack. But as I shifted them for the first time ever, there was a plastic tub that seemed out of place with all the cardboard containers around it.

I lugged it down from the shelf and read the one word written in black Sharpie on the blue cover:

My knees buckled. I dropped to the floor. With one trembling finger I traced the letters. I hadn’t seen his name in writing for so long, hadn’t thought of him for a few hours. Seeing those letters together, so familiar and heartbreaking at the same time… I tore off the cover.

Plastic bags of Jack Link’s. Lots of them. Beef jerky, turkey jerky, sausage sticks. Eddy’s favorite food on earth. I ripped open a bag of jerky and stuck my nose deep inside. I breathed in the one scent that could bring my brother alive to me. Inside the storage closet, I remained on the cement floor for a long time, inhaling my twin.

My stomach rumbled. It occurred to me I might be holding an important find. The wrapper crinkled as I bit off a hunk of jerky.

A bit past its prime. But still tasty. Still meat.

I downed two-thirds of a bag before replacing the top of the tub. I carried it into the kitchen. Terese sat at the counter. Mom sliced tomatoes for a salad.

Despite the deep circles under her eyes and slumped shoulders, Mom smiled when she saw the look on my face.

“What’s that?”

My hands guided the box onto the counter. I slid onto a stool.

Terese read the cover. “Eddy’s box?”

At one time, we all had a box, a box filled with our favorite treat. Snickers for me, plain M&M’s for Terese, coffee-flavored Nips for Mom, Corn Nuts for Dad. I didn’t know what Lexie’s was. She never ate junk food at home, but she must have had a box, too.

Mom lifted the cover and laughed. Her eyes lit up for the first time in a while. “I hated this stuff. It smelled so greasy and smoky. He always reeked of it.”

I held up a bag. “It’s meat.”

Mom’s brow furrowed. “It’s still good? I don’t want anyone getting sick.”

The ingredients list didn’t indicate much. “I’m not sure it was ever good.” Yet moments before, chewing the jerky, I’d tasted the saltiness, felt the weight of it, the substance that vegetables and other foods lacked. “Yeah, it’s still edible.” I realized how much I missed meat.

“But it belongs to Eddy.” Little Miss Perfect looked from me to Mom.

Mom smiled at Terese. “Lovey, I don’t think Eddy would mind.”

Terese opened a bag. She gnawed off a chunk of jerky. “Rather difficult to chew.”

Mom reached for a piece.

Together, they chewed the jerky. Sloppy and loud.

“It’s not so bad.” Mom went back to making a salad.

Terese picked an unopened bag out of the box and ran from the room.

I told Mom, “Be right back.” There was a little business I had to take care of. In the hall, I caught up to Terese and grabbed her by her hood, yanking her back. “How’d you get in my room?”

Her mouth was full and she finished chewing as she tried to wrestle away from me. “Opened the door.”

I gripped harder and pulled, so that she was bent over backward looking up at me.

“You can’t have just opened the door, it was locked.”

“Ow, let go!” She put a hand on the wall to keep her balance.

“Tell me how you got in.”

She rolled her eyes. “I read Oliver Twist.”

“Say what? And he picks locks?”

She twisted as far as she could to one side, but I had such a tight hold of her hood, she only succeeded in almost strangling herself. She huffed. “Not exactly. But it got me interested, so I found a book in the library.”

I shook my head. “On how to pick locks.” You’d think I might have found that one at some point.