Tyler Keevil - No Good Brother

‘Mostly I clean up after them.’

‘That’s a start, though.’

‘I could bring you down there some time.’

‘I’d love that. I miss horses so much.’

‘They’re amazing animals.’

‘Amazing,’ I said. ‘Priceless. And worth stealing, no doubt.’

He whipped a doughnut hole at me, sideways. It was dusted with icing sugar and left a starburst of white in the centre of my shirt. I calmly picked it up and put it on the plate next to the others. He’d grown more and more surly since I’d started talking about backing out.

‘You’re a goddamn clown,’ he said quietly.

Our mother brought the cups in one at a time, gripping each with her good hand, her right. I adjusted my chair in case I had to move quickly, to catch her or rescue a cup, but she managed okay. Then came the milk and the sugar, again separately, and she joined us at the table and beamed.

‘And what about Sandy?’ she asked. ‘How’s Sandy?’

‘She’s good, Ma,’ I said, before Jake could answer. ‘Wherever she is.’

‘It must be so cold there. She sent me a postcard, you know.’

‘That’s right. I remember.’

Sandy had sent her one from Paris, when she went out for the audition that got her the job. The postcard was on our mother’s fridge: a photo of the Sacré-Cœur, all lit up at night.

‘I’m so proud of her.’

‘She blew them away, over there.’

Jake shook his head and sort of sneered. I spread out my hands, as if implying, what do you want me to do? He popped a doughnut hole into his mouth and chewed it loudly, deliberately smacking his lips, and then made a loud comment about the terrible weather.

‘Yes,’ our mother said. ‘It is rather dreary.’

In the aftermath of the stroke both Jake and I had tried to explain the truth to her in our own way and each time our mother had either perceived the revelation as a terrible joke or expressed horror and dismay – as if she was finding out for the first time, all over again, that her daughter was dead. The blood vessel that had ruptured in her brain had wiped away that era of her life. That was all it had taken to obliterate the tragedy. Possibly it was also psychological but that didn’t matter to me. I envied her the magic and the blissful ease of it.

Sandy didn’t come up again while we sat and drank our coffee and ate our doughnuts. When the doughnuts were done Ma fumbled for her pack of Craven A, which she kept in the pocket of her bathrobe. It was a fresh pack, probably her second of the day. She slid open the top and peeled back the foil with her fingers, stained that strange yellow-brown from years of tar. Jake asked for a cigarette and she said, ‘Don’t be silly, Jake – you don’t smoke.’ But when he reached across for one she didn’t try to stop him.

‘I’ve been a bad influence on you boys,’ was what she said.

Jake grunted – neither in acknowledgement nor disagreement.

Both our parents had smoked when we were kids, until our dad had died of cancer – not lung cancer but another cancer, pancreatic, which had most likely been brought on by his smoking. After that our mother had quit, due in large part to Sandy’s vigilance. Sandy had patrolled the house and found hidden packs of smokes like a detective uncovering clues, and destroyed any she found. She had stopped Ma from smoking for fifteen years, but when what happened had happened, Ma started up again and there was nothing to be done about that.

While they smoked I got up and opened the sliding door that led to the balcony. It was barely a balcony at all, and felt as confined as a coffin. Just a few feet deep and about six feet across. All she had out there was a single chair and two potted plants – both dead. They were so withered I wouldn’t have even known what they were, except that I had bought them for her: a gardenia and a magnolia.

I stood at the rail. The balcony overlooked the alley behind Keith, and the back of another apartment block. In the alley three storeys below I saw greasy puddles of rainwater, overflowing Dumpsters, and the rusted remains of a bicycle. That view, and her little apartment, was all our mother had, and all she would have until we moved her to a care home, if we could afford to move her to a care home. Standing there in the dreary cold on my mother’s balcony, for the first time I felt the allure of Jake’s plan, of receiving a big pay-out, a windfall. He hadn’t told me how much the Delaneys were offering but it had to be a lot, considering the risk.

I turned and went back inside and slid closed the door, shutting those thoughts out. Our mother had lit a second cigarette and was talking fondly about Sandy again. Jake was gazing vacantly at the photos on the wall, tolerating her but not really listening. When I sat back down, he seemed to rouse himself. He said to her, ‘Ma – I have to go away.’

She smiled uncertainly. ‘For how long?’

‘A little while.’

‘Not to jail again? You’re not going to jail, are you Jake?’

Her voice peaked a little as she said his name. I was surprised she’d remembered.

‘No, no – on a little trip, is all.’

‘So long as you’re careful.’

‘You know me.’

She frowned, sceptically, in a way that reminded me of her old self. ‘Is Tim going with you?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘He was going to but now he’s not.’

‘Oh, Tim,’ she said. She reached over to pat my hand. Against mine, hers looked very small and withered. A mummified hand. ‘I’d feel better about it if you were going.’

‘I might, Ma. I guess I might.’

‘That’s a relief. You take care of your brother, won’t you Tim?’

‘I do,’ I said. ‘I will.’

Jake and I gazed at each other, through the haze of smoke they’d created. I guess I knew then that I was going to be part of it, and that all my talk about backing out had been just that: talk. The truth is, my loyalty to my brother was so strong that I would have gone along with pretty much any plan, no matter how dumb or foolhardy or crazy, no matter what.

Our mother asked, ‘Where are you boys going?’

I raised my eyebrows at him, but he pretended not to notice.

‘Just on a drive,’ he said, distantly. ‘A sort of road trip.’

‘Will you see Sandy?’

‘You can’t drive to France,’ Jake said.

‘But she might meet us,’ I said.

‘Oh – how wonderful.’

‘Ma,’ Jake said.

But she was up. Charged with nicotine and caffeine. She went into the kitchen and started opening and closing cupboards, mumbling about us taking Sandy something. But it wasn’t clear what she had in mind. Then she seemed to remember and opened the bottom door of her fridge – the freezer compartment – and got out a microwaveable burrito. We’d eaten them all the time as kids. She brought it over and deposited it on Jake’s lap.

‘That’s for her,’ she said, triumphantly. ‘Bean and cheese. Her favourite.’

Jake held it up, helpless. He said, ‘Ma – we’re not going to see Sandy.’ And then he said, ‘Ma – Sandy’s gone. I can’t give her some frozen burrito, for God’s sake.’

He said it quietly, but not so quietly she didn’t hear. She laughed, high and terrified. ‘What are you talking about? Timothy – what on earth is your brother talking about?’

‘Nothing, Ma. He’s just messing around.’

‘It isn’t very funny.’

‘I know. I know it isn’t.’ I took the burrito from Jake. He let it go but his hands retained its shape, as if he were still holding it – as if he were now holding an invisible burrito. ‘We’ll give this to her. Sure we can give this to her. Sandy loves these things.’

‘I know she does. And they don’t have them in France.’