“I’m here, aren’t I?” He flings a hand toward the window, toward the city outside.
“Only because Mom forced you.” I almost have to laugh. “You drive me down the coast for a week and a half, and you think that undoes years of silence? Of being on my own with Mom? Waiting for things to get worse? Do you know how many nights I’ve spent researching her disease?” I grind out the next words. “Don’t you think I could have used a brother to check in on me? To care?”
Lewis’s eyes darken. My mind overloads with words. Choler, wroth, irascible, ire. I’ve never seen this side of my brother before, and then it hits me how often over the past few days I’ve seen new sides of Lewis. In an instant, I figure out why. I don’t know the other sides of him because I don’t know him.
“Like you check in on me?” His voice is bitter. “You show zero interest in anything related to my life.”
“Because your life is incomprehensible to me!” My hands start to shake, and I clench them, trying to iron out the nerves. “Like I want to hear about your killer ragers, getting blackout drunk, hooking up with your freshmen floor. None of those things are real.”
“Real?” Lewis repeats. He shakes his head. “Did you ever fucking stop to think that I might have needed a break? The smallest shred of a life to distract me from what’s going on with Mom?”
Whatever I was going to say next vanishes from my head. I’m stunned for a moment, speechless.
Lewis continues, his chest rising and falling heavily, like he’s dragging each sentence out of somewhere deep and lonely. “You know nothing about me. You have no idea what it’s like to not have the same skin color as your family. What it’s like to go through college and face the real world while dealing with Mom’s disease. You have no comprehension of anything outside of yourself. You pretend you carry this burden on your own. You enjoy it, the idea you’re this poor, put-upon, long-suffering martyr. But the truth is you’re too selfish to see what others—what I—do for you.”
This snaps me back into indignation. “What exactly do you do for me? Drag me to parties? Pressure me about girls? You just want me to be more like you.”
“Oh, and that would be terrible, right? Being like me? Because I’m worthless to you.” He sounds genuinely offended, which gives me pause. “Never mind that I volunteered to take you on this trip, that I’ve been busting my ass to get a job to help support Mom, to help pay for full-time care for her.”
I blink, honestly not certain if I’ve heard him right. It never occurred to me that Lewis had considered the care Mom’s going to need or how it’s going to be paid for. The idea he’s not only considered it, but planned on paying for it himself, hits me like a wave. The guilt is frigid, paralyzing.
“You think I enjoy hours of interviews?” His words come faster now, breathless, like he’s opened something and his feelings have become unstoppable. I understand he’s furious, but his fury no longer provokes the same in me. I feel unsteady, overwhelmed. “You think consulting and finance were my first choice?” he continues. “They weren’t. But this job will help Mom, will help the family. It’ll help you go wherever you want for college.”
I say nothing. I knew there were things I held back from telling my brother. It makes me feel small and very stupid to recognize there were things he held back from telling me, too.
“Screw this,” he says, grabbing his jacket and turning to the door. There’s the Lewis I know. The one who leaves the second things get hard, forcing me to pick up the pieces on my own. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he continues. “You don’t know what I’ve done or why. You don’t know me at all.” He throws open the door, and he’s gone without a parting glance.
I have no argument to that. Every moment of half friendship on this trip, every tentative truce, has been engulfed by the insurmountable resentment between us, by the reality of Lewis’s and my relationship. We’re brothers in name only. The connection is hollow.
I drop onto the bed, broken by the weight of everything this means. I was right from the very beginning. No matter what Lewis says about supporting our mom, he only means financial support. I won’t leave her, not when I’m the only one who can remind her who she is.
I have no choice in my future. I never have. The past few days have been a fairy tale, a fantasy not meant for me. Lewis will move to New York, and I’ll return to where I’ve always been. Where I’ll always be.
Home.
Juniper
I WALKED DOWN the hallway to my room and then found I couldn’t go in. I couldn’t plan college visits, couldn’t text my parents or mindlessly scroll through my phone when I knew what Fitz was wrestling with. When I could imagine the conversation he and his brother were having. The thought drove me back into the elevator, into the hallway to Fitz’s room, and to his door, where I’ve waited for the past few minutes, pacing.
I feel useless. I know I can’t help.
Not that I won’t try. While I wait, I furiously Google information on Alzheimer’s and compile my findings into three different speeches in my head, one of which I’ll deliver when I feel I’ve given him time to deal on his own. I’ll decide which depending on the mood I find him in. I find positive data on recovery trends, new treatments, experimental programs.
I’m telling myself it’ll help. In the unpleasant depths of my heart, though, I’m not convinced. This isn’t a problem, a tragedy. It’s his tragedy. Unfortunately, not much comes out when you google “how to help Fitzgerald Holton, of Tilton, New Hampshire, when his worst fear comes crashing down upon him.”
When I think it’s time, I take a breath and lift my hand to knock.
Before I have the chance, the door bursts inward and Lewis barrels into the hallway. He’s blinking furiously—I glimpse tears in his eyes.
It freezes me. The door falls shut, and Lewis continues down the hall, not even registering my presence. He’s not heading in the direction of the elevators, and I can’t tell whether he knows this or just doesn’t have a destination in mind at all.
I glance at the door. Fitz is in there. All I have to do is knock.
I turn and follow Lewis.
I have no speeches prepared for Fitz’s brother. I hardly even know him, and he definitely hasn’t asked for my help. But I’ve seen enough of Lewis to suspect he’s the type who won’t wave for help when he’s drowning. He’ll wait for the water to cover him, hoping nobody onshore will notice the spray of the whitecaps pummeling him.
Fitz can wait. Lewis . . . I don’t know.
“Are you okay?” I ask when I reach him. I hate the inadequacy of the question. Of course he’s not okay. He pauses when he hears my voice, facing me and looking like he doesn’t entirely know where he is or doesn’t care.