Page 99 of Now That It's You
“That definitely sounds like Matt.” Meg picked up a hand puppet made from a brown paper bag, wondering whether Matt or someone else had glued on the yellow yarn hair and the pink felt cheeks. Why on earth had he kept this, and what had it meant to him? She set the puppet down and picked up a matchbook, turning it over in her palm. It was from the restaurant they’d gone to on their first date, and she wondered if he’d kept it all this time or if he’d gone there more recently with someone else.
Beside her, Kendall turned a page in the book. “The poem you chose,” Kendall said softly. “Was it ‘since feeling is first’?”
“Maybe,” Meg said, setting the matchbook aside and reaching for an unopened envelope marked with the name of the local cable company. “Why? Is that page dog-eared?”
“No. That’s not it.”
Something in Kendall’s voice made Meg glance up. Her friend wore an odd expression and sat holding something that looked like a stained cocktail napkin.
She looked up at Meg, then down at the napkin again. The book slid off her lap, but neither of them made a move to grab it as Kendall held the napkin out to Meg.
“I think I found what you’re looking for.”
Chapter 17
“Look at this one! I think it’s my favorite.”
Kyle leaned closer to his mother, peering down at the photograph she marked with the pale pink tip of her fingernail. His heart squeezed into a gooey ball when he saw which image it was.
“That was our first day of Little League.” He stared at the photo, wondering why no one told him his ball cap was so crooked. Matt looked mischievous and adorable with his missing front tooth and a smattering of freckles across his nose. Kyle studied the way his brother’s arm looped around his neck in a gesture that was half brotherly love, half strangulation attempt.
“You were so nervous,” his mom said, sliding her fingertip over the faces in the photo as though committing them to memory. “Remember that? Matt played the year before, but this was your first time.”
Kyle remembered. He put an arm around his mom, staring down at the photograph until the faces were burned into his brain. “He took me around so I could meet all the coaches. Then he introduced me to all the players. Said, ‘this is my kid brother. Anyone messes with him, you answer to me.’”
His mom laughed, leaning back against Kyle’s arm like a cat craving affection. He thought about Floyd the fickle feline and wondered how Meg was doing, but he pushed the thought from his mind for now. He should be focusing on his mom, on her need for support and love and the affection of her one remaining child.
He should be a better son, dammit. He’d only stopped by today because his afternoon appointment got cancelled at the last minute and he was already in the neighborhood. It wouldn’t kill him to do a better job making time for her, checking in to be sure she was coping okay. Hell, he should probably take her to lunch a few times a week or come to dinner on Saturdays the way he used to before it became unbearable to see Matt and Meg together at family meals.
As his palm cupped his mom’s bicep, he noticed how bony she felt. How fragile she was, like she’d crack if he patted her shoulder.
“He was always looking out for you,” she said. “Such a good big brother.” She looked up at him, her smile fading as her eyes went watery. “I know you two didn’t always get along well, but you know he loved you, right?”
Kyle nodded as his throat tightened. “I loved him, too.”
She smiled, but the sadness in her eyes left Kyle feeling like someone was standing on his chest. “I’m glad to hear you say that.”
Kyle swallowed hard, trying to force the lump back down into his gut. “I’ve been missing him every day,” he admitted. “Which seems dumb since we used to go months without speaking. But something funny will happen and I’ll think, ‘I’ve gotta remember to tell Matt about that,’ and then I’ll remember I can’t. Not ever.”
“Oh, honey.” His mom snuggled closer beneath his arm and turned a page in the album. Kyle thought about the last time he’d had the urge to tell his brother something. It was the night he’d been cutting up penis vegetables with Meg, and he’d come across a red pepper that looked like it had a scrotum. He’d laughed so hard he’d nearly stabbed himself in the hand, and he almost pulled out his phone to text Matt a picture of the phallic vegetable.
Then he’d felt like hell, not just because Matt was dead. If he were still alive, would Kyle have told him about Meg? About cooking with her and laughing with her and making love with her in the big bed she’d never shared with anyone else?
Kyle took a deep breath, pretty sure the answer was hell, no.
Which brought him right back to the fact that he was a pretty shitty brother, in addition to being a lousy son.
He let his gaze drop to the photo album again. So many memories there. His brother fighting with him over who could do cooler tricks on the shared scooter. The Halloween when they bickered about whether they were too old to trick-or-treat, then cut eye-holes in old bed sheets and ran around the neighborhood pretending to be ghosts. Prom night when Matt tried to get him to bet over who had the better chance of getting lucky.
The line between affection and rivalry was so blurred in his memory that he honestly wasn’t sure where one stopped and the other started.
“I always loved this one,” his mom said, smoothing her thumb over a shot of them giving the family dog a bath when they were both in middle school. Matt was smearing a handful of suds into Kyle’s hair, while Kyle laughed and scrubbed Ginger’s ears. “You might have fought like wild animals half the time, but you laughed together, too.”
“We did,” he said. “I wish we’d done it more. The laughing, I mean. Especially as we got older.”
His mom closed the photo album and looked up at him with tears pooling in her eyes. “I just can’t believe he’s gone. I know it’s been four weeks, but it still doesn’t seem real.”
She took a shaky breath and looked up at the ceiling like that might help her stave off the tears. “He’ll never take another photo or send silly jokes to my email or give me grand babies.”
