Page 101 of My Brother's Enemy
59
RAIN
“Mal.” My lungs were on the verge of collapse. “What are you doing here?”
“I have a cousin, but she’s like a sister. We raised her in our family. There were reasons she couldn’t live with her own parents.” He gazed back at me, stoic, resigned. His hands folded on the table, and he glanced down before he continued. “Not many know about her.” His gaze grew distant.
The original female server I’d had, chose this moment to remember I was her customer, but Mal waved her off as she approached. He only had eyes for me, very business-like and somber eyes. There was a reason he was here, telling me this.
“There are five years between us. Miriam’s quiet. She’s always been quiet. I think she grew up that way because she had to. We have money. That’s obvious, but we didn’t grow up with nannies or housekeepers. No staff. Just family. And maybe it’s because of that, I don’t know. Our parents were busy. They weren’t—it’s not that they didn’t love Miriam or they loved her less for any reason. She was family. They just…took her for granted. How sweet she was. How kind. She was empathetic and sensitive, and she enjoyed reading books in her room. Of coursethere were times she didn’t want to do the dishes or didn’t want to take the trash out, because we had chores. Both of us, though later she got the brunt of them because I was in college and our parents were both working. Miriam was in high school by then. They said she could take care of herself.” His voice grew thick, and he had to stop, getting himself under control for a moment.
My insides began to boil.
“She called me from time to time. She wanted to know how I was. She wanted to know what was going on in my life. When I asked how she was, she generally didn’t say anything. I thought that was weird, but I just chalked it up to her being private. She didn’t want to share. I wasn’t going to take it personally. Then one day she called, and we went through the usual conversation. I was going into a meeting, so I rushed her along. I remember thinking,Why is she calling me now? It’s the middle of the day. I told her how my day was, and when I asked about her, this time she got quiet. I thought for a split second I heard her crying, but then she said, ‘Oh, you know. Sometimes I miss everyone.’ Then she laughed it off, said everything was fine, and we ended the call.”
His eyes shone with tears as he continued, hoarsely, “I was glad when she ended the call because the meeting was important. We had to turn our phones off. It was that important. When it ended, my assistant was in the hallway. She was crying. She saw me, and she broke down all over again. When I turned my phone on, it beeped with a text from my sister, and I was confused. That was it. I was just confused. I wasn’t concerned. I didn’t think to question why Miriam, who always tried to call when it was convenient for me, had called in the middle of the day this time. I never thought about any of that, and I didn’t click to read her text. I was wrapped up in how well the meeting had gone, and I was worried about what was going on with my assistant. And I was irritated that Miriam was interrupting me.”
I pulled in a ragged breath.
“I couldn’t tell you what that meeting was about today, but I can tell you every word Miriam said on that call. And we were wrong. She couldn’t take care of herself. She shouldn’t have had to, because that wasourjob. My parents. Mine. We took her in when she was five years old. We raised her. She was our family. It was my job to call her, check on her. It was my job to ask her how she was doing, and if she didn’t want to talk to me, it was my job to help her open up. But I failed her as a brother. I was the golden child growing up. I got the attention. Miriam came along, and she was timid, so timid, and she was pushed to the background. My mom was stressed, so Miriam didn’t want to upset her by asking for things. My dad was gone, and Miriam didn’t want to be selfish and ask him to stay. She put us first. She put our family first, and we never reciprocated.” He raised his head and blinked rapidly, trying to keep the tears at bay. “I have agonized ever since, because that’s all I have right now.The aftermath. What did I miss? Was she asking for help and I wasn’t listening?” He shook his head, face haunted. “She was a good kid, but she didn’t have a lot of friends. I thought she’d grow into her own. I never considered—” He broke off. “Her last call was to me. And her last text said,I’m sorry. Don’t blame yourself. There was nothing you could’ve done. We lived in a high rise. We were on the top floor.”
Pressure squeezed my chest.
“She jumped.”
I closed my eyes.
After a moment, he continued, quietly, “Ihavea sister, and I visit her grave every goddamn week because I will never forget her again.”
“Mal,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“I first heard about you from Justin Gathaway. He’s not why I hired you. Obviously, when we looked into you, the resultsspoke for themselves. You were good. You are good. Justin sang your praises, so I wanted to meet you. I didn’t go to that dinner intending to hire you. I wanted to meet you first, but I believe in my gut instincts. My gut said I couldn’t let you slip through cracks. I never once regretted making you that offer. You told me ahead of time about your personal connection with Tyler Griffin. I’ve been around the business before. You are a beautiful woman. I’m aware that Tyler has a lot of female fans, and they are die-hard fans. So I wasn’t altogether shocked to find out about your relationship with him.”
“What?” My mouth opened.
“As if Tyler Griffin isn’t going to take one look at you and not snap you up. Please. Griffin did what I expected him to do, and he did it because he’s new to the team and he didn’t yet have the respect for us that might’ve held him back. He has it now, but I can see you’re both too far gone.”
“You knew about us before it came out?”
“No.”
The female server tried again. This time, Mal gave her a scathing look.
She wilted away.
He returned his focus to me. “Miriam kept video diaries, and I had a psychologist analyze them. She didn’t leave a note, other than her text, so we didn’t know why she jumped. I wanted to know.” He paused, gathering himself, and reached for my water. After taking a sip, he set it back down but held on to it. “The psychologist explained that in dysfunctional families, everyone takes different roles—the scapegoat, the golden child, the hero. Then she told me about the lost child or the invisible child.” He needed to take another moment. “She believes, based on Miriam’s diary, that’s the role she took on, or it was placed on her. She told me Miriam might’ve isolated herself. Which she did. That she suppressed her own emotions, kept them hidden.That she probably wanted to avoid conflict, so she tried to stay under the radar. She shut down. That she probably internalized feelings of being invisible. That she was neglected.” His voice broke. “She didn’t believe she was worthy of being loved. She wanted to minimize her presence. That was her way of not adding to the family problems or the stress the rest of us felt.” He drank the rest of my water and rattled the ice. “She felt flawed. That’s what the psychologist said. She felt fatally flawed. I’ve read more on the lost child. And according to what I’ve read, my cousin’s needs weren’t met. Her needs and her voice were discounted. I don’t—I swear to God, I don’t remember doing that, but does it matter anymore? The research said she probably questioned her right to even exist. That it wouldn’t be obvious, but she didn’t share what was going on with her life because she didn’t think she mattered. To me. That she didn’t matter to me.
“The research says she probably felt she didn’t matter to the world, that she was ‘inconsequential’. That she was ‘insignificant’.” He shook his head. “My cousin wasn’t insignificant, but she felt she was, and that was my failure.” He laughed, hollow, his jaw clenched. “Want to know what else we failed at? Seeing her. I don’t know how we did that, but we did. I was too busy with my own life to praise Miriam for five goddamn minutes. She told me she missed everyone, but she never gave any indication that she struggled. I missed it.Wemissed it. My parents were always on the brink of a divorce, and Miriam got swept to the side because she was so fucking sweet.” His head hung low. “We did that to her because we weren’t looking at her.”
I couldn’t move.
He lifted his head, no longer hiding his tears. “My P.I. looked into you. You know that, but after you were hired, I had him look into you more. I wanted to know what might be coming downthe road with your family. He couldn’t find a thing. I had him do a deep dive. He talked to your teachers. He talked to staff at your school. He talked to your neighbors. Your bus drivers. You want to know what they all said about you?”
I felt numb.
“They said you were sweet. They said you were quiet. A lot of them worried about you because you were always alone. Some said they tried to get you to talk, but you always said you were fine. And if they pushed, you’d smile, shake your head, and say it didn’t matter.” He looked into my eyes. “You were being conditioned to be invisible, weren’t you?”
I wanted to disappear. I wanted to be forgotten, because he was right. That was my comfort zone. “Mal,” I could barely get a whisper out.
